Participatory Art and Appreciative Practice

Author(s): David Novitz

Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Spring, 2001), pp. 153-165
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/432221 .
Accessed: 14/01/2015 11:51
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Wiley and The American Society for Aesthetics are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DAVID NOVITZ

Participatory Art and Appreciative Practice

It is well known that there are degrees of appreciation: that one person may appreciate a
novel or a painting or a play more adequately
than someone else, who nonetheless appreciates it in some lesser degree. It is also well
known that different kinds of art require different sorts of responses if they are to be appreciated to the right degree. A novel demands an attentive reading and requires its
readers to involve themselves imaginatively
with the world it describes; a painting invites
informed, attentive visual perception and
some degree of imaginative projection; and
music requires similarly informed, imaginatively spiced, aural perception.
My interest in this paper is with those
largely neglected art forms that cannot adequately be appreciated, and cannot function
properly, unless the viewer is physically present in the artwork itself or a performance of
it, and, while there, participates in certain activities that arise out of and are required by
these works.' Such art I call "participatory
art." My claim will be that the forgotten history of participatory art shapes the conventions that govern the appreciation of literature, painting, music, sculpture, dance, and
certain other art forms; that once we understand the socio-political origins of these conventions in participatory art, we can amplify
them in ways that enable us to appreciate
contemporary nonparticipatory works of art
more adequately-by making such works
more revealing, more interesting, and certainly more challenging.
I. THE SCOPE OF PARTICIPATORY ART

It is tempting but wrong to suppose that participatory art is rare and unfamiliar. Quite

the contrary, such artworks are common but

are also commonly overlooked in theoretical
writing about the arts. Failure to recognize
the importance and the prevalence of this
variety of art, I shall show, distorts not just
the ways in which we think about art and its
comprehension, but distorts as well our understanding of how art influences us and affects our perception of, and our actions in,
the world.
A strong case can be made (although I
shall not make it here) for saying that in earlier periods of European culture, participatory art was the norm and so was more widespread than it is at present. The rise of
nonparticipatory art, I shall argue, is a comparatively recent phenomenon that distorts
our theories of what art is and diminishes
our appreciation of particular works of art.
At first sight, the most obvious participatory
art forms are, I suppose, architecture, some
varieties of performance music and drama,
public gardens, and monuments-but, as I
show, an argument can be made for other,
more embracing and much larger participatory art forms that grasp the popular imagination and that seek sometimes to convey or
reinforce beliefs, or else exploit widely held
values. A good deal of what I call participatory art is also public in nature, in the sense
that it is often official or semiofficial art,
funded by the state or by organized groups
of people to serve the aims, whether benevolent or malicious, of those who govern or
seek to govern them. Some gardens, like
public squares and their fountains, churches,
cathedrals, palaces, parliament buildings, or
presidential homes, are public and participatory in my sense, although not all public

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 59:2 Spring 2001

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

154

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

art-official painting, sculpture, or poetry,

for instance-is participatory in the sense
that I have outlined.2 Nor, as we shall see, is
all participatory art public.
While some works of art plainly are participatory in my sense, it is not the case that
they can only be appreciated through the
presence and actions of the viewer within
them.3 They can also be appreciated "from
the outside"-that is, without being physically present in the works and without participating in the activities that the works prescribe. A building, qua work of art, may be
appreciated from without-by admiring its
facade or its proportions. But a more comprehensive appreciation requires one to step
inside, and, even more importantly, to engage in the activities for which the building
was designed. To participate in the work in
this way plainly heightens one's appreciation
of it by making one more aware of the various virtues and deficiencies of the work;
whether and how it succeeds or fails in fulfilling its architectural function. Here I am
put in mind of Domenech i Montaner's Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau in Barcelona, whose wonderful gardens, domes, turrets, and highly colored ceramic tiles can
certainly be appreciated "from the outside"
by the casual tourist. But looking at it as a
hospital, one is forced to wonder what the
structure is like for a nurse, a doctor, or a patient. A more comprehensive appreciation
of the complex demands one's participation
in it, perhaps not only as doctor, patient, or
nurse, but also as a visitor or as a cleaner.
One could say that a comprehensive appreciation of such a structure requires both an
"external" and an "internal" (or participatory) response to the work, and that the two
need not exclude each other. Moreover, unless it receives an appropriate participatory
response, it plainly cannot function as a hospital.
While the above example gives us a rudimentary account of participatory art, it tends
to disguise the extensiveness of the phenomenon. We can best get at this by distinguishing between what I shall call discrete and
compound works of art. A discrete work of
art is one that is not made up of other works
of art. In this sense, a particular painting,

