Wherein Dutton will list the "lawlike generalizations that are neither trivially definitional nor accidental" -- i.e. generalizations of the sort "Beavers build dams" - to present a cross-cultural definition of art.
(And it should be noted that Dutton has had some cross-cultural experience in the arts: studying Sitar in southern India and sculpture with a tribal wood carver in New Guinea.) So here's his list -- the cross-cultural features of art as an act of creation, an object created, or the experience of those objects: 1.Direct Pleasure - that often derives from multilayered yet distinguishable pleasures that are experienced either simultaneously or in close proxmity -- i.e the so-called organic unity of art, with "unity in diversity" 2.Skill and virtuosity 3.style -- rules of form, composition or expression. -- style provides a stable, predictable, normal background against which artists may create elements of novelty or surprise 4.Novelty and creativity - either attention grabbing or exploring the deeper possibilities of the medium 5.criticism --wherever art forms are found they exist alongside some kind of critical language of judgment and appreciation 6.representation -- including "sometimes even music" -- to represent real or imaginary experiences of the world. 7.special focus: -- bracketed off from ordinary life - "foregrounded", or "Making special" (Ellen Dissanayake) 8.expressive individuality: --even in cultures where works are not signed - people know who does what 9.emotional saturation - of two analytically distinct:kinds: the emotions provoked by representational content - and the unique tone or flavor to each work 10.intellectual challenge --works tend to be designed to utilize the combined variety of human perceptual and intellectual capacities. 11.Art traditions and institutions (a bow to Dickie and Danto) - works of art gain their identity by the ways they are found in historical tradition. 12.Imaginative Experience - "perhaps the most important of all characteristics on the list". 'All art happens in a make-believe world -- in the theater of the imagination" - separate from "normal, human conscious life", "de-coupled from practical concern" Note: In each case, Dutton offers examples where non-art involves the same thing - so he's not suggesting any of these are exclusive to art. And he's prepared for the suggestion (which I would make) that given this list, the World Series of baseball would easily qualify as a work of art. (he uses #12 to dispute that, since fans are mostly concerned with the real world result of who wins - although I would argue that such a concern is blatantly impractical - especially at the World Series where most fans are watching other teams play each other) I would also suggest that conducting a good conversation - even on this listserv - would also meet all 12 of the criteria. But all of which examples, Dutton tells us, offer "the possibility of fruitful debate and analysis in such cases is an advantage of my list" Or does it? Apparently, Dutton has spent many happy hours discussing this list with students in a classroom in New Zealand, but I think that a carefully non-normative list like this is just boring. Perhaps the feature of "intellectual challenge" would provoke a heated debate - but Dutton does not claim that ANY of these features are necessary. Nor can this list be used to help argue how one artwork is better than another. A work that meets all 12 criteria is not necessarily any better than one which meets only 9. And he makes a point of omitting the criteria of "being expressive or representative of cultural identity" -- since it is "trivially true" that all art arises in a culture and is therefore a cultural product." But that is only true when applying a trivial notion of cultural identity. Before he offered the list, Dutton noted that "philsophy is most robust and stimulating - frankly, most fun - when it argues for some uniquely and exclusively true position and attempts to discredit plausible alternatives" -- a stimulation which Dutton is not going to offer. Instead, he's want to find the "essential nature" of "a field of activitees, objects, and experience that appears naturally in human life" But what is there about bad, mediocre, or simply boring art that is worth understanding ? --- except, perhaps, as a therapeutic activity for those who have been damaged in some way? Dutton says "Is it art?" is not a question that ought to be given over to experts to decide for us" But if expertise is not required -- why should anyone care? Just so that we can read statements of the obvious? Perhaps the list would find its best application in the work of cultural anthropologists, and I wonder whether any of them have carried it into their field work. He'll address that issue in the next chapter. ____________________________________________________________ Weight Loss Program Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here! http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/c?cp=-RYseitRQ-ZsYfRUmZigswAAJz6c l_zTaptgNR5c8Mer1v9kAAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEUgAAAAA=
