Margaret MacDonald—Art and Imagination

[205] Traditional theories of aesthetics, like other traditional philosophical theories, tend to begin in paradox and end in tautology or legislation.

[206] That the aesthetic attitude is contemplative I do not deny. I do, however, deny that the term "work of art" is thus restricted in the ordinary use of laymen and most critics. For any artefact whatever may, in certain circumstances, also be a work of art. It may be valued for its own sake as well as for any function it was designed to fulfil. Thus one may admire the lines of a yacht, or a jet plane, the arrangement of a garden, the style of a gown as well as the qualities of those objects of the alleged "fine" arts, poems, pictures, statues, musical compositions, buildings. The purpose or lack of purpose for which a work was produced is irrelevant to whether or not it is a work of art. This depends rather upon its own qualities though to say that it is a work of art is to imply that it is worth contemplating for itself regardless of other claims. But this attitude is taken by an audience, not necessarily by a producer. That this is so is shown by the fact that it is perfectly possible to decide that an object is a work of art while quite impossible to determine why it was produced.

***the lasch bit on "imagination"***

[208] When Bacon, e.g., divided the human mind into the Faculties of Sensation, Reason, Memory, and Imagination, he allotted Philosophy to Reason, History to Memory (whose memory, one wonders?) and Poesy, not art in general, to Imagination. He thus suggests either that poetry is the

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sole art or that other arts do not use imagination. But then it would be odd to describe music and painting as either philosophy or history, i.e., as forms of analytic reasoning or remembering. Probably, if pressed, Bacon would have pushed these other arts into the pigeon-hole of Sensation. But they would not stay there quietly. For Sensation as the lowliest of the faculty hierarchy was invariably thought to provide by passive reception the "raw material" upon which the higher faculties worked. But painters and composers do not passively see and her what is "given" but actively produce what may be seen and heard by themselves and others. So their works cannot simply be allotted to Sensation as their origin. Indeed, the mythical matings of faculty psychology are totally inadequate to explain any of their alleged progeny, including the arts. It does not, of course, follow that artists are not sometimes correctly called "imaginative" and that this is not aesthetically important. It is also much more natural to speak of an "imaginative writer" than of an "imaginative painter" or an "imaginative composer" and this may also be important.

***b+a***

[209] Examples of the wider doctrine which does define all works of art as works of imagination are the theories of R.G. Collingwood, Jean-Paul Sartre, both influenced by Croce. According to them a work art must be distinguished from all physical objects, even from such objects as the picture on the gallery wall, the sounds filling the concert hall, the printed volume from which the novel is being read. One reason given for this is that although a work of art cannot be communicated to others without a physical vehicle it can be imagined, and thus internally produced, by an artist who did not choose to manifest it externally. I think the relation is somewhat complex between works of art and physical objects, or, rather, between what is correctly said about works of art and the physical world. But this is not

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elucidated by this metaphor popular with certain aesthetic philosophers of a work of art as a mysterious message transmitted by an intrinsically worthless instrument, the physical medium. The very notion of a medium suggests the spiritualist séance rather than the study or studio. Nevertheless, it does make sense (though it may be false) to say that Shakespeare made up a play which he did not write down or get performed so that no-one but he knew of this. So, it is argued, this situation may be generalised. Every work of art might similarly exist privately and remain uncommunicated. Physical labour is, therefore, not essential to a work of art which must be an imaginary object, a mental creation or private fantasy. But none of these consequences follow. There may, indeed, be good evidence to show that an artist had contemplated and even thought out a work which he never committed to word, paint, sound or other material. He may have described the work in a letter, diary, or orally. But I doubt if an ordinary person would unhesitatingly assert that he had thereby produced the work. If the work were one of the plastic arts I think this would certainly be denied. For it seems absurd to say of someone that he had painted a picture or carved a statue without the use of tools or materials. An imaginary picture or statue just isn't a picture or statue because these words stand for works which need hands as well as heads to bring them into existence. This may not be quite so clear for other works of art. I have said that Shakespeare might have made up a play which he did not write down or get performed. Similarly, Mozart might have composed a melody, say a setting for a song, which was never sung and for which he did not produce a score. Would one say that these works had existed and been lost to the world? Perhaps. Normally, a lost literary or musical work is one of which the text or score has disappeared or been forgotten, not one of which no text or score, written or oral, existed. But while no one would say that a picture which had not been painted however clearly a painter had imagined or even described it, had existed and been lost one might hesitate to deny that a poem or son had existed because it was known only to

