From Image to Icon: Art as My Encounter with the World

From Image to Icon: Art as My Encounter with the World

Daniel Raymond Chadwick

In progress

My father was a technician who funneled air and channeled water for the comfort of residents but he was not the engineer who designed those appliances.  Likewise, I am an artist who channels ideas and funnels insights for the comfort of those intrigued by Art but I am not the philosopher who developed those approaches.

For it is said to be altogether impossible to suppose that an artist should exist, since neither do we see anyone existing at the same time naturally and from birth as an artist, nor does anyone turn into an artist from being an amateur. For, indeed, one rule and one apprehension can either make the amateur an artist or not at all.  But if, rather, one apprehension makes the amateur an artist it stands to say, first, that art is not a system of apprehensions; for the person who knows nothing at all would be termed an artist if only they were taught one rule of art.  And, second, should anyone assert that, as soon as a person who has acquired some rules of art and still needs one more, and because of this is an amateur, acquires also that one rule, and at once becomes an artist instead of an amateur by means of one apprehension, and so will be speaking at random.

Sextus Empiricus, The Outlines of Pyrrhonism, 3.29

1.  Art as encounter with the world is the dialogue between the artist and the world, wherein the medium is artwork conveying the idea as Art through the visual expressive journey by an icon that cannot be re-presented in words.

"Is Art more than interior decoration?"

In my fourth grade, the school art teacher Gary Vanderbrook chose my artwork to represent my elementary school class in a children’s show at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.  My mother drove myself, a neighborhood housewife, and one of my friends to see the exhibit.  As we walked up the stairs to the second floor, looming before us was a Jackson Pollock painting.

My mother exclaimed disbelief that such a painting was on display, my friend said that his little sister could finger-paint something more interesting.

I didn’t know what to say.  All I could think was here was someone who thought about Art differently than I do.

2.  Art is a dialogue.

Art is the medium in the dialogue between the artist and the audience whether the latter consists of one person or many.  Analogously, as “eat” is to “life” and “death” so is “dialogue” to “Art” and “person.”

Thus, Art mediates the dialogue between artist and audience through the artwork.  This statement presumes that there are at least two persons in the world, (1) the artist and (2) at least one person as audience.  

[Here, “world” is everything or “the universe” and not restricted to the planet Earth.]

I take the position that there is more than one person in the world.  I should say that I operate on this premise; at the least, I operate as if the world consists of more persons than me. 

[“Why use the qualifier ‘as if’?  State what is the case directly.”

I state definitions as I understand the terms but I qualify the situation since I would rather be honest that I do not know the world fully.  I am not a theologian who must provide non-falsifiable answers to the faithful without empirical evidence and, at times, must do so non-rationally (though not irrationally).    Additionally, I am not a philosopher albeit I recognize the procedure of Sextus; i.e., the approach is zetetic or seeking, ephektic or suspending judgement, and aporetic or accepting a situation as a puzzle.

I want to avoid pontificating on ambiguous subjects and practice humility.  By contrast, asserting dogmatically what must be the case contrary to appearances is the practice of ideologues.  “…the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.”]

A person is an entity who can think in rational and emotional ways (intellectual), is able to understand that there is a past and a future as well as a present (temporal), and is a subject who is concerned with the individual interest within a community of other persons (intersubjectivity).  A person is a mind.

“What if you are the only person who exists?”

If so, then my reality consists of myself and my impressions, and then I think there is a dialogue since it appears there are other persons with whom to have it.

I cannot prove that there are other persons outside myself, but I believe there are so since everything corresponds to that reality as I perceive it.

Additionally, dialogue may occur between my previous and current states; viz., in dialogue one becomes both subject and object subject whether with others or alone.

Whether it is external or internal may not matter, in any case.   It is not so much a matter of solipsism that turns upon the solitary aspect of experience; instead, one accepts the egocentric predicament as the limits of personal experience.

If it is internal, then the appearances are my reality; if it is external, then appearances are still my reality.  The difference is that in the case of the latter they do exist outside my mind and are not solely a product of my mind.  Whether I can know for certain that these appearances exist in a world outside myself is doubtful but, then again, I cannot be sure that these appearances do not exist in a world outside myself especially since I have nothing as yet to compare or to contrast my current state. 

Only dreams differ from this conscious state, though I have had dreams in which I dream, and so I am left without an ultimate standard by which to make the distinction possible.

Am I fooling myself by creating Art for an audience only existing in an internal reality?  I think I am fooling myself no more than if I decided to do nothing and decided that inaction was a way to break into an outside reality.  That might be the biggest joke of them all.

Despite the laughter—or because of it?--“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Joking aside, an individual recognizes or believes that s/he is a part of the community of human beings, a species as an organic whole sharing cultural artifacts.  I am not physically separated from other human beings as I sprouted from other human beings, apparently.  This is the beginning of intersubjectivity, the sharing of origins between two subjects who are in dialogue.

[A cultural artifact is that transmission of knowledge or skill or outlook by various sciences and arts that people in a society share (E.g., math equations, manners, folk wisdom, images, preconceptions, great events, bad habits, technical know-how, popular tunes, urban legends, and even clichés).]

I should note that as far as we can perceive, human beings sprouted from this planet and we came out of it along with many other diverse kinds of entities.  So this leaves the possibility that there may be an intersubjectivity, a sort of dialogue, however weak, between human beings and other entities, whether organic or mineral.   Perhaps even between human beings and others beyond this planet since all came forth from the heavy elements of stars, and then perhaps some day to return to them in another state.

Meantime, the human dialogue developed over many millennia and achieved results that to the first human beings would have been in-credible, literally so.  That I can see today is the result of such magnificent achievements.

Thus, I believe that there is a dialogue among human beings.  In particular, the dialogue between the visual artist and other persons takes place through the visual medium of the artist.  For the visual artist it is the visual Art. 

Art is a medium facilitating dialogue between the mind of the artist and the mind of the audience.   As such, “Art” means particular artwork that presents ideas that are relevant to the medium; in this case, visual art presents visual effects.  “Art” also denotes the visual artwork that does more than offer visual effects but also psychological effects.  Further, it may provide another way to consider reality. 

“Artwork” is the particular or peculiar piece of visual art that provides the medium for Art between the artist and the audience.  Practically, the artwork is the transmission of visual effects and philosophical idea of the Art.  The two, Art and artwork, may be not always the same given either the artist or the audience.

The conversation that takes place is not one-sided as not only is there the medium of Art but there is also the interpretation of the viewer.

Of course, the artist is responsible for creating Art since that is the medium.  It may be better to say that the artist is responsible for producing Art.  Why so?

The artist did not create any of the materials involved in the production of an artwork.  S/he did, however, employ materials to produce Art.  Having said that, I may state that the artist “creates” a work as it is that which did not exist previous to the production.  Even if it is a copy of another artwork it is that which did not exist before its production. 

If the artist has produced something then it began in the mind of the artist, which mind is not only a biological product but also one of shared cultural artifacts.   To interpret, one looks to these shared cultural artifacts.

Without the interpretation there cannot be knowledge.

“I know the facts so that means I know.”

This person thinks that Fact = Knowledge. 

This is wrong since a person may know many facts but is unable to put them together, relate them, in a cohesive way.

“Chadwick weighs 155 lbs, this is a fact.”

Still, one must relate “Chadwick” to “155 lbs.” through the verb “weighs.”  Also, one need understand a meaningful association between “155” and “lbs.”  The speaker takes it for granted that the sentence has an immediate interpretation according to a conventional set of understanding of the relations.  Nonetheless, s/he gains that understanding only after struggling with this in learning the language through mediate steps of understandings and hearing such idioms repeated times.

If I write “Chadwick weighs 4.3 pood,” using the old Russian weight system, the sentence has less meaning to the English speaker.

A person may perceive a brute fact but then needs to interpret it in order to gain knowledge.    Fact ≠ Knowledge but Fact + Interpretation = Knowledge.

This does not mean that knowledge, in itself, is necessarily derivative of this process since there may be knowledge of things (i.e., aware that they exist), whereas this is knowledge about things and consists of an understanding.

“Overstanding” may be a presumption; “sidestanding,” an association.

Interpreting artwork is unlike interpreting some other entities that are falsifiable since Art allows the audience to offer multiple understandings of which many may be legitimate.  All one has to do is to review essays concerning any artwork.  Granted, there may well be a special point an author had in mind, but there likely were many special points and one interpretation may not grasp them all in any moment.