sculpture, or poem is a discrete work of art:it

does not consist of other works. A compound work, by contrast, is one that is the
product of a variety of discrete works. Many
participatory works of art are compound
rather than discrete. Take the case of Westminster Abbey. There are good reasons for
thinking of it as a work of art, albeit a very
complex multifaceted work. It clearly embodies and exemplifies values that its designers wished to have taken seriously; yet the
delicate and painstaking craftsmanship, the
considerable levels of artistry,that have been
used to convey these values incline one to
the view that the Abbey, whatever else it is, is
also a work of art.4 It is a work of art that
consists of many discrete works, that invites
the physical presence within it of its viewers,
who, under normal circumstances, are required to respond to it in the largely religious ways intended by its designers, failing
which, it cannot function as an Abbey.
The kind of participation in the work that
participatory art requires is public rather
than private, actual rather than virtual or
purely imaginary.The viewer has to be physically present in the work or a performance of
it, and has to behave in a prescribed manner
while there, so as to enhance his or her appreciation of it. Literature, then, is not participatory in the required sense, for a reader or
a viewer cannot literally be present-that is,
physically present-in the literary work of
art. The same goes for painting and the cinema. Opera could be, but is not as a matter of
fact, a participatory art form. That said,
opera houses, theatres, and museums often
are compound and participatory works of
art. One can be physically present within
their spatial confines, and they require certain forms of appreciative behavior if they
are to function appropriately as museums,
opera houses, or theatres. Then again, viewers can literally be present in the performance of a play-say, a pantomime-which
can and sometimes does take place all
around them, and they may be conventionally required to respond in closely specified
ways to the action of the play, where these
responses clearly enhance their appreciation
of it, and also allow the play to achieve its intended effects.

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Novitz

Participatory Art and Appreciative Practice

This is enough, I think, to show that the

phenomenon of (compound) participatory
art is currently widespread. It has been so for
most of the history of Western civilization.
Looking to the origins of our own culture, we
find that it is manifest in classical times, as
well as in both medieval and Renaissance architecture, whether sacred or secular. Indeed, it is a fact that very few paintings and
sculptures in Europe up to and including the
mid-Renaissance were intended as standalone pieces. Most were commissioned as
discrete parts of compound works of art.
Going right back to the religious sanctuary
at Delphi, we find that the site as a whole was
intricately designed to form an awe-inspiring
dynamic whole-all in the context of one of
the loveliest and most impressive landscapes
in ancient Greece: the slopes of Mount Parnassus in Phokis. Individual buildings were
not designed as autonomous structures; they
were designed in relation to each other, and
contained many discrete works of artmainly sculpture-placed so as to dignify individual temples and treasuries in ways that
would contribute to the overall majesty of
the sanctuary. The use of poetry and music
(highlighted in the Pythian games, held in
the stadium at Delphi every four years from
582 B.C. onwards) together made the site a
carefully designed (and a continuously redesigned) whole that was renowned for its dignity and its beauty throughout the Mediterranean world. There is good reason to think
of it not just as a religious center, but also as
a compound work of art that was clearly intended to legitimate and reinforce particular
secular beliefs and values, because it played
the important political role of resolving conflicts between particular city states, while at
the same time enhancing the power of the
oracle and her priests. More importantly, it
was a compound work that required visitors
to the site to respond to it by behaving in certain prescribed ways. There was the long
walk from the Gulf of Corinth up to the
sanctuary, during the course of which its size
and grandeur would gradually unfold and
impress itself on the petitioner; there were
permitted and proscribed forms of behavior
while on the site, enforced by the
Amphictyony; there were the respectful