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its author and had never been spoken or sung aloud. For if this had been done, only once, and had been overheard there would be no good reason to deny the existence of the work though it were never heard again. This seems to attribute an exaggerated artistic importance to the mechanical processes of making visible and audible. An imaginary picture is not a picture and is of an entirely different logical type because the work of producing a picture cannot be done or, at least, complete without physical labour. But the task of making up a poem or story or composing a tune may sometimes be over before these are spoken, sung or written down. Moreover, there seems to be no substantial difference between what is imagined and what is uttered, heard, written and read. I do not think these facts justify the conclusions of idealist aesthetic philosophers but they may give some excuse for them and do also show discrepancies between the works of different arts which are important for aesthetics. Yet although one may sometimes wonder whether an unrevealed poem or tune may properly be called a poem or tune, it does not follow that every literary and musical work still less every work of art is imaginary. For the circumstances I have described in which one might ask this question include the fact that it is asked of the work of an established artist. Of one who had never produced a public work it would be absurd to ask whether he might be a silent rival to all known artists. One who never exhibits his artistic skill is not a very "pure" artist but a fraud. Of a reputable author or composer, however, it might be sensible to ask whether all his works were known and there might be reason to believe they were not. I do not assert that we positively should add an imagined sonnet to the Shakespearean corpus but only that we might, rightly, hesitate and be inclined to do so as we should not hesitate to exclude an imagined statue from the works of Rodin. The hesitation would be due to a strong conflicting tendency to call works of art only certain public objects. This is, I am sure the primary use of the word for all and the sole use for some, works. Works of art are, primarily, public, eperceptual objects made by someone using

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technical skill. There may be a distinction between artists and craftsmen, as Collingwood insisted, but the borderland is wide and all artists, as makers, are also craftsmen. What they make and with what kind of skill, however, varies widely. In the plastic arts (painting and sculpture), the finished work is, normally, a physical object of the same sort as stones and stars. If asked to count the number of objects in a room one would include the Ming jar and the Turner as well as the rest. These works are enduring, particular objects each with its spatio-temporal position. They are, moreover, distinguished, as originals, from all replicas of copies. They are made in the comparatively simple sense of being constructed from physical materials and only attention by a spectator is needed to perceive them as they were created. In a fairly straightforward sense one now "sees" the same picture or statue as the artist painted or modelled. The situation is less simple for literary and musical words [[sic!]] of art. To revert to the room already mentioned. One would probably include in the collection of its objects the books in the bookcase and the scores on the music stand. It would not, however, be so clear that one had thereby included Shakespeare's plays or Verdi's operas. First, because no author or composer directly produces a printed volume. Secondly, though he might produce a pile of written or typewritten manuscript and this might be referred to as the work, it would also, and perhaps more correctly, be called the text or score of the work. More correctly, because written or printed texts and scores are not necessary to the existence of literature and music. The primary form of such works is vocal and their survival formerly depended entirely upon memory and oral transmission. Spoken narratives, recitations, songs are not,

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however, physical objects. They are rather physical events which begin, continue and then cease to exist. They are more like flashes of lightning and showers of rain than rocks and planets. But such events are public to all observers while they last. So are literary and musical performances. If, however, the corresponding work is identified with any one such performance it is obvious that compared with pictures and statues literary and musical works have a very brief existence. Well, it is possible that some have. A work might never be repeated after its first performance and be forgotten. Many thrilling camp fire stories and epic poems must have so perished. True, a picure or statue might be completed and immediately destroyed. The difference is that this need not happen whereas it is (I think, logically) impossible that the performance of a literary or musical work should continue for more than a very limited time. It would be absurd, e.g., to suppose a play or symphony whose performance lasted a year. Yet there are many works of literature and music which have outlasted many works of the plastic arts. ... How does this happen? The poem (or symphony) outlives its competitors if at some time or place there is, or could be, a physical presentation of it. Such occurrences are not copies, replicas or reproductions of an original. ... Nor are these performances many but related to a single source as the etching is to its incised plate. Yet they are each and all manifestations of "the same work". ... One cannot sensibly ask for the whereabouts of

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Shakespeare's plays and Beethoven's symphonies as one can for that of the Mona Lisa and St. Paul's Cathedral.