Also, an artist may not be upset if artwork yields an approach which s/he did not consider when creating Art.  The artwork may transmit another perspective through the interpretation.  Of course, a particular comprehension may fit many artworks.

Viz., as a philosopher might say, one noema may have many noeses whereas many noemata may yield one noesis.  The artist agrees inasmuch that Art is not the result of either the philosophical search, the scientific method, or of religious development in that only “questioning” or “one answer” or “one process” will suffice, although it has something in common with all: the wonder of curiosity.  E.g.,

Art	Philosophy	Religion	Science
Reflecting values, subjectively and objectively, but also consists of…	Questioning values	Affirming or Rejecting values	Testing, or Experiment with, values

[It is intriguing that sometimes a person’s interpretation reflects the person more than that which they interpret.  This is the mirror paradox of interpretation.  E.g., this statement of interpretation (either subjective or objective genitive, a statement resulting from interpretation or a statement about interpretation) “It is intriguing etc.” probably reflects me as much as it is an observation about how people tend to interpret.  (Is the phenomenological reduction possible?)]

The emphasis on the artist’s intention so as to gain one particular interpretation mistakes artwork as a mathematical formula; i.e., the mistake is the presumption that the artwork yields only one end.

Nonetheless, the emphasis on the interpretation as the beginning point for multiple intentions mistakes artwork as a utility of reflexion; i.e., the mistake is the presumption that the artwork is only a means to as many interpretative ends as there are interpreters.

In daily dialogue people may take much of this for granted.  Use of idioms are shared cultural artifacts that one does not notice either as an end or as a means to an end until (1) one is misused or (2) one new to the audience presents itself.

Likewise, artwork may offer shared cultural artifacts that people take for granted either as an end or as a means to an end until (1) one appears to misuse the usual image or (2) a new image presents itself to the audience. 

Here, image = appearance.

“Appearance” might be the same as representation in visual art, but it is not the same as re-presentation since the teleology differs.

Teleology, the aim or purpose, should not be confused with intersubjectivity or the dialogue between persons but may result in dialogue.

This complicates the dialogue between the artwork and the audience so that it may require open and free discussion that it might help to sort out the effect.

“No one is able to dialogue freely since each person is conditioned by habit or construed so by nature to approach each event in a particular way.”

What one is by nature is, apparently determined; e.g., a human being cannot fly, cannot breathe underwater, etc.  Can a human being decide to act in alternative ways, however? 

“No, a human being cannot decide to act but in the pre-determined alternatives by personal constitution which s/he decides as to how to act.”

The spontaneity of events may cause reactions that differ from one’s usual deliberation. 

“The event and inveterate habit determined the reaction.”

Can a person act against personal inclination?

Let v = value distinctions and let n = the number of choices. 

v = n (n – 1)/2

So with two choices there is only one value distinction to make, but with three choices there are three.  Not too bad, but with five choices there are ten value distinctions one must make.  Et cetera.

As the number of choices increases, the number of distinctions one has to make multiply even more, and so one wonders if the increase of choices is a freer or more restrictive state.

[Does anyone really think this way?  Reviewing a menu and its many choices, how many people take into account n amount of entrees and then weigh the v among them?  Though if they do not does this mean that their choices are determined?]

Determinism may be the case, but even if so,

1. I still cannot predict the future with perfect accuracy,

2. I am still surprised by events, and

3. I still may find pleasure in life.

Thus, a dialogue between the audience and Art or a dialogue about Art may well be determined but still be

1.  unpredictable,

2.  surprising, and 

3.  pleasant.

The best one can say is that dialogue takes place that appears to be free. 

The dialogue between the artist and the world also includes those entities that are not, as far as is known, able to perceive the artwork or do not have what one considers “mind” in the full sense as the previous definition of “person.”

Artwork includes various aspects of the world; e.g., a star, sadness, a Guinea Pig, intellectual arguments, gaiety, a bolt of lightning, psychological states, and a chunk of quartz.  Thus, the artist brings these aspects into the dialogue and tries to understand their places in the world.

[Thus, if there are no minds in the future, could the dialogue take place between the artwork and the world in the relation of the two?] 

While one may ask how the artist understood the aspects of the world, the “one” needs to be a mind asking that question.  If there are no minds, then are there questions or even a dialogue?

At best, one may say that behind the artwork is the mind of the artist in dialogue with the world, this is the encounter of a presence seeking union with that world in a moment.  Indeed, the artwork is a record of that dialogue, the re-presentation of that presence.    

In that sense, one may say that the artwork is a fossil of a previous dialogue awaiting discovery by other minds.

3.  Art is an expression.

More precisely,

Art is a non-rational expression.

Visual art is a non-rational visual expression. 

An “expression” is an expression of something; i.e., it has content.

[I do not mean that it must consist of an image that corresponds to an external appearance since it may be an appearance of the internal.   The internal appearance is the dark luminosity of the content.  “Dark” in that no one else can see it, “luminosity” in that it is the brightness of the idea.   “Content” may consist of either the psychological extension or the projection of reality in the re-presentation of an idea.]

The image is more important than the content as it both offers the appearance (artwork) and conveys the content (Art).

E.g., someone feeds a mathematical equation into a computer drawing program, or another draws a re-presentation of an understanding of Quantum Mechanics, both erudite motivators, to be sure.  Still, one asks, “Is the drawing any good?” 

Someone says, “I want to paint a landscape image in order to re-present both the scene and my idea about it”

or they say

“I want to draw an image that extends my psychological state into it”

or they say

“I want to sculpt an image in order to project another reality.”

When one re-presents an image by extension or by projection then the image is an icon.  Without one of these, it is mere representation of appearance rather than the re-presentation of the idea of the appearance.  

To clarify, a re-presentation is not an imitation in another dimension; e.g., abstracting three-dimensional space or even four or more-dimensional space to two-dimensional imagery.  Instead, a re-presentation presents again the appearance along with the idea, the idea as either an extension or a projection.

[An idea, more formally an Idea, offers the extension or the projection of the artist’s thoughts as the re-presentation of an appearance.]

The artist searches for a way to make the idea concrete; viz., s/he figures out how to express the idea visually.   The questions include:

1.  What medium?

2.  What form?

3.  What shape?

4.  What color?

5.  What texture?

6.  What technique?

[“Form” and “shape” may not be identical terms if one employs three-dimensional objects.  “Shape” may note the two-dimensional look from one perspective while “form” may offer whether the intrinsic nature of the object is, for instance, organic or mechanical.  “Texture” may apply to two-dimensional re-presentations as well as three-dimensional ones.]

Each of these statements is rational and involves a rational process; the processes, such as automatic writing, may be random which seem irrational or the imagery may appear irrational. 

[Some have remarked that “automatic writing” in the hands of visual artists is a cheat since they edit that image; i.e., they do not simply allow it to stand on its own.  Viz., the rational shapes the irrational process.]

Artists use rational means to express the non-rational, a procedure appearing to some as irrational.

“Irrational” might mean that an artist discovered how a non-rational instrument achieved a rational expression.  E.g., Apelles, frustrated by his inability to paint the foam of a horse’s mouth, chucked his sponge at the painting in anger and noticed that it gave the impression he desired. 

But it also may indicate the processes those as Max Ernst utilized, whether collage, frottage, decalcomania, etc.

 

Visual art is about the visual.

An artist is not overly concerned with how it is visual; viz., s/he may have an interest as to how one perceives through sight other objects and whether this perception is the result of the relation of the subject to external matter and its primary or secondary qualities that offer sense data that impress the idea-in-the-mind…

…or whether it is that primary and secondary qualities are the same and so of relating to sense data that stimulate the idea-in-the-mind…

…or whether it is a “bundle of perceptions” and the visual experience of ephemeral phenomena…

…or whether it is the sense percepts of a priori concepts of Space and Time…

…or whether it is suspending judgement and reducing the appearance to an essence…

…or, finally, whether it is the biological reaction to light stimuli.

Nonetheless, visual art is not an aspect of either Philosophy or Science though it may contain aspects of each of these.

[Certainly, a philosopher or a scientist may discuss a philosophical or scientific aspect of Art from the trained perspective and do so fully.  This does not mean that Art is either Philosophy or Science since that confuses these categories as equivalent.  One does not say that the class of philosophical commentaries on Art is the same as the class of Art re-presenting philosophical commentaries, it is not a commutative identity.]

Visual art is an aspect of matter insofar as it is material, and,

it is an aspect of energy inasmuch as it is a result of energy.

This is the case of any production, whether by human agency or by others.

Is any product of human effort the same as Art?

