Introduction
In its first iteration, this chapterâs title was âA Phenomenology of Artâ. As I went about writing, however, I began by attempting to define my terms in the context of othersâ uses of them, so I read theological and philosophical works on aesthetics and the phenomenology of art in order to clarify what my working definition of âartâ would be. As I read, I became increasingly dissatisfied. As someone who sketches and paints, it was striking to me that most philosophical and theological accounts of visual art focus exclusively on consuming art made by others.
It is intuitive to me that where mysticism and art are concerned, making art has been, and still may be experienced by many as, a spiritual â if not mystical â practice. Indeed, whether we want to call such things âmysticalâ or âartâ, the contemporary popularity of art therapy, mindfulness colouring books, and indeed neurological investigations of how art-making affect the brain, suggest that making art (broadly construed) can restore human beings in ways art-makers (broadly construed) feel unable fully to articulate or understand. Much like mysticism, art-making is a lived experience that some artists describe as revealing that there is more to the world than the eye can see, mouth can say, or paint can portray. The first aim of this essay, therefore, is to argue that philosophical and theological discussions of art need to get âbeneath the surfaceâ of consuming images and artefacts made by others (what I will call art as product) to consider the process of art-making.
I propose that a Jamesian phenomenology may help us make this shift.2 There are several obstacles to achieving it, however. For even if we concede that âphenomenologies of artâ need to include more phenomenologies of making art, what we find âbeneath the surfaceâ raises several methodological questions. Indeed, this essay arguably raises more of them than it answers. In particular, after introducing what I take to be the dominant view of aesthetics as spectator sport and juxtaposing it with art as a vulnerable and variable process, I argue that focusing on art as process raises problems of polyphony and epistemic access. Even so, I suggest, attending to phenomenologies of art-making is a rich resource for both theological anthropology and the philosophy of art.
(i) Aesthetics as spectator sport
In Theodor Adornoâs draft introduction to Aesthetic Theory, he writes that âAs a phenomenology of art, phenomenology would like to develop art neither by deducing it from its philosophical concept nor by rising to it through comparative abstraction; rather, phenomenology wants to say what art isâ.3 Doing a phenomenology of art, on Adornoâs account, is difficult (if not impossible) because phenomenology is supposed to be presuppositionless and âArt does not exist as the putative lived experience of the subject who encounters it as a tabula rasa but only within an already developed language of art. Lived experiencesâ, Adorno continues, âare indispensable, but they are no final court of aesthetic knowledge. [âŠ] Art awaits its own explanationâ.4
One might wish to argue that Adornoâs demand for presuppositionlessness renders phenomenology of anything impossible. But for the purposes of this essay, this methodological question will be left aside in order to pursue others that lie beneath Adornoâs demand, namely, âwhose phenomenology?â and âwhich art?â In The Man without Content, Giorgio Agamben begins his work with Nietzscheâs critique of Kantâs aesthetics in the third essay of the Genealogy of Morals â in particular, Kantâs definition of the beautiful as impersonal and universal. Nietzsche did not consider his own book to be the place to inquire whether âthis was essentially a mistakeâ.5 Rather, Nietzsche writes, âall I want to underline is that Kant, like all philosophers, just considered art and beauty from the position of âspectatorâ, instead of viewing the aesthetic problem through the experiences of the artist (the creator), and thus inadvertently introduced the âspectatorâ himself into the concept âbeautifulââ.6 Philosophers, Nietzsche and Agamben charge, have offered definitions of beauty which fail to live up to the experience of beauty. Comparing Kantâs own definition of beauty as that âwhich gives us pleasure without interestâ with Stendhalâs, who called the beautiful âa promise of happinessâ â that is to say, something about which we are unlikely to be disinterested â Agamben follows Nietzsche in suggesting that we need to differentiate the experience of artists from aesthetics.7 This essay argues that in addition to differentiating between the experience of artists and aesthetics, we need to redress the imbalance between spectator-approaches to art (which we might call theory, or aesthetics) and art-making (which we might call praxis, or process).8
Consider Hegelâs aesthetics, where art is seen as no longer capable of satisfying the soulâs spiritual needs, as it did in earlier civilizations.9 On Agambenâs reading, Hegel correctly diagnoses the problem that âour tendency toward reflection and toward a critical stanceâ has become overpowering. Agamben continues: âwhen we are before a work of art we no longer attempt to penetrate its innermost vitality, identifying ourselves with it, but rather attempt to represent it to ourselves according to the critical framework furnished by the aesthetic judgmentâ.10 Whether or not it is true that, to paraphrase LautrĂ©ament, judgements about art have greater value than art itself, contemporary debates about how art should be defined reflect the prevalence of âinstitutionalâ definitions of art â i.e., that for art to be art it must be, as James Elkin observes, âexhibited in galleries and bought by museumsâ.11 On this view the âart worldâ holds the keys to these sacred spaces, guarding their boundaries to keep out profane impostors.