This distinction...[per which] Shakespeare wrote only one play called Hamlet and that...[at the same time] Hamlet has been played one hundred times this season has been likened to that between particular and universal and between type and token in the use of words. The first is wrong. ...the performance ends, but Hamlet remains. But differences make the comparison more misleading than helpful. It would be nonsense to talk of a performance of the play as an "instance" of Hamlet as the colour of this paper is an instance of whiteness. Universals are qualities and relations. ...[and] universals are timeless. It makes no sense to ask when whiteness and equality began to exist. Yet it is both sensible and true to say that Shakespeare's Hamlet came into existence about 1600, has continued to exist, in the manner already suggested, since that date and may cease to exist. The comparison with the type-token distinction in the use of "word" is less misleading. Words in the type sense have a beginning, a history and sometimes decease... Nor do they characterize or relate. ... Tokens of the same type are related by similarity plus a convention which associates certain noises with certain marks as being of the "same" word. So, too, the performances of Hamlet or the Ninth Symphony are of those works if they resemble each other in certain fundamental respects. They will also differ, but if

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too eccentric they will be excluded from those which present these works. Perhaps the chief difference between "work of art" in this sense and "word" is that individual presentations of a work of art may have their own independent artistic value, while token-words do not fulfil independent grammatical and stylistic functions. ...

That a distinction must be made between some works of art and their manifestations may have led some aesthetic philosophers, especially those chiefly interested in literature, into bad metaphysics. For this looks like a distinction between two kinds of objects. Then it is tempting to construe a work of art as type as something above or behind its perceptible token occurrences, e.g., a platonic Idea, a Norm, a private mental state. Or, alternatively, with the phenomenalists, to identify the work with the set of its occurrences. Neither alternative will do. For by the ordinary use of the term "literature" or "music" the ultimate test of whether works of these arts exist is sensory observation and not introspection or super-sensious intuition. But neither did Shakespeare and Beethoven produce, nor do we see and hear, a class of occurrences when enjoying a play or symphony. The solution is to emphasize that because a word has two uses it does not follow that it is used for two different objects. "Work of art" is just used ambiguously in the manner described without implying any expansion or contraction of the universe.

As for the process of making or creating a work of art, I have suggested, somewhat crudely, that in some arts this is more physically laborious than in others. I wanted to show that there might be an excuse for saying that some composition...is internal. ... I have said that this may sometimes happen. I also think that whether it happens or not is an unimportant accident. What

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is done "in the head" could have been done as well on paper, vocally or with a musical instrument. There is, however, a more fundamental answer to idealist and subjectivist conclusions drawn from the peculiarities of these arts. ... [As against the "physical materials" of "the plastic arts,] There seem to be no comparable public materials and exhibitions of skill in literature and music. ...one may not, even in his presence, be able to observe that someone is composing a novel or symphony. Hence aesthetic philosophers have supposed that musicians and authors...use more refined methods and materials to produce their aetherial works. The fact of occasional unrecorded composition is used to support this view. Authors are conceived to compose, like spiders, by each spinning his web of private fancies from his Imagination. These mat then, if their author so chooses, be externalized by an almost mechanical operation, in written or spoken words, for public appraisal. But this is a totally misleading picture. There is one physical element common to both literature and music, which is sound. Works of both arts are manifested

in audible performances. But the sounds in literature are not mere physical noises but words of a particular language. The material with which the literary artist creates is certainly not crude physical sound, comparable to stone, marble or paint, but neither is it private fancies or images. What an English writer uses is the English language. I shall not discuss whether this is a part of the physical world, but it is certainly not a private invention by an individual.

[217] I said that whether some literary composition was unrecorded was unimportant and did not support idealist conclusions. The reason should now be clear. If what is done, externally or internally, audibly or silently, is literary composition, it will be a construction from the words of an established language. For this what we mean [sic] by the term "literary composition." But if all that happens is the passage of a series of private images, feelings, or symbols, this is not literary composition nor its result a work of art.

...

[218] I have tried to show that the aesthetic theories of Croce, Collingwood, Sartre and other idealists who equate works of art with works of imagination and these with what is mental or physically unreal do not satisfactorily elucidate our use of the term "work of art". ...

In rebutting the errors of the idealist, however, one must avoid the contrary, realist exaggeration of, e.g., Samuel Alexander...[who] held that a work of art reveals an object already present in the material from which it is produced. The sculptor does not create a new figure by chipping his marble but discovers one already hidden there.

[219] (Michael Angelo made a similar remark about his own work,

though he did not explain exactly what he meant by it.) ... Alexander also appeals to the well-known fact that artists are often surprised by their own work which sometimes develops, almost against their will, with what seems to be an independent life. ... This may be true, but it cannot entail the existence of statues in uncarved stone,...

***danto***

Alexander suggests no independent test to check such hidden beauties. Also, it is absurd to imply that a statue by Michel Angelo or a play by Shakespeare might have been "found" by other searchers.