Any product is a re-presentation of a human idea.  Is it an extension of the psychological?

“I constructed this desk with some new wood and some old pieces according to my deliberate plan.”  This is a re-presentation, but not an extension, which does not mean the desk is deficient in some way but it does mean it is not Art.

Can furniture be Art?  Yes.

“I constructed this desk with some new wood and some old pieces according to my deliberate plan so as to extend my feeling about a person’s place in the interior environment.”

This is Art.  Could it go further?

“I constructed this desk with some new wood and some old pieces according to my deliberate plan so as to extend my feeling about a person’s place in the interior environment and to project another kind of reality.”

If time is an aspect of matter and energy,

then, the matter and energy in a created work presents a time dimension—

however construed astronomically, existentially, or scientifically.

How does visual art accommodate these venues?

Visual art in astronomical time is mundane reality as mere recognition of a world-in-movement whereas visual art in existential time is the psychological reality as alert to one’s commitment to the world as well as the artwork as a record. 

Visual art in scientific time of either quantum mechanics or relativism is previously unknown by personal experience, at least to me.

As an aside, there have been, and are, many people who believe they have encountered a multi-dimensional or time-less situation. 

Keep in mind that belief and knowing are not the same. 

Someone says “I believe there is a drawing in front of me.”

Another person says “I believe there is an angel in front of me.”

Is the first person more likely to be correct?  S/he may imagine, hallucinate, or be mentally jeopardized.  This does not mean the second person is stating the case but it does mean one is more likely to believe that the first person knows something that is the case.

[Who dies for what they know?  And yet, how many people were, and are, willing to die for what they believe?]

A person may believe anything without induction, deduction, or abduction, but that same person cannot know anything without reliable means.

If believing were the same as knowing, I would have fewer but more solid beliefs.  If knowing were the same as believing, then I would be a more ignorant man.

[People kill others and nations go to war because of either political or religious beliefs.  People rarely kill others and nations, as far as I know, have never gone to war because of knowledge.]

“An artist operates by intuition.” 

Intuition is immediate knowledge about one’s sense; it leads to a belief about that which is outside the self.  Most define it as immediate knowledge of the external world, but it is inward knowledge that leads to belief about the outer world.

Foundational reality = Metaphysics, which only means a view of reality and is not foundationalist since that view may change.

Which is true:

“Visual art is a representation of the world” or

“Visual art is an extension of the world” or

“Visual art projects the world.”

Each of these statements indicates how one thinks about visual art, about the vision of visual art;

viz., it indicates either one’s comprehension of visual art or the possibility of visual art or it does both.  It is no longer a matter of whether a 2-dimensional image is abstract or realistic or in-between.  Instead:

Representation = mundanity.

Extension = psychology.

Projection = metaphysics.

Representation, Extension, and Projection indicate a reality of a space.

Nonetheless, there is no indicated space in reality but displacement of entities.

Displacing entities is no small matter but is a re-ordering of the world. 

A juror accepts the last work, sculpture α, into an art show which means there is no room for sculpture β which was among those the judge was considering for the last spot.  The art show now consists of a number of art pieces, n, which includes sculpture α. 

“Why is this sculpture in the show?”

“The juror accepted it.”

One may imagine any number of combinations of art pieces on display with other judges who are in control of the acceptance or rejection.

Likewise, one creates that which has not existed before and re-combines material in a new way, displacing the entities of material with one entity. 

How is the creation of Art different from human production of any object?

This representation of the physical space is the mundane aspect of Art in the world; i.e., its physical reality but as a vehicle for an idea is a re-presentation.

The artist creating Art reveals the many distinctions of the query “why.”

“Why” splits into several kinds of questions about cause-and-effect concerning Art, certainly as much as other human activities.

“Why did she feed her child?” appears to be a simple question that one may distinguish as

Love, affection for her child,

Care for a helpless human being,

and a Need to attend to others.

There are still other reasons such as

Transferring superfluous food to a hungry person,

An obedient response to a command to feed the child,

and keeping the species alive.

How to construct appropriate categories is a matter of the mundane, the psychological, and the metaphysical, and one applies these to Art.

“Why did she draw the picture?” is usually of the psychological distinction; i.e., what motivated the artist in terms of emotional feeling.  A mundane distinction is that drawing materials were available to a person who has that skill.  The metaphysical distinction involves the artist’s intellectual conception of reality.

The Art of Dreams,

Dependents,

Deviants,

Drug Addicts,

and the Depressed

provide a way to forms previously unknown and not experienced.

One may ask:  does one need to be in a state of dreaming, dependency, deviancy, drug addiction, and depression to express representation, extension, or projection?

No, for I say that

the Art of Alertness,

Independence,

Steadiness,

Health,

and Happiness

also provide a way to forms previously unknown and not experienced.

E.g., both Depression and Happiness are revelatory states that may be alien to the usual human routine.

All these forms share the non-rational expression of Art, an expression that can be a bridge among human beings.

As a bridge among human beings, Art expresses the presumed communication of an experience that takes place among human beings.  The person takes care to apprehend the mind behind the artwork so as to convey that perception to others.   Thus, the bridge is the sharing of interpretation of Art that takes place between two minds.

Interpretations may divide but they also engender intellectual participation about the human vision.  Interpretation may be an activity of conflict but it also may be an activity of critical construction in the way engineers design a project.  The blueprint is drawn up after discussion wherein the discussion was a bridge leading to the blueprint.

The expression of visual art yields the human vision of the world, whether a vision of the reality of that world (re-presentation),

another vision of the reality of that world (extension),

or a vision of the reality of another world (projection).

4.  Visual art presents a vision of a reality.

This is not just in the sense of “visionary” (i.e., extension and psychology) or in the sense of “literally” (i.e., representation and mundanity) but also in the sense of another world (i.e., metaphysics).

Art re-presents either another vision of reality or a vision of another reality.           

Visual art effects the visual perception but cannot effect the personal interpretation.

“I am suspicious of people who smile in subway cars.”

Appearances do not deceive, presuppositions do.

Socrates was mistaken or, at least, Plato was mistaken, in asserting that the painterly icon is less true.  Since Plato put this in the mouth of Socrates in The Republic, I will refer to Socrates.

After questioning Glaucon, he determined three levels of the table:

1.  The table is a Form or Idea.

2.  The table the carpenter builds is one s/he abstracted from the Form.

3.  The table the painter draws is one s/he abstracted from the carpenter’s table.

Hence, the painterly depiction is less true as it is twice removed from the Idea.

The mistake Socrates made was that he understood the image as an imitation of a table.

[Of course, the image is not an imitation of a table but it is an image of a table, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.”

An imitation of a table might be another table the carpenter builds.  What the carpenter builds, however, is part of the process of giving shape to an idea; it is neither a corruption nor a distancing of it.]

 

Artwork or craftwork, at the least, is a re-presentation of an idea rather than imitation.  As 

such, it is no longer an image but is an icon, a reality in itself.

The break with the Platonic approach is this: artwork is not an imitation of an idea but the re-

presentation either by psychological extension or metaphysical projection and a culmination 

of the artistic idea as an icon. 

 

It is not a matter of seeing the shadow of the Form but it is the reality of the Form incarnate.

The artist’s idea is incomplete as image until the artwork is complete as icon.

 

Most people prefer the imagery of decoration since Art is overwhelming.  Nonetheless, for those who can endure it, display of content in a new image of an icon may lead to the wonder of curiosity.

An artist creates according to an understanding of the world; a decorator creates according to style within its own environment. 

Art tends to the intuitive, a connection to mysticism and immediate knowledge, although there is no necessary implication of a supernatural world.  This is Art as subject.

What about scientific knowledge?  Scientific knowledge goes beyond “knowledge of” artwork.  One “knows of” an artwork in the individual sensorium, even an infant “knows of” the various noemata, the things perceived.

The scientific approach allows one to understand phenomena as to its material existence; i.e., to know about it.  In the process, one knows the dimensions, structure, and chemical composition of an artwork.  More popularly, one may also try to set the artwork in an historical situation or in a cultural context as sign (indication) or symbol (metonymy or metaphor).

In any case, whatever the direction of the scientific approach, the person comprehends the artwork as object.