Hegelâs optimism about âknowing philosophically what art isâ may seem unwarranted to readers of aesthetics and viewers of art today, but his description, too, places the value of art in the experience and judgment of spectators:
What is now aroused in us by works of art is not just our immediate enjoyment but our judgement also, since we subject to our intellectual consideration (i) the content of art, and (ii) the work of artâs means of presentation, and the appropriateness or inappropriateness of both to one another. The philosophy of art is therefore a greater need in our day than it was in days when art by itself as art yielded full satisfaction. Art invites us to intellectual consideration, and that not for the purpose of creating art again, but for knowing philosophically what art is [. . .] Art [. . .] acquires its real ratification only in philosophy.12
Although the sources I have cited thus far have been philosophical rather than theological, in much of Western theology, too, thinking about âartâ concerns consumption, not creation. In fact, many Christian writers have warned of the dangers of visual arts. In Augustine (heavily influenced by Platonism) we find a close association of Truth and Beauty as cognates of the divine.13 And, as George Pattison writes, since âthe aim of the Christian life is to come to know this Truth, this Beauty, and to contemplate it in and for itself [âŠ] the visible world has a double characterâ.14 For on the one hand, things in the material world (in Augustineâs words) âoffer their forms to the perception of our senses, those forms which give loveliness to the structure of the visible worldâ; but this loveliness can distract the soul from its search for God, tempting it away from Truth into the sin of the âgratification of the eyeâ.15 Augustineâs mistrust of the visual sense reverberated in the Middle Ages, Reformation and beyond: beauty can become an idol, distracting us from cultivating the interior life as we ought.16
But for some art-makers the very process of making is part of cultivating the interior life, of dismantling idols or disillusioning the ego of its pretensions to centrality. Hegelâs words, like Kantâs, prioritize the universal: through philosophy â through universal rationality â on Hegelâs view, art is ratified. To reiterate my opening statements, I sketch and paint. The products of my practices would not be likely to qualify as âartâ by any institutional definition of the term. However, my own lived experience of engaging in these practices has led to dissatisfaction with the theoretical offerings of philosophical aesthetics â a dissatisfaction shared, as we shall soon see, by other artists.17
Before turning to consider those artists, however, I will introduce a critic of Hegelianism whose theoretical framework will inform the rest of my discussion: William James. In A Pluralistic Universe James argues against neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian philosophies of the absolute, suggesting in their stead radical empiricism. But as David Lamberth writes, the workâs âoverarching and enduring philosophical argumentâ is against the trend in philosophy that James calls âvicious intellectualismâ.18 As Lamberth expounds it, vicious intellectualism is âthe reigning philosophic sin of [Jamesâs] dayâ.19 It is to be distinguished from âintellectualismâ, which is âa valuation of or habitual preference for concepts as products of the intellect as opposed to percepts, sensation, or experienceâ, a preference for what James would call âknowledge-aboutâ over modes of âdirect acquaintanceââ.20 Intellectualism per se is not problematic â after all, concepts are demonstrably helpful. But the vice appears when concepts end up silencing percepts and experience. For James, as Lamberth writes, âthinking is not generally best understood along the traditional lines of contemplation or theoria. Rather, thinking is a form of adaptive behaviour oriented most basically to action in and on a relatively stable but also continuously evolving environmentâ.21 Vicious intellectualism refuses to admit that life sometimes âexceeds conceptual l...