Long response 1

There is a relation between a viewer and an artwork. In my previous essay, I focused heavily on how the viewer physically or intellectually represents the artwork themselves; while this is an indispensable aspect of art, I shall focus this time on what I now better perceive the question to be: the role of representation inside the created artwork. No work of art exists that is not a thing, and the question we are facing is what, precisely, the nature of that thing is, in spite of Gadamer’s assertion that ‘things’ have been destroyed in this modern world.

How are we to evaluate art that is non-objective? If it is laden with meaning, but that meaning is hidden within the creator’s mind, what exactly is the artwork representing? Does its meaning change depending on who is looking at it? Is the creator’s meaning the ‘true’ meaning? Croce’s approach was to suggest that a historical contextualization should inform a necessarily subjective viewing. Each experiencer of art would bring their own previous experiences to bear on it. Plato, while insisting that painting or poetry were imitations of imitations, did not reject their ability to bring us to the truth. Rather, he suggested that philosophy was a better method of getting to the truth, precisely because it draws attention to itself when it imitates; it makes clear its shortcomings and insufficiencies in communicating a point, and readers of philosophy are not expected to read philosophy to experience the ‘need’ for art that Croce believed we are fulfilling in different ways at different times.

If Gadamer is right about the nature of recognition in mimesis, however, Plato would have been able to reconcile art with the approach to (I)dea or truth. In the act of recognizing the essence behind a specific instance of imitation, one must pick up on the real truth behind it. In the essay on play, he flat out says that representation is essential to artwork; several of his examples demonstrate that when we view a play, we are not buying into the represented character or looking beyond it to the actor, but rather we are (if participating fully) engaging with an idea or essence. The representation serves to channel us towards that essence. Plato’s warnings are because of what power representation has; he knows that we must be intelligent and attentive, or else we may be at worst deceived, diverted by what is before us, and at least pointed towards a ‘wrong’ meaning. Croce and Gadamer seem less concerned with ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ since they allow for subjectivity quite nicely.

So, is representation essential to all forms of artwork, as Gadamer asserts? Let us see if there is any kind of art that can do without it. If art’s purpose is to connect us to a truth or an essence, then it certainly seems to require some way of getting us to that idea. Gadamer’s concept of art as constructed, built by each subject as they view it, is a kind of authentic experience, and it leaves no room for an artwork that gets us to an idea by another route. Croce found that art is only that which fulfills a need that humans have—but it is a need that seems to have no outlet other than interacting with representations. Plato’s concern is not art, but the ideas behind art; even he has to rely on representation, but he hopes that philosophy employs more straightforward representations.

If we take that to be true, consider the following scenario: two people view a work of art and identify two different essences as inhering in the artwork. Must one be wrong? Perhaps more importantly, is it only the essence the creator intended to represent that is ‘true’ or ‘valid?’ If we turn to Croce, we will see a sensible guideline: accept things that are not blatantly foolish or intentionally absurd. It’s impossible for us to know exactly what someone else genuinely experiences when experiencing an artwork. But, as has been pointed out, if a person does not react to an artwork, that is not a failure on the part of the artist; it is a lack of connection between a viewer and a work itself.

Images are obviously representations. The same is true of plays. What of music? As Gadamer reminds us, it was Pythagoras who told us that music represents numerical relations, as in fact every thing can be said to. So whether we listen to a soaring line of Beethoven or a dark melody in Mahler (or even silence in John Cage), we are hearing something represented. Architecture is always carefully considered; the follies constructed for European monarchs were meant to invoke the grandeur of the past, palaces impose authority on their visitors, homes create senses of comfort (or wealth, or modernity).

In the final analysis, I find it impossible to divorce art from representation. Imagine an ‘artist’ who rolls a ball of clay about while staring blankly at a wall. He then includes it in an exhibition without ever attributing any meaning to it himself. He does not even think about it. Leaving aside the implausibility of such a scenario, it seems like viewers would still make assumptions about it, would still experience some fulfillment of a need or some connection to a truth or idea. But in this case, that would, I suppose, be extraneous—seeing nothing in that piece of work would be not a failure on the viewer’s part, but would be recognizing that such a piece was constructed with no truths behind it and no artistic qualities that can be fulfilled. Although I think a viewer could supply such truth or fulfillment themselves, I wonder if we can truly classify such an ‘accident’ as art.