The following table is a chess game,

Karl Marx vs. Meyer, 1867
1        p – k4	p – k4	15       b x b	q x b
2        p – kb4	p x p	16       n x kbp	n – k4
3        b – qb4	p – kn4	17       q – k4	p – q3
4        n – kb3	p – kn3	18       p – kr4	q – n5
5        o – o	p x n	19       b x p	r – kb1
6        q x p	q – kb3	20       b – r5	q – n2
7        p – k5	q x p	21       p – q4	(k4)n – qb3
8        p – q3	b – kr3	22       p – b3	p – qr4
9        n – qb3	n – k2	23       n – k6+	b x n
10       b – q2	(q)n – qb3	24       r x r	q x r
11       (q)r – k1	q – kb4	25       q x b	r – r3
12       n – q4	k – q1	26       r – kb1	q – n2
13       b – qb3	r – kn1	27       b – n4	n – qn1
14       b – b6	b – n4	28       r – b7	resigns

…where “is” or the verb “to be” neither asserts a relation, nor denotes a property, nor is implication, nor is existential, nor is identity, but is class-inclusion; i.e., the table is one in the class of chess games.  I.e., it is a chess game of many played. 

The table is a re-presentation of it and a chess player sees it as more than an object.  Is it an image?

There is a presence behind the game, and there are two: Marx and Meyer.  How are these presences known?

One problem is that the table consists of numbers and letters.  Artists use numbers and letters to make images, however.  Further, I have used this table in a drawing as part of an image, The Grand Calculator.

Nonetheless, the table on its own is a literary schedule of moves more than it is a visual re-presentation of an idea.  Here, context provides a clue.

One knows not only of the game from the table, one knows about the game.  The table is an object re-presenting the game as a schedule.

Writing “This is the 1867 chess game between Marx and Meyer” then “is” is a mark of identity.  If you play out the moves, then you are playing the 1867 game between Marx and Meyer.

A diagram of each move of the game on the board, here showing the end result, might be an image (or if all moves display, then a series of images),

…but is it an icon?

The re-presentation of the appearance of the chessboard, just as the previous table of moves, has two presences behind it; i.e., Marx and Meyer.  Insofar as it is a visual re-presentation and not just a literary one, I might concede that this is, indeed, an image more than a diagram.

Inasmuch this does not convey the extension of the projection of the artist, it is not an icon.  At best, it is an image that decorators might employ for a design as well as a diagram that chess enthusiasts might use for study.

Again, as with the table, one knows not only of the game from the image, one knows about the game.  As an image of decoration it may be a subject for dialogue, as a diagram of study it is an object re-presenting the final appearance of the game.

What about the intuitive approach?  The intuitive approach allows one to enter into dialogue with the artwork.  Art, as a dialogue between audience and artwork, is the recognition of a presence behind that artwork. 

That presence is the subject, the artist, the individual who is a person who comprehends the world in terms of intellectual, temporal, and intersubjective relations.  The viewer may know scientifically about the artwork as object, but s/he also knows the person who created the artwork.  The person in dialogue with artwork apprehends the artwork as the presence of a subject.

[As Jean Luc Godard mentioned in an interview, “SMS” as “send message” really means “Save My Soul.”   He thought that both the sender and the receiver wish to be in dialogue so as not to be alone; thus, receiving the text is not just a reading of words but an apprehending of a presence behind those words.]

Scientific knowledge about the artwork lends to comprehension of it as object in terms of its physical characteristics as well as its historical and cultural contexts.  This knowledge may help one understand the artwork so as to aid in apprehending it as subject.

Scientific knowledge is comprehension of an object; mystical knowledge is apprehension of a presence.  Artistic knowledge is the sober intoxication of realizing the apprehension.

“The art was a symphony of color, a mystical apprehension,” as one may read in various descriptions, but it still is primarily visual apprehension.  The mystical, the intuitive, the immediate knowledge of the senses—this is how one grasps Art.

[An apprehending of a presence is more than just a “knowledge of” or even more than “knowledge about” a presence.]

I cannot prove that there is a presence behind Art.  And yet, by abduction one infers reasonably “If an image, then an artist.”  What about images created by other species or by machines?  Then the presence is either that of a creature of another species or the abstracted human presence in a machine.

The non-falsifiability of Art is notorious though it plays positively unlike the role it plays in Religion.

“I like this drawing.”

“This drawing displeases me.”

“I like this religion.”

“This religion displeases me.”

The lack of disproof has caused and may cause quarrels among artists and Art schools but it does not lead to large-scale armed conflict. 

Religions cannot make this claim.

Nonetheless, the conflicts may cause new ideas to develop and change the Religion or the Art.

There may be many people who find Art uninspiring, but no one disbelieves it.

Religions cannot make this claim.

The questions, however, may cause Artists and the devoted to re-consider their positions.

A view of reality that one takes for granted is more difficult to pin down than is commonly thought.

The foundationalist claims that there is a solid standard of understanding; the relativist claims that there is a shifting standard.

The foundationalist states that all human dwellings from the first up to the present  have entries.  No one tries to walk through solid walls unless s/he either is a comedian (slapstick) or is mentally jeopardized (physically or psychologically).

Nonetheless, it is possible that human beings can pass through solid surfaces but do not know that they can do so.  This is similar to the predicament of the gnat or fly, the insect which tries to get through an open window pane but cannot perceive that it only has to go around it.

The possibilities of quantum tunneling by a human being may occur, nonetheless, “We operate as if we cannot walk through walls.”

How many would take the effort and time to discover whether this might be the case?  I think that the number would be much less than those who would expend time and effort to earn enough to buy food.

If there are human dwellings that lack an entry then they are not typical structures but may be intended for another purpose rather than what one comprehends about residential dwellings or housing.

Has there ever been a society in which people constructed housing without entries?

In any case, here is the crux of the matter; the foundation is the operating function as to how human beings think about the external world and not the external world itself.  The relativism is the approach to that view of reality.  The pragmatic effort, the “cash value,” is often made for what appears to be the case and less so for what does not—what is the network of belief and knowledge causing an individual to hold what makes sense?

Foundationalism is another name for how a person functions, Relativism is a name for the degree of variation in the shifting understanding as to how a person functions.  Pragmatism here is the name for whether a person bothers to act one way rather than another way according to the perception of reality.

The artist may offer a personal view that is foundational to the internal world but relative to the external world.   S/he invests her time and effort into that picture of reality.

The internal world is the psychological; the external world is the reality or the metaphysical.

As previously stated,

the psychological is the extension

and

the metaphysical is the projection.

Applying the idea to concrete visual appearances is the struggle of the transition for the artist.

For instance, a person wants to re-present the extension through a particular projection but a cultural artifact may shape the idea.  A cultural artifact may be a linear narrative or an object of decoration or a conversation piece. 

Hence, even this picture of a reality is not always according to the personal imposition.  E.g., human beings may structure a story about their life in the way nearly all books and cinema films depict life; a visual artist may do this unwittingly.  Nonetheless, that is a narrative one reads into one’s life instead of the reality of the haphazard.  The narrative becomes the procrustean bed as one edits those annoying or tragic scenes.

This is why Bunuel films as Un Chien Andalou are one of the few films that make sense to me as real life rather than as a reel file.

5.  Explanations and arguments are not substitutes for experiencing an icon of Art.

Art may present a story but cannot be only a story; otherwise, it is illustration.  Someone writes that “images produce a story” but if that is all they do then the story takes precedence over visual art.

If one can explain an image by words alone, then that image is a failure.

Explaining Art explains the punch line, words weaken the image.

Additionally, conflicting explanations of Art lack the force of arguments in other fields, especially when the artwork yields multiple interpretations because of its obscurity or yields little understanding because the artwork is idiosyncratic.

[Idiosyncrasy is a difficulty for any artwork and perhaps more so since the 20^th century than in any previous era.  The lack of a universal belief system, save nationalism (which itself is a fairly recent invention of philosophical fiction that assembles several groups of varied backgrounds under the rule of national law), the decline of religious membership, and the new ideals in history of either political or economic philosophy (whether by John Locke or Emerich de Vattel or Adam Smith or Karl Marx et al.), the rise of psychology, the success of scientific models to re-present the world accurately, all pose obstacles to those who wish to unite these old, new, and different streams of thought as well as religious, social, and political movements into one, cohesive guide. 

Without an accepted set of values, without a myth (and by “myth” I only mean a narrative by which one grasps meaning of the world), the artist is left to a personal view that might be tough for a viewer to comprehend the image, much less apprehend a presence in dialogue. 

The philosopher prophesied: “And now the mythless man remains eternally hungering amid the past, and digs and grubs for roots, though he have to dig for them even among the remotest antiquities.  The terrible historical need of our unsatisfied modern culture, the assembling around one of countless other cultures, the consuming desire for knowledge—what does all this point to, if not to the loss of myth, the loss of the mythical home, the mythical maternal bosom?”