155

votives of rich families, the deference to the

Oracle, and ritual forms of observation and
worship-all of which had the effect of offering another, an "internal" or participatory,
dimension to the appreciation of the site,
without which the religious sanctuary could
not properly function.
Turn now to Arnolfo di Cambio's thirteenth-century Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.
This, by contrast, is a wholly secular building,
intended as a monumental public display of
unassailable worldly power that does not
just depend on the formidable exterior of
what is now Florence's Town Hall but on the
exhibition, hence the possession, of
well-placed and sometimes brilliantly executed discrete works of art. Partly because of
changes in Florence's constitution, but also
because of a constant awareness of a need to
reinforce political power, the palazzo was
radically restructured in 1540 when Cosimo
I, as Duke of Florence, employed Giorgio
Vasari to execute the ceiling paintings and
heroic murals in the Salon dei Cinquento-the huge assembly hall of the Florentine Republic. Vasari had been reluctantly
commissioned, very much as a second choice,
only after Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo failed to execute a series of frescoes for
which they had been hired. Leonardo's experimental technique apparently failed him
on this occasion; more intriguingly, Michelangelo abandoned the project only because
he was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II
in order to engage on a Papal commission.
This event allows us to glimpse the play of
power that surrounded public art at that
time, for whatever else he had done, the
Pope had effectively demonstrated and emphasized his own power by depriving
Cosimo of Michelangelo's skills. To possess
and exhibit the work of Michelangelo was itself proof of dominance and control.
It is worth pausing here to take note of the
fact that although Michelangelo was, as Arnold Hauser and Janet Wolff maintain, the
first "modern" artist-the first artist, that is,
to be considered fully responsible for his
achievements5-it is plain that the work he
did was almost invariably part of some or
other collaborative project whose form and
sometimes whose content was partly, some-

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

156

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

times largely, determined by the sacred or

secular interests of people other than himself, so that his works of art were merely discrete parts of very large compound works of
art from which they took a good deal of their
flavor and significance.6 It may be that Michelangelo is now considered the first artist
wholly responsible for his work, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
The Palazzo Vecchio, like many of the
compound works to which Michelangelo,
Leonardo, Vasari, Bernini, and almost every
Renaissance painter or sculptor of repute
contributed, is designed in a way that demands the participation of those who are required to enter it. So, for instance, ambassadors and others who sought an audience with
the Duke would bide their time in the audience chamber-the Sala d'Udienza. Here,
assaulted by Cecchino Salviati's fresco cycle
and by Giuliano da Maiano's richly guilded,
highly ornate ceiling, they would respond
deferentially, awed and sometimes overawed
by the beauty, hence the taste, of the authorities with whom they were to confer.
The Palazzo Vecchio plainly is a compound and a participatory artwork. As with
Westminster Abbey, the sorts of activities
that it requires of those who participate in it
are determined by the values that the designers of these artworks wished to convey, to
emphasize, to reinforce, and to legitimate.
Each compound work demands a certain
kind of response-"demands" in the sense
that to fail to comply is usually to give grave
offence, perhaps even to court severe punishment (as in the case of the sanctuary at
Delphi) or physical expulsion (as in the case
of some churches-perhaps Westminster
Abbey). But it "demands" it, too, in the sense
that the work cannot function properly and
cannot be properly appreciated unless participation of the appropriate sort occurs.
Think now of the glorious, consummately
designed and finely crafted Anticollegio in
the Palazzo Ducale in Venice, which, like the
Sala d'Udienza in the Palazzo Vecchio, was
the room in which ambassadors were required to sit and pass the time before being
admitted (eventually) to the presence of the
Doge and his cabinet. It contains four paintings by Tintoretto, and facing the windows is

Veronese's The Rape of Europa. The effect is

one of lavish but finely modulated beauty.
The taste of the Doge and his court is everywhere apparent, but so too