On the 'Immediacy' of Art

On the "Immediacy" of Art George D. Romanos The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 36, No. 1. (Autumn, 1977), pp. 73-80. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8529%28197723%2936%3A1%3C73%3AOT%22OA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism is currently published by The American Society for Aesthetics.

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GEORGE D. ROMANOS

On the 'Tmmediacy of Art "

ART COMMONLY IS VIEWED as a medium of communication and understanding; and thus, comparisons with what is ordinarily called "language" are inevitable. A felt distinctive feature of aesthetic experience. much acclaimed, is its so-called directness or immediacy. T h e peculiar nature of the aesthetic wherein this immediacy is imagined to derive or consist, however, is very unobvious; and consequently, formulations of the alleged difference between art and language in this regard are frequently left at only a metaphorical level. I n the present essay I shall briefly examine the aesthetic views of three philosophers - Henri Bergson, D. W. Prall, and John Dewey - which exhibit fundamentally different points of departure and emphasis in attempting to establish the common central position that the kind of understanding or communication achieved through art is somehow intrinsically more direct and immediate than that made possible by the use of language. By assuming at the start only a n intuitive grasp of what is meant by "art" and "language" I will try, through consideration of the views here mentioned, to progressively clarify the issues and isolate some of the problems involved in so contrasting art and language. In accomplishing this objective, recourse will repeatedly be made to the critical comments and suggestions of Nelson Goodman, as contained chiefly in his essay, "The Way the World Is," 1 and his book, Languages of Art.2 Secondly, an effort will then be made to GEORGED . R O M A N Oteaches ~ criminal justice at Metropolitan College, Boston University.

partially reconstruct the fragmented remains of the immediacy of art thesis by exploiting a simple but fundamental portion of Goodman's resourceful theory of symbols, which is outlined at length in the book last cited.

Bergson draws the most radical contrast between art and language. For him art functions more as a source of pure metaphysical insight and understanding than as a purposefully employed medium of human communication. "So art . . . has no other object than to brush aside the utilitarian symbols, the conventional and socially accepted generalities, in short, everything that veils reality from us, in order to bring us face to face with reality itself." 3 Hergson views art as portraying something essentially concrete, individual, non-conventional, and thus, uniquely real. This is then supposed to account for an urgency, a directness, an immediacy of art, not possessed by language, mere conventionally adopted symbols which allegedly generalize the peculiarly individual features of reality and thereby construct a fictitious world of abstract general characteristics in place of the real one of radically individual concrete experience. Prall's view shares much in common with this Bergsonian critique of language. Prall holds that there is a "qualitative experiential content" presented in experience, from which language abstracts and generalizes for purely practical or theoretical reasons. Where, for Bergson language distorts

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through somehow reshaping what is given, bolization. And perhaps, then, it is in this for Prall language is unfaithful to reality way that art may be said to give a more because it fails to adequately preserve or faithful account of reality than language. reproduce everything which is originally This general position, however, that lingiven; specifically a certain "feeling" which guistic description must necessarily distort Prall claims is always focnd in the "aesthetic reality while artistic representation is somesurfaces" of things directly experienced.4 how capable of capturing the "essence" of Therefore, though Bergson and Prall differ things as they really are apart from symbolic with respect to precisely how language dis- conventions, is open to a familiar and telltorts or alters experience, both agree that ing objection which Goodman pursues viglanguage does in fact fail to faithfully repre- orously in both Languages of Art and "The sent reality as it is. I n each case this is a Way the World Is." T h e difficulty lies just deficiency from which art is supposed to be in assuming it makes any sense to begin peculiarly free. with to talk about the world, or our experiT h e simple idea that art more faithfully ence of it, independent of some conventionportrays or represents reality through "mir- ally devised scheme of symbolic description roring" or resembling it in essential respects or representation. Goodman argues that is prey to serious and widely recognized there is no standard of fidelity to the world difficulties. Whatever else might be said of with respect to which different modes of this approach it is clear that resemblance description or representation may be comitself is not a sufficient condition of one pared simply because, according to him, the thing's representing another. As Goodman world is only as it may be appropriately points out, the relation of resemblance has described or represented in the first place.8 quite a different logical behavior from that ". . . even the most realistic way of picturing of representation,s and all sorts of things [e.g., according to the "laws" of perspective] may characteristically resemble one another . . . amounts merely to one kind of convenwithout any of them necessarily represent- tionalization . . ." and, "even the truest ing each other.6 Art works, for example, description comes nowhere near faithfully will most often resemble others of a simi- reproducing the way the world is." 9 Neither lar kind - e.g., paintings, other paintings; true description nor realistic representation sculpture, other sculpture, etc. - far more capture the world in this non-conventional, than any one will resemble its subject mat- non-interpretive sense just because there is ter. "The plain fact is," observes Goodman, nothing thus to capture. Goodman's point here is, of course, essen"that a picture, to represent an object, must be a symbol for it, stand for it, refer to it; tially a contemporary version of the Kantand that no degree of resemblance is suffi- ian insight that any perception of reality cient to establish the requisite relation of requires the intervention of an organizing or conceptualizing manifold which supplies reference." 7 However, while thc conclusion that art the basic categories in terms of which exrepresents, at least in part, through sym- perience is understood. Goodman's position bolizing or referring to its subject matter, is also representative of the increasingly counts somewhat against Bergson's claim wide-spread view that this conceptualizing that artistic representation is totally non- agency is better located directly in the sysconventional - it being taken for granted tems of symbolic representation derived, that how one thing comes to serve as a sym- consciously or unconsciously, through hubol for another is largely a matter of con- man invention and ingenuity rather than vention - the possibility has not yet been in the immutable structure of the human ruled out that artworks might, in addition mind itself. T h e adoption of any system of to referring to what they represent, also symbolization amounts already to a classifisomehow resemble, copy, imitate, repro- cation and organization of experience along duce, or otherwise render their subject certain lines.10 What we perceive or experimatter as it really is, apart from such sym- ence is itself partially determined by the

O n the "Immediacy" of Art

symbolic tools we employ to describe and Surely though, art does more than just represent those experiences. Knowing, represent in the somewhat narrow and viewed as a "processing of raw materials re- literal sense we have given it here. What's ceived through the senses," must be re- more it is a plain and obvious fact that jected, Goodman explains, simply because much of what counts as genuine art does there are no such raw materials to be dis- not even pretend to be representational in covered in immediate experience, ". . . either this straightforward sense at all. Perhaps through purification rites or by methodo- instead of trying to further contrast reprelogical disinterpretation." 11 What occurs is sentation and description it will be more not mere passive reporting but rather an profitable to lump them together, where active gathering and construction of ex- they seem to belong, as roughly comparable perience in which the processes of percep- modes of referring, and seek another more tion and conception are indissolubly linked. distinctive way in which the aesthetic If it does not even make sense then to operates. While Prall is adamant that art is a mode imagine pure experience unadulterated and unmediated by any conventional descrip- of communication somehow superior to tive or representational scheme then the language in its rendering of reality, he also idea that any such scheme could be more or lays great stress upon a sharp distinction less successful in capturing experience in between how art and language function. this sense is equally meaningless. In this Language "represents meanings" insists context the claim that language distorts Prall, but art "presents meanings." 12 "The reality while art does not, or does so less unique functional value of art," he mainseriously, appears unsupportable and hard tains, "rests on the power of expression." 1 3 to fathom. T o say the world is in such-and- Art, then, is an essentially expressive mesuch a way is simply to say that it may be dium, according to this general line, while appropriately described, represented, or, language itself is only descriptive or repremore generally, referred to in such-and-such sentational. Here is offered another possible terms, or with such-and-such symbols. Per- avenue from which to approach an explicahaps one might still speak of one mode of tion of the allegedly superior directness and representation being more "realistic" o r immediacy of aesthetic experience. Prall claims that expression is not a matfaithful to the world than some other as judged relative to some further encompass- ter of conventional and pragmatic coning system, itself not in question. However, siderations, as is representation. Expression this relative superiority of one mode of is of an allegedly inherent meaning or "feelrepresentation over another falls far short ing." T h e world has a feel, Prall explains, of the special logical or epistemological "Pale blue feels milder than flaming red status both Bergson and Prall claim for just as definitely and accurately as it feels pale blue." 14 Thus, in expression there is aesthetic representation. considered to be an intrinsic and absolute relation between the meaning or "feeling" expressed and the symbol (e.g., color, shape, sound, gesture, etc.) expressing it; whereas There is more, however, to be said in be- representation is seen to consist in just an half of the superior "immediacy" of art as accidental relation, established by convena communicating medium than is contained tional association, between the representing in the Bergsonian critique of language and symbol and what it represents. T h e chief difficulty with this view is that symbols in general. Artistic representation has been explained as a symbolic function it seems to conflict pretty directly with wellclosely akin to common verbal description, recognized and obvious facts. While a sad and no reason has been found for distin- feeling may come largely as an immediate, guishing between the two with respect to unplanned, and irresistible response to a how faithfully they portray experience. picture, play, or musical composition, this