And Nietzsche wrote this in 1872!]

I do not know if either representational or non-representational Art or anything in-between is more or less universal.  Re-presenting the idea is more than the ability either to draw a figure or to mix colors.  The adventitious perception of either a recognizable shape or feeling a mood in non-representational artwork has its advantages and disadvantages.  Likewise, noting either a direct connection with corresponding reality or a shared mood in representational artwork has its strengths and weaknesses.  Even if both are universal, the idiotes, the peculiarity, of much artwork may obstruct the viewer’s understanding as much as its bizarre charm may attract attention.

[The attitude of many artists after the mid-20^th century who believed that representational artwork was inferior was intriguing.  I do not question that non-representational artwork opened up another route to imagery, I do not question those forms I find inspiring.  Their mistake, however, was to maintain that this became the only route to imagery.] 

Still, despite obscurity or idiosyncrasy many people, whether highly educated or not, deny the need for interpretation.  I know that interpretative explanation cannot replace the experience but as noted previously it is necessary to enter into dialogue. 

“I have no interpretation” reveals the naivete of a person, whether a layperson concerning theology or the scientist regarding philosophy.  These individuals do not recognize that is not so much a matter of the literal study either of sophos or of theos but simply a matter of accepting the tools that one uses in order to understand phenomena.

Students ask me about conflicting perspectives of Philosophy or of Religion.  E.g., a Christian student thinks the African approach is best, another holds to the Catholic understanding, etc.  What is the problem?  The Bible contains enough ambiguity to make all theologians happy.

The problem with judging Religion is the same as judging Art.

“He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.”

“Go, your sins are forgiven.”

“That color is attractive.”

“This color is disturbing.”

Lack of standards of disproof for these statements does not mean they state the case.

Likewise, Art contains enough ambiguity to make all viewers happy.

[Falsifiability is an approach with which most people are unfamiliar, and it is the other side of verification.  Falsifiability is the lack of disproof whereas verification is a proof.  Scientists say that Science is not a matter of proof (i.e., verification) but mathematics is a matter of proof.  Science is a matter of the lack of disproof (i.e., falsifiability).  This is one of the reasons why scientific models change but mathematical proofs, as far as I know, do not.

Art and Religion, however, are two topics that have neither verifiable nor falsifiable characteristics by which to judge them.  It is one thing for me to write about the idea, the re-presentation, etc., it is another thing for me to state that one artwork is superior or inferior to another.  Hence, the importance here to discuss as to how people may judge Art.]

 

The agnostic in Art may accept all as Art but may not.

“I do not know if this is Art but it may be so.”

“I think this is not Art but I cannot prove it.”

There are several kinds of agnostics: Metaphysical, Ethical, Epistemological, and Logical.

The metaphysical agnostic claims that there is a dialogue that is unresolved.

E.g., Art offers extraordinary sensations…and…Art offers ordinary sensations.  The reality is ambiguous, and ambiguity is debatable; hence, unknown.

The ethical agnostic cites the Epicurean trilemma about divinity; viz., is the divinity benevolent and impotent or malevolent and potent or is the divinity a benevolent and potent being that allows cruelty in the world?  Relevant to Art, --one asks if the artwork is skillfully presented but not imaginative or unskillfully presented and imaginative or skilled and imaginative but cannot re-present the artistic idea.

The epistemological agnostic would appear to be a redundant category since agnosticism is, by definition, about knowledge.  And yet, the epistemological agnostic concern is only about the intellectual problem of knowing without relation to reality or to ethics or to logic.  Still one can split epistemological agnostic into at least two approaches.

Using the religious example:

1.  One believes that there is a supernatural world but it is unknown, or,

2.  one believes that no one can disprove the idea and it is a mere matter of falsifiability. 

By analogy with application to Art,

1.  one believes that there is a re-presentation that is an extension or a projection but it is unknown, or,

2.  one believes that no one can disprove that there is either an extension or a projection; viz., artistic ideas, as religious ones, turn on the point of lack of falsifiability.

The logical agnostic states carefully that sensible statements that are also logical are either tautologous (“A single person is an unmarried person”) or a priori (“He is six feet tall and so is less than seven feet tall”) propositions. 

So one reads the following from the Gita or from the Dao:

 “There was never a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor any of these kings.  Nor is there any future in which we shall cease to be.”

“Man follows the earth, Earth follows heaven, Heaven follows the Dao.”

Likewise, in circles discussing Art one reads,

“The superior artist is the one whose work encompasses significant past art movements.”

“It is impossible for an 'advanced' artist to bother making a portrait.”

“This black shape imposes itself on the tan background as the fated doom at the door of life.”

These are all propositions that lack tautology and are also not a priori statements.

Since one cannot know Art logically either by tautologous or by a priori propositions, then it becomes a problem of constructing meaningful statements about Art.

[A. J. Ayer commented that this meant that such statements lacking the tautologous or a priori qualities were non-sense.  Alonzo Church replied that this could not be the case, since there needs to be an ultimate principle upon which there is a sense or a meaning, at least insofar as human knowledge is concerned.  I may not be able to “prove” logically why a drawing is Art, but that only means that I can go no further, logically, in order to do so.

For my purpose here, it is sufficient to remark that the qualitative and non-falsifiable natures of artistic statements and statements about Art necessarily differ from quantitative and falsifiable ones and cannot be judged by those standards.  A possible improvement upon this position is to take an agnostic position about such statements and classify them as non-logical or non-rational rather than to say they were non-sense.  I.e., the “sense” may be neither logical nor rational.]

The one who rejects Art as a necessary human endeavor is also a problem.  There are several kinds who reject Art: Cultural, Religious, Materialist, and Philosophical.

The cultural rejection consists of negating Art as necessary to human life or alien to human society or superfluous to economy. 

In religion, one sees this in history in the Hellenistic era (c. 300 BC – AD 300) and the thinkers of the time describing the Second Temple Jewish community as αθεοι, “atheists,” since said community rejected other gods.

Today, the society that lends importance either to the political ideology or to religious fanaticism or to the accumulation of capital to the exclusion of all else, perceives the pursuit of creative ideas as either

1.  superfluous to the aim of the State (hence, useless), or, against the State (hence, dangerous), or,

2.  as sinful obstacles to the aim of the religion, or,

3.  as an endeavor that is only useful as a commodity (a means) but not as a good-in-itself (an end).

 [Those affirming the last point transform themselves into decorators to confirm the status quo for the sake of profit.  Profit is not bad at all but it is not the aim of Art.  Profit is not the aim of a prophet. Those who say otherwise have either misunderstood or are ignorant about Art or have little soul or are mean-spirited; further, they are one step away from kitsch.]

The religious rejection is the question about the aim of Art; the belief that Art is an obstacle to the ideal rather than instrumental.  I.e., Art is vanity and deflects attention from the religious ideal.

The religious judge asks: who judges Art?

Similarly so with the question about a non-falsifiable enterprise as Religion; i.e., who judges Religion?

[This yields two ironic statements:

“The greatest threat to any Christian church is Jesus.”

“The greatest threat to any Artwork is an Artist.”]

The materialist rejection is that Art is insignificant as a mental good.  Instead, it is only a material good.  E.g., for the capitalist, Art is either a commodity or only a means of marketing as property; for the communist, it is either impractical or only a means of propaganda.

The philosophical rejection is that individual expression is best suited to a higher form of contemplation rather than realizing higher forms in actual visibility for the contemplation by other minds.  Art is not an intrinsic good but an image only that may be a means to the greater good.

I do not think that it is a matter of “viewing Art in a certain way implies viewing Art in a certain way,” a principle of identity wherein “p implies p,” but I think it is more a matter of inclusion than identity.    I.e., p may imply p, true, but for the artist p may imply not-p since else p would not have an identity unique to itself as opposed to, say, q or r.  In sum, there would be no need to identify p if there were neither q nor r.

Numbers furnish an example here.  “1 implies 1” but I understand it better as compared to -1, 0, or 2.  A mathematical square here illustrates this:

This 9 x 9 matrix offers multiple perspectives of “0”; i.e., whether one goes through horizontal rows, vertical columns, or the two diagonal crosses, addition of the numbers always adds up to zero.  Either nothing is understood unless against something or nothing implies the lack of something.

One may find oneself caught up in the experience of Art when discussing it, the discussion led to that re-presentation of the Art in the imagination.  Hence, p, the discussion as either experience, or as agnostic, or as rejection, implied not-p, the Art. 

The principle of inclusion: It is the case that anything implies something else besides itself.

Hence, a person may view Art in more than one way but any of the ways imply, and must give way, to the experience.

6.  The image in the mind, the image applied, the image explained; these are three aspirations to Art but they are not the icon.

Here, the sums of the aspects of Art are not equal to the whole.  As an experience, however, the part may be the epitome of the whole.  The whole is no greater than some of its parts.

“The whole is no greater than some of its parts.” 

This works with infinity—the series of even numbers or of odd numbers is no less than the series of all numbers—but why not also daily events?

Consider the Aldersgate Street meeting experience of John Wesley, upon hearing a reading of Luther’s preface to Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, in which Wesley wrote that his heart was “strangely warmed.” 

The series of abstraction follow:

Ancient Israelites to

Hellenistic Judaism to

Various branches to

Jewish followers of Jesus to

Paul of Tarsus to

Writing a letter to Roman Christians to

Luther reading it to

Writing a commentary about Romans to

Writing a preface to the commentary to

A reading of the preface to

Wesley’s hearing of the reading to

His experience of his heart “strangely warmed.”

Any one part in this chain may cause an experience.   Concretely for Methodists, however, Wesley’s experience is the culminating epitome of the preceding 1700 year history of life and literature as the origin of Methodist Christianity.  This part of the series is equal to the whole for Methodists.

Likewise, consider the chain of events that leads to an Art experience:

An artist experiences an idea in the mind to

Refining the idea to

Reckoning how to put the idea into visual terms to

Applying the idea to

Sorting out the means of application to

Collecting materials needed for application to

Executing the application to

Editing and revising the artwork to

Exhibiting the artwork to

Someone writing an explanation about the artwork to

Someone reading the explanation to

The personal experience of understanding the artwork.

Again, each one of these could be the experience for a person, although some may obstruct the full experience and this includes the artist as well as the audience.

E.g., applying the idea of the mind to an image may be limited by technical means as the artist may be unable to re-present the idea as faithfully as s/he would like to do because of lack of proper instruments or of proper skill and training. 

One may state, “Do not be constrained by technique but be moved by the image.” 

“Fine words, but fine words butter no parsnips.” 

The artist who wants to produce a lithograph but does not have the instruments at hand is constrained by technique regardless of creative movement.  Still, the aspiration to create and the lack of the usual instruments may cause the artist to employ, or even realize, a process previously ignored.

I do not want to know my artistic limits, I want to discover them.

Applying the image and discovering artistic limits: does this mean producing tens or hundreds of re-presentations in the hope that one gains the right image?

One may as well begin typing words at random in the typewriter, not even as a stream-of-consciousness but picking out words by lottery.

Any artist may take risks of a visual challenge but s/he may not be a poor-odds gambler.

Does applying the image mean that the artist produces tens or hundreds of fine variations of the same re-presentation as in an assembly line?

The artist is not a machine.

An artist is both a mystic and a scientist, but also is solely neither.

The artist creates art, Art changes the world.

Imagination and creativity come first, technique and process next, dimensions and application last.

The imagination and creativity of some people are higher than those who are artists.

[To understand this, consider that some persons who present qualities one may attribute to a specific group just as some of that group do not present those qualities.

Granted, one thinks that “it is not the case that one is an artist and is not an artist.”  This is the principle of non-contradiction, that “it is not the case that x is p and not-p.”

And yet, in this sense, a couple paradoxes as dialetheisms present themselves:

“Some of the best Christians (Buddhists, Muslims, etc.) I have known are not Christians (Buddhists, Muslims, etc.).”]

“Some of the best Artists I have known are not Artists.”  This statement is unacceptable to many for logical reasons.

[Naturally, it is convenient to distinguish between what is the case and what is not.  Also, for our mundane observations it appears that the law of non-contradiction helps human beings to operate reasonably to survive. 

For instance, a pedestrian about to cross the road sees a car motoring in the lane s/he is about to cross.  I believe that the pedestrian is better off presuming that it is the case that the car will occupy that space and not another when s/he is about to cross it.]

Nonetheless, more severe situations and different environments may require another way to consider the actions under observation.  In the wake of the advent of both Quantum Mechanics and Relativity, physicists see the world in another way that is unknown to many, perhaps most, people.  Husserl was right, and I think remains correct, that these sciences and their powerful conceptions are still not a part of everyday experience and it would be tough to get at the essence of such an experience.  Even if one could experience such events first-hand is it possible for that person to put this into intelligible language?  “To be or not to be” is not just a cry for sanity but also a question about reality.

[Of course, Husserl was also correct to imply that these remain a part of our world; hence, we cannot separate ourselves from them.]

A drawing presents this better, perhaps, than my fiddling with logical propositions:

This drawing is not just one object but offers at least four possible objects simultaneously:

1.  A small cube in front of a large cube.

2.  A large cube with a section cut out from its corner.

3.  A small cube inside a corner.

4.  A flat shape of geometric figures.

The duck-rabbit illustration is a famous example of this problem.  Similar is a drawing of Teiresias:

One may see not only the face of a man with a beard but also a naked woman.

This brings us to the manner as an artist would understand it.

The principle of ambiguity: It is the case that one is p and not-p.

I cannot offer proof that this ambiguous state of humanity, the Teiresias paradox, may be the ground of creativity, though I think it is reasonable that it is one of the conditions that cause human beings to understand the world through other perspectives.  The artist remembers, however, as in the case of Teiresias, that the gift of the seer may lead to the tragedy of blindness.

The human imagination appears to be one of the catalysts of Philosophy, Science, and Religion just as it is one of the catalysts of artwork.

The achievement of each of these endeavors is richly diverse, attesting to the power of human imagination in the aspiration to an ideal.  Likewise, Art presents multiple forms of expression.

Here, I understand that imagination leads one to a concept.

One imagines a re-presentation that leads to a concept and, when applied either as an extension or as a projection, conceives it as applied to artwork.

The human mind may conceive only that which the human mind can imagine.   

If this is the case, then it would be contrary for the human mind to conceive what is beyond its imaginative power.    I can barely imagine my past experience and conceive all that I perceived at those times; how much less can I imagine that which I have never experienced or that which is unimaginable. 

I cannot conceive the unimaginable by definition.

This does not mean that whatever a person imagines must not exist beyond the mind; neither does it mean that whatever a person imagines must exist.  It does mean, however, that it is unknown.

It only means that it may be because of this tension between the two possibilities that an artist desires to bring the artwork into existence in order to resolve the ambiguity.

Abstracting the elements of visual phenomenon in artwork and relating those elements is the duty of interpretation. 

Therefore, what the human mind can imagine the human mind may conceive is also that which the human mind can interpret since the visual phenomenon is not beyond its imaginative power.

Applying this to human visual creation, I would organize it into three groups based upon the sense of sight, the capability of the intellect, and the feeling of the non-rational (emotional) aspect of a person.  Can there be more kinds than these?  Of course, but for the sake of illustration as to what constitutes a one-to-one correspondence to sight, mind, and feeling, three is practical.  So, at the risk of building a scheme that may say more about me than it does about Art, I present the following points.

There is a main class of human visual creation that has at least three sub-classes in which one finds the three kinds of visual production: the decoration, the image, and the icon.

The decoration appeals to the eye.

The image appeals to the eye and to the mind.

The icon appeals to the eye and to the mind and to the heart.

As noted previously, the artwork that provides the skillful use of shape or color at the least is some kind of image.  An image that attracts the eye without relating to the intellect remains decoration without attempting to be Art.  This is not “bad” but it does make one ask whether decoration is not as good as some artwork.  I think that this does happen when one may see in the swirl or the flourish the values of a civilization.  Here, I present as evidence productions such as Anglo-Saxon or Celtic illumination, Persian carpet design, Islamic calligraphy, and even Oriental writing. 

Likewise, an image that appeals to both eye and mind is certainly artwork though it may not go as far as the icon.  The problem here is that this is an even more subjective topic than the other two as the elements under discussion are non-falsifiable.  E.g., are wall-paintings in houses, whether from Antiquity or the Mannerist period or even those of Goya, artwork which aspires to something more than decoration?  Certainly, in the case of Goya, I think so.  In other instances, and it appears more so for the work in Antiquity, it does not.  On the other hand, I think that the paintings of pre-historic societies on the walls of caves aspire to be iconic as they relate to all three; at least, I think they do. 

So one must remember the problem of relative values, so well noted by Sextus millennia ago, and that the decoration may well be an icon as may be the image, and then I have to go back and re-order the points as to what is “decoration,” “imagery,” and “icon.”

The problem, and more to the point of this section, is whether the image in the mind, the image applied, and the image explained are aspiration to, or equivalent with, the icon.   Of course, one may substitute “decoration” for “image” but I prefer to stick with the term “image” as, at least, an “appearance.”  “Image” here is the non-reducible term.

Once an artist thinks of the icon as a process or as a concatenation of caused events, then one has lost the vision of the idea as an organic growth or even as a picaresque journey with all its possibilities of failing and struggling to overcome obstacles in the creative purgatory that aspires to heaven completion while careful of the hell of failure.  Besides, there may never be a final cause in the eyes of the interpreter.

7.  The Artist takes a journey that is both an extension and a projection through the re-presentation.

Many who wish to be Artists travel the trodden paths of previous and other Artists or, worse, they only read about it but do not engage Art.

One sees this happening among the devoted religious as well as the scholars who study the story through various commentaries, anecdotes, and legends.  Many engage the mythology, but the lucky few live out the myth.

In the same manner, among Artists many engage Art “in the style of” other Artists and want to see the world as these Artists saw it (as if that could be done).  Re-presenting the presence of another artist is inauthentic.  Many engage the style, but the lucky few live as an artist.  How does one begin this journey but by a genuine scrutinizing and questioning of one’s own view of Art?

[To reassure the reader and ask for patience, I am using the principles of seeking, suspending, and accepting the situation as a puzzle.  The constant questioning about what may have been thought certain has likely been irritating but this kind of engagement is necessary in order to avoid falling back on habit and convention.  Habit and convention are convenient in mundane matters but may cause blindness toward the unusual or the unique.  I think an understanding of Art requires at least this concession.  Re-presenting the presence does not mean that one will encounter it unless one scrutinizes and questions.  E.g., in reading about Alexander the Great one meets the person of Alexander.  What happens when one discovers that the earliest existing work about Alexander was written by Diodorus nearly three centuries after his death?  Should this lessen the reader’s experience?  No it should not, because, at least, one experienced the writer’s presence, if not also that of Alexander.]

The question may be that which no one can answer and few might know to ask; is the greatest Art that which no one can produce and that few would wish to see?  This is the first step.  Taking this step, the artist breaks from others who work from habit as s/he tries to bridge to the idea rather than cater to social convention, drawing the world through personal reflection.

I want to create images that one cannot classify so easily or shelve into categories.

Next, having taken the responsibility to produce such artwork that may not be possible, and even if possible that no one will wish to see, the artist makes the journey from idea to icon.

Throughout this journey, the image is the re-presentation of forms whether abstracted from nature or from one’s aesthetic sense.  How the artist employs these forms so as to touch upon the mind as well as the heart is the next obstacle of this venue.  To arrive at the completed artwork, to get at the final form, the Art, the artist may need to extend the mind and project the personal perception, exercises that one may not take to so naturally.  Many people may have empathy with Art, but this does not mean that many people can produce artwork.  And even if so, it is not necessarily the case that one will communicate well to others even if they wish to see the artwork.

Overcoming this obstacle, there are still the unknown detours that present themselves, the unaccountable—serendipitous?--associations of related interests that the artist sees as the image develops.  A shape or a color or a figure may remind the artist of another related entity or even a style that, as enthralling as it might be at the time, was never a part of the idea.  I do not know if many artists struggle with this as much as they should do, and especially so if they have an idea. 

Understandably, the artist’s idiom is restricted to the personal history which is within the larger historical context.  Although if the artist loses sight of the idea for which s/he is attempting to re-present, then there is the danger of falling back onto forms and styles from the world of the past.  Forms and styles that made sense in their previous temporal and social context may not fit so smoothly in the present and the future.  Concentrating on the idea, yes, the cultural artifacts of the time move the artist who is ever mindful of their relation to the past and to the future, avoiding idiosyncrasy but translating them universally through the personal idiom of the visual art. 

I offer these three alerts not to restrain artists but to remind them that there are at least three diversions on the road that will lead them away from the form of the idea into the final form, the icon.

The icon may have the property of fecundity, extending the psychology and revealing the metaphysics of the artist so as to yield more forms.  The production of these forms may be a surprise even to the artist though s/he plans a particular result through training and experience along with the designed studies about the outcome.  Part of the reason is that the idea may be riddled with both the ideals and the flaws of the person, and, ironically, the flaws make artwork accessible to others and prevent Art from becoming idiosyncratic, allowing it to be universal.  The idea itself is indifferent to these flaws as the flaws help convey the universality of human understanding.

[Intrinsically, human beings have flaws.  Nonetheless, these flaws are instrumental in conveying the idea into the artwork since they shape the idea to some degree.  The very perspective of the idea is that of the flawed, human perspective, and likely understood best by flawed human being.]

This may be the absurdity of Art; the attempt to delineate the idea as ideal fails, but the artist fails triumphantly in the completion.  If I wish to understand life, then I must accept its absurdity.  If I want to understand Art, then I should accept its logic of contraries, contradictions, and inequalities.  Naturally, this means that, regardless of whether determinism is the case, a person cannot know the future of Art.

Truly, the future of Art, the future of all forms, is unknown and frightening, but it is also surprising and full of hope.

As the artist continues the journey to the future of all forms s/he will pass through the conception of internal reality of the mind to the perception of the external reality and offer up both in artwork.

[Although I caution the reader about any notion concerning a mechanical process for Art.  One may begin with an external form and then see the internal idea.  Understandably, one may also counter that the external form may just be a prod to what is already in the mind but that is unknown.  Remember that I am not writing a textbook as to “how to do” Art but instead one that explores Art as an encounter with the world.] 

The conception of the internal reality in the artwork is the extension of the artist’s psychological state whereas the perception of external reality is the projection of the artist’s metaphysical understanding.  The extension is the appeal to what used to be called the soul and the projection is the appeal to the mind.  The artist unifies these by Art, and so offers an icon.

[This does not mean that the artist presents an answer or a tautology or a discovery.  The artist looking for a method to make the beautiful will not find it but only through the struggle for a visual re-presentation of the personal perspective.  Religious discourse aims for “the answer.”  Mathematical forms are tautologous; the sign, =, means that one side must equal the other.  Scientific process, a mix of induction and deduction, may present change as scientists realize that the outcome may not be compatible with their model.  The change of the artist’s journey is both instrumental and intrinsic to the thought of the artist.  It is instrumental in that the artist may use random technique and apply these to the artwork.  It is intrinsic in that the artist plans but is open to new developments along the way whether these are technical aspects of the craft, psychological apprehensions, or metaphysical understanding. ] 

The icon is not the end of the journey since it offers the dialogue continuously to other persons, past and future, as well as among other artworks, past and future.  Together, the icon and the artist are on a journey that may be asymptotic; viz., always nearing the destination but never reaching it as the dialogue splits into many possible and fulfilling pathways.  The encounter of my artwork with others may lead to the dialogue of ordered ecstasy, that of one presence apprehending another presenting at least one more perspective of understanding.

8.  I do not like to write about Art, I want to experience it.

This is the distinction: words do not substitute for the sensorium—the individual theater of the world—but words are one way to clarify understanding and interpretation of the sensorium.

As synecdoche it may be the case that words substitute for all senses not as in an example of onomatopoeia but as in “I read the book of the suburb/the forest/the city/the swamp/etc. and understand the language that surrounds me.”

A literary device, however, is not a substitute for the experience and it is an added linguistic experience, an alien intrusion, into the sensorium.  This threatens to remove one from the experience and replace it with its own peculiar aspect of reality.

Even employing prose and metonymy and allowing for specific descriptions, reading the review of a play or of a concert is not the same as attending the play or the concert.  These words may dilute the experience but they may also help one recollect various points of the experience.

Can the interpretation enhance the experience?  I think it can and I have experienced this myself.  Nonetheless, there have been times when an interpretation has steered me in the wrong direction and caused me to miss another aspect of the art form.  The problem is what I noted previously as the mirror paradox of interpretation in that sometimes a person’s interpretation reflects the person more than that which s/he interprets. 

Of course, if art is an interpretation, then in this sense a work of art may be a self-portrait.

This is a metaphilosophical dictum that is not self-referring.

Although, one may wish to think that this statement is an interpretation and a portrait of me.

Interpretations are stated re-presentations of Art and abstract the elements of artwork in both communication and medium;

“one does not read a loaf of bread, one eats it.”

One “reads” a loaf of bread as not only bread but also as the staff of life, the home, a mark of agricultural civilization, the center of a family meal, et cetera.  And one desires nourishment when one is empty. 

As the devout person fasts so to make room for the ideal, the artist empties oneself of presuppositions so as to make room for the idea.

If one wishes to experience Art, then one needs to exercise the epoche, the suspension of judgement. 

“…usefulness comes from what is not there.”

While it may be impossible to remove from the field of perception the intruding figures of habitual (individual) and conventional (societal) attitudes to artwork, at least one may recognize that these attitudes may hinder one’s full and open perception.   Realizing what is obtrusive to clear perception and attempting to see without them is more useful than trying to verify the habitual and conventional perceptions, the “expectations.”  Lacking these habitual and conventional apparatuses may confuse a person since their omission has made life more convenient to understand, but their employment has also taken for granted phenomena.  The sudden surprise of seeing for the first time results in the anguish of Roquentin who, upon realizing the gnarled, doughy forms of the roots of the chestnut tree, must recognize the living reality of the tree.  This is Roquentin’s crisis of perception, and becoming nausea, as removing the comfortable and convenient notions of philosophical essences and, perhaps, even what is known biologically about trees, he encounters the tree as that which exists now in the present instead of seeing it through the personal habits and societal conventions of pre-framed attitudes.

This “existential now” is the decisive moment when a subject, a person, experiences a turning-point, a crisis, of another entity and rather than comprehending the other as an object in history, apprehends that entity as immediate presence.  This moment has no temporal limit consciously as the person is unaware of the passing of time.  This is what the mystics have called the stationary movement.

I think that the right perception of Art is this meditative moment that has a contact with eternity not as a long time but as time-less.

For instance:

A person reads a book or watches a play?  A matter of hours.

A person relates to another person?  A matter of a lifetime.

A person views an icon?  This is time-less.

Maybe Heraclitus was correct; “Eternity is a child playing.”

The limits of language about Art are not the limits of Art but merely the limits of language.

In an attempt to demonstrate the variation, some say that language is about denotation whereas visual art is about connotation.  This may lead to a table prepared between the two as one would construct a table to reveal the similarities and contrasts between Anglo-American and Continental philosophies, to wit;

Comparisons and Contrasts between the Literary and Visual Arts
Literary	Visual
Narrative description of imagery	Iconic
Concerns denotation	Concerns connotation
Individual detail	“Big picture”
Sign	Symbol
Which is it?	What is it?
Conception	Concept
Temporality of narrative	Time-less, “existential now”
E.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.	E.g., communication
E.g., color—“red, orange”	E.g., color—“hue, intensity, value”
E.g., character—happy man, loving woman”	E.g., “humanity, emotion”

Of course, reading presupposes a time element.  The poem, however, is not temporal intrinsically and is closer to the “existential now” of the icon.  Reading a poem or viewing an icon, however, does involve a linear process of time but is not the dominant temporal feature of the experience.

Nevertheless, I think the approach of this chart is incorrect since it presumes to order visual art by literary means.  One may as well order literary arts by visual means, and one way that is done is by illustrations, graphs, charts, and tables.  When that is done it results in an image that is not iconic.   

This is a division similar to that of “mathematical art” noted previously.  Most “math artists,” at least in the visual arts, are trying to understand and conceive Art through mathematics.  Formulae may become mass-produced banality.  

The artist, however, attempts to understand and conceive math through Art, and that is the difference.  The former is still the mathematician, the latter is the artist.

Analogously, one draws a comparison with the study of Religion and the religious experience.  A scholar of religion may provide a list of the broad genres of religious literature as:

Myth

Legend

Folklore

Ritual Instruction

Records/Genealogies

Wise Sayings

S/he might add poetry and prophecy, unless shelved under “Wise Sayings” or combined with other genres.  Regardless of the categories and their organization, these, and the expert study of them, are not the religious experience.

And so it is similar to the problem of understanding Art as an experience, as the way one encounters the world.  Reading and writing about Art, discussing the imagery of a particular artwork, each of these may be cover a degree of the experience or even a corollary result, but none of them are the entire experience of the encounter with Art.

I caution against taking this as the principle of the excluded middle, however, that “It is the case that it is either p or not-p.”  The reader sees this in the preface quotation of Sextus Empiricus, that "For either one lesson and one apprehension can make an artist of the amateur or they cannot do so at all."

Sextus, although questioning rightly the approach, proposed a false dichotomy by stating that one lesson and one apprehension makes someone an artist when it may be a matter of degrees of ability.  Because of this, he was also employing the word “artist” in a narrow way that presumes that there is no variation.

Likewise, each of these activities may be a variation of the experience of Art by degree, and even by kind through activities not directly involved. 

So it may be for an artist that s/he sees this subtlety more so than others. 

The principle of gradation:  It is the case that it is p or something between or not-p.   

  This “something between” signifies a degree of both and one could argue that the conjunction “or” is inclusive (all cases possible) instead of exclusive (only one case possible). 

One may see it as “either black or white” as below:

Although there may be more cells than two:

[I recognize that degrees between black and white should mean shades of gray between them.  I think that would be a good illustration but I wish to point out an additional perspective to this topic.  Also, the differences between two cells may be simply a matter of position of one or many other cells between the pair whether they are black or white.  The number of such cells is as infinite as that of the values that are between black and white and it will also reveal the importance of the variation.  In the “logical law” one reads it as a linear movement left to right, at least in the English language, and the linear aspect tends to blur that there are other, possible tendencies.  Further, the grades are not only horizontal but also vertical; the direction in space may be as significant as the subtle tint of color. ]

When several rows of cells align together, this changes the view so that the horizontal lines no longer appear parallel but on a slant:

For instance, when one reads “artist” then one thinks of how that individual is an artist whereas others are not or are not quite as so or maybe more so in a particular area.  “Artist” implies by complementary association not only those who are not but also those who are neither an artist nor entirely unskilled.  True, one may be an artist or not but there are many who are in-between at various degrees. 

[Complementary association is that which one may “fill in the blank” where “blank” does not mean “nothing” but a vacuum of meaning that one fills with a cultural artifact. 

E.g., “Man / _____” where most of us in Western societies would fill in “­_____” with “Woman.”  

Likewise,

hot/cold, light/dark, soft/hard, love/hate, noise/silence, high/low, et cetera.  Unless there were variations of a state of heat or of light or of sexuality one could not distinguish any entity from the Parminidean One.  Hence, I can identify p because of its particular characteristics and I know these are particular by comparison with other entities; i.e., p implies both p and not-p.

Aristotle employed these kinds of complementary and associative pairs to show a Golden Mean or a balance between them for human beings and their rational action.

E.g., the Mean between foolhardiness and cowardice must be courage.

So “courage” may imply both foolhardiness and cowardice and any degree of  these behaviors.  p implies both p and not-p.

The associative complementary pairs are equivalent to a combination of relative and absolute terms in propositional logic.

True, p may imply not-p by its complementary association.  Another aspect of

this, however, are the grades between p and not-p.  What is additionally intriguing is that one may not figure on the degrees of variations in the use of complementary pairs such as “man/woman” whereas it is more easily understood for pairs as “sweet/bitter” or “rough/smooth.”

Likely, this is because one may figure on grades between relative terms as “sharp/blunt” but may not expect them in terms thought to be absolute such as “man.”  Putting “man” into the pair of “man/woman” may appear to lack degrees of variation to those born before the 21^st century in the West, but this absolute understanding of sexuality is fading as a past cultural artifact.  Humanity does adapt to new situations, however.  It is granted that human beings can adapt to bad environments, but can they adapt to good ones? (Is it so that the sharp distinctions about sexuality that those of us learned in our upbringing in 20^th century Western society were fairly recent in history?)   As a logician once wrote, all words have relative meaning in any case as dependent upon their use.]

The artist, amateur, and all those in-between may experience Art, as the union with a presence in that moment of continuing dialogue of minds which transcends the final union of the artist with the world, whether that final union is atomization into a new cosmic order or is apotheosis into a new cosmic glory.

[One day some men visited Abba Anthony.  Among them was Abba Joseph.  Abba Anthony wanted to test them with a scripture and, beginning with the youngest, asked each of them what it meant.  After each replied, he said “You have not understood.”  Finally, he asked Abba Joseph who responded, “I do not know.”  Then Abba Anthony proclaimed, “Indeed, Abba Joseph has found the way, for he has said, ‘I do not know.’”]

9.  All my statements intrude between the viewer and Art in the same manner that a guide obstructs the tourist