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hardly implies that the relationship is invariable and universal. Even the simplest facial expressions and body gestures are frequently found to vary significantly in their expressive import from one culture to another. T h e idea that artistic expression derives from some absolute or eternal relationship pre-dating the established conventions of particular social or cultural communities is a platonistic assumption on a par with a belief in a universal language.15 Keference, be it the representation of concrete objects or the expression of feelings, requires that a symbol acquire something like a "meaning," a certain social import derived from the common practice and experience of a society or culture. Even if a symbol could possess actual feelings as inherent properties - as Prall seems to claim - this would not begin to explain why it should express such feelings; for any symbol or other object possesses infinitely many properties yet need express none of them and is, indeed, logically precluded from expressing them all. Whatever the symbols - e.g., body gestures, ink marks, puffs of smoke, etc. - and whatever is symbolized - e.g., thoughts or meanings, feelings, concrete objects, abstract properties, etc. - the symbols must be read in order to be understood with respect to what they stand for, and not merely recognized as having certain properties or causing certain effects (i.e., emotional responses). Dewey also is concerned with expression, as opposed to representation, description, or "statement." He differs radically from both Prall and Bergson, however, in viewing artistic perception and understanding as rooted in human conventions and values: "No matter how ardently the artist might desire it, he cannot divest himself . . . of meanings funded from his past intercourse with his surroundings, nor can he free himself from the influence they exert upon the substance and manner of his present seeing." 16 Still his remoteness from the Bergsonian extreme does not prevent Dewey from speaking of expression as direct, immediate, and concrete. Expressed meanings are still somehow "inherent in immediate experience," 17 and the "individuality" of

expression is contrasted with the "generality" of statement.18 Thus there is in Dewey's account an uneasy tension between those properties artistic expression possesses just in virtue of being a purposefully employed means of interpretation and communication, and those it possesses insofar as it is specifically expre.rsive rather than descriptive or representational. What occurs, says Dewey, is a "merging" of past and present. T h e content, meaning, or subject matter of art is said to arise from "what is imbedded in the self from the past," while the concrete individuality which gives expression its characteristic force and immediacy ". . . come from the present occasion." 19 I n artistic expression "an emotion is implicated in the situation";20 and the artist "does the deed that breeds" the emotion.21 Dewey suggests, therefore, that the immediacy of artistic expression is somehow to be explained in terms of peculiarly emotive rather than cognitive considerations, and indeed the emotive character of aesthetic expression is a popular and time-honored view. Now feelings or emotional responses are themselves spontaneous, involuntary, and pre-reflective whereas "thoughts" or "ideas" may be viewed as the products of conscious interpretation and reflection. However, the problem still remains of intelligibly explaining how such feelings or emotions are conveyed or communicated as a function of artistic expression. Simply having a n emotion does not amount to recognizing anything as expressing, or even causing, that emotion. Emotive meaning is no more amenable to direct perception or apprehension than any other sort. Nothing is by-passed; to recognize a n art work as expressing something, feeling or not, requires no less cognitive skill and effort than is required for the manipulation and interpretation of symbols generally.

What, then, is aesthetic expression, and can a correct account in any way help to explain the general tendency to regard it

On the "Imnzediacy" of Art as a somehow more direct and immediate means of communicating or understanding than what has so far been called "representation" and "description"? I will now briefly sketch Goodman's proposed account of the ways symbols can refer and I will try to show how the features he picks out as characteristic of one fundamental mode of reference may help to explain much of what has been claimed for art and expression. Basic to Goodman's theory of symbols is a distinction between two primary kinds of reference; i.e., denotation and exemplification. Ordinary descriptive or representational symbols (e.g., words, photographs, diagrams, etc.) denote objects, events, or whatever; that is to say, they stand for, designate, or apply to them. This is the role of a symbol functioning as a label. Now a different referring role is played by something like a paint chip or tailor's swatch. These are used symbolically to refer to certain properties (e.g., color, texture, etc.) which they actually possess, or more strictly, following Goodman, to refer to certain predicates which actually apply to or denote them. Here we have symbols functioning as samples rather than labels, and such symbols are said to exemplify, rather than denote, what they refer to. Thus, denotation ". . . relates a symbol to things it applies to," and exemplification ". . . relates the symbol to a label that denotes it." 22 Goodman treats expression as a special variety of exemplification. First he distinguishes between the metaphorical and literal application of a predicate or label to a symbol or anything else (i.e., he distinguishes between literal and figurative possession of a property). Now where a symbol, for example, a picture, may be literally "gray," it can be "sad" only figuratively. Thus the special referential relation of expression is simply explained as one which relates a symbol, like a picture, to a label, like "sad," that metaphorically denotes or applies to it. Description and representation Goodman takes as different sorts of denoting, while expression is viewed thus as a special case of exemplification. One of the virtues of Goodman's restriction of expression to instances where exem-

plification is of only metaphorically applicable labels or predicates is that it preserves the felt remoteness of words like "sad" and "gay" from things like pictures when such non-sentient objects are said to express sadness or gaiety. This sense of "expression" is however a little narrow for our present purposes, and more important is Goodman's emphasis of the point that figurative possession of a property is not to be marked off from actual possession, but only from literal possession.23 I n the following discussion I will not distinguish sharply between expression and exemplification in general, for considerations to be introduced will be relevant simply to cases where a symbol refers to a predicate which actually applies to it, regardless of whether such application is metaphorical or literal. Now a n important point about exemplification is that whereas a sample, like a tailor's swatch, possesses an infinite number of properties (literally and figuratively) it does not thereby refer to or exemplify all of them (i.e., it does not refer to every predicate that actually applies to it). "If possession is intrinsic, reference is not; and just which properties of a symbol are exemplified depends upon what particular system of symbolization is in effect." 24 A tailor's swatch, therefore, with its infinite properties exemplifies only certain particular ones; as determined by present context and antecedent practice. Another interesting feature of exemplification is worth mentioning here. Not only does exemplification appear to be about as conventional a matter as descrip. tion and representation but there is a sense in which exemplificatiorl is even less direct 01. further removed from actual experience. For since exemplification is a way of referring to predicates or labels which already denote (i.e., they denote at least that which exemplifies them), exemplification is thus utterly dependent upon prior denotative classification and organization of experience and all the abstraction and generality which is carried with it. Both Bergson and Prall in pressing the case for the unique directness and immediacy of art and aesthetic expression found

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cause to view language as a medium essentially more conventional, practical ("utilitarian") abstract, and general in nature than art itself. Dewey, conventionality and practical purposes aside, stressed the seeming concreteness and individz~alityof the aesthetic no less vigorously. U p to this point various difficulties have been noted with respect to the claims these philosophers have made for artistic communication and understanding, however, what I want to d o now is to take a closer look at Goodman's notion of exemplification, just outlined above, and to see how, with its help, these same claims can be lent a substantial new relevance and plausibility. What I wish to show in urging this new perspective on the immediacy of art is that art, so far as it is an exemplifying medium, can, in a restricted but intelligible sense, justly be said to be less conventional or pragmatic, and more concrete and individual, than language, considered insofar as it is merely descriptive o r denotative in nature.25 Now given the premise that the way any system of symbolization as a whole organizes or categorizes experience is conventional, insofar as it cannot be based on any supposed consideration of the way the world really is, apart from ally such system, there still remains the question as to which objects are selected to play the specific symbolic roles - denotative or exemplative within such a system or within others incorporated into it. And the restriction on reference by way of exemplification to instances where the symbol in question actually possesses the property it will, by more simple convention, refer to, is a restriction after all on the conventionality with which such symbols may be chosen. Seen from within a prevailing scheme of representation, the possession of a property by an object is a theoretical issue and not simply a question of arbitrary choice; though the fact that some such organizing schema is required for anything to be recognized as anything and that convention indeed plays a crucial role in the construction of such schemes be granted. We are then free, from within a given system of representation, to choose virtually

anything to serve as a denotative symbol, compatible with considerations of our own convenience and practical purposes; however, our selection of objects to play exemplifying roles is here restricted to candidates theoretically determined to have the property we wish to symbolize. T h u s relative to an overall system exemplification is clearly less conventional than denotation, for while pure convention may play a role in determining what a symbol will refer to it does not thus determine what properties it has. Changes in the properties a thing has require, ceteris paribus, a conceptual realignment and it is thus the given so-called conceptual alignment which sets the conditions of what may properly be called upon to exemplify what. Connected with this sense of non-conventionality is, of course, also a sense in which exemplification can be said to be less pragmatic or "utilitarian" than denotation. T h e charge that the use of symbols is tied only to the requirements of practical needs and purposes may, perhaps, be interpreted as making a claim concerning the motivation behind the selection of objects to serve as symbols. Therefore we can say that insofar as the adoption of individual symbols for purposes of exemplificatory reference is restricted to instances where the symbol actually possesses the property it refers to, then the choice of objects to serve as exemplifying symbols cannot be totally subservient to practical interests. T h e non-pragmatic character of exemplification in this sense, however, has only to d o with the original adoption of specific kinds of objects to serve as symbols. Generally speaking, though, symbols are there to be used and, properly considered, are really symbols only when subject to such use. At this level, disregarding questions of origin, no one symbol is naturally any more or less pragmatic in function than another. Questions as to the different purposes for which symbols may be employed are, however, still open, and some uses may certainly be deemed less immediately practical than others, e.g., a Shakespearean sonnet versus a computer program, or a personal portrait versus a road map. And though art is, as a

O n the "Immediacy" of Art

matter of fact, most often appreciated, and occasionally pursued, "for its own sake7'whatever that means - there is little reason to think that exemplification, as explained here, is by nature any more suited to achieving only long range or "higher" objectives as opposed to more proximate and mundane ones. Exemplification can be granted roncretrness in a rather clear sense and in a manner suggestive of much of what has been claimed by the philosophers dealt with here. T h e difference between exemplification and denotation in terms of concreteness is essentially that which distinguishes samples from labels in the first place. T h e sample has and displays the property it refers to. I t serves as a concrete instance of a general characteristic. T h e sample is more or less the direct focus of interest and attention, whereas descriptive and representational labels function more as intermediaries of thought. Again, the difference is like that between ostensive and discursive definition; between providing a concrete example of something as opposed to just a verbal description of it. I n exemplification what is meant (but not the "meaning" itself) is there in roncretum, as opposed to being only named or suggested to thought by words or other denoting symbols. What has already been said in behalf of the nonconventionality and concreteness of exemplification is, as might be expected, closely related to what we may regard as its peculiar individuality. Samples display a distinctive degree of autonomy not characteristic of denoting labels, for while no particular instance of a sample is itself any more or less individual than any instance of a label, still, each individual concrete thing which serves as a sample possesses more properties related to its overall symbolic function than does any instance of a label. Take an ink mark on a piece of paper viewed as an inscription of some word-label; its individual properties are relevant only in determining what word (i.e., type) the ink mark in question is an inscription (i.e.. token) of, and are largely irrelevant to what the word itself, perhaps understood as a

class of such inscriptions, is used to denote. Now, of course, an individual thing may likewise function as a sample only when anyone of a class of similar things may also serve the same purpose, but in this case what the class as a whole symbolizes must be manifestly present in each individual thing fulfilling the conditions for membership in the class. So while an instance of "red" is only an instance of a symbol for red things, some actual red thing when employed to exemplify red is at once both an instance of a symbol for red and an instance of red as well. T h e generality of reference is, in this sense, individualized in exemplification. Exemplification viewed in the foregoing manner thus suggests itself as something which might intelligibly be regarded as a more direct or immediate kind of symbolic reference than denotation or representation. Still it must be borne in mind that symbols - exemplificational or denotative in order to be effective, as such, must be read. No matter how vivid and provocative the sample or dull and clinical the label, communication or understanding arises in either case only through recognizing their symbolic function in connection with some pre-established interpretive framework which necessarily abstracts and generalizes in the interests of a coherent ordering of experience. T h e process of reading symbols that exemplify simply involves an extra dimension beyond what takes place in the reading of denotative symbols generally. I n addition to the identification and interpretation of the symbols themselves the full reading of exemplificational symbols requires as well the simultaneous apprehension or discernment in these symbols of the very quality o r qualities thereby symbolized. I t is the unique linking of this sort of actual apprehension with more ordinary symbolic interpretation which may be credited, perhaps, with producing the pointedly direct and immediate effect of exemplification, whether occurring in purely aesthetic contexts or not. T h u s does exemplification, in Goodman's words, ". . . distinguish showing from saying," 26 or in Prall's, "presenting"

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from "representing." Exemplification may not cut through the Bergsonian "veil of symbols" to offer up reality as it is, apart from any conventional system of symbolization whatever, but it does provide a way of referring to something as it really is, in the sense of showing, presenting, or displaying what is referred to.

'Nelson Goodman, "The Way the World Is," Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 14, (1960), 48-56. Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art (Indianapolis, 1968). Henri Bergson, Laughter from the collection Comedy, Wylie Sypher, ed. (New York, 1956) p. 162. ' D. W. Prall, Aesthetic Analysis (New York, 1936) p. 142. 5 T h a t is to say, "resembles" is both reflexive and symmetrical, while "repre5ents" is neithei. Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art, pp. 4-5. Ibid., p. 5. sNelson Goodman, Languages of Art, pp. 6-19, and "The Way the World Is." ONelson Goodman, "The Way the World Is," p. 54. '"Goodman details a tiumber of specific ways in which symbol systems accomplish this task. See, for example, Languages of Art, pp. 30-33, 57-85. and 92.

Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art, p. 8. D. W. Prall. Aesthetic Analysis, p. 164. IS Leo Tolstoy. What Is Art (London, 1930) p. 163. I' D. W. Prall. Aesthetic Analysis, p. 148. l5 Goodman cites interesting testimony as to the variable and arbitrary nature of expression, artistic and otherwise, on p. 49 of Languages of Art. l6 John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York, 1934) p. 89. I' Ibid., p. 83. Is Ibid., p. 90-91. Ibid., p. 71. 2o Ibid., p. 67. 21 Ibid., p. 67. "Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art, p. 92. 23 Ibid., p. 68. 24 Ibid., p. 53. 25 In the upcoming discussion I will eschew Goodman's strict nominalist formulation of exemplification. T h e points I wish to make will come across more easily if I am allowed to speak of exemplification henceforward simply as a relation between symbols and properties they possess, rather than as a relation between symbols and predicates which apply to or denote them. Goodman himself slips rather naturally back and forth between the two idioms whenever it suits his expository purposes, although, certainly, his ultimate preference for predicates over properties is to be clearly recognized at the outset. Goodman's nominalism, however, is not the relevant virtue at issue here and I have accordingly chosen to disregard it. Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art, p. 253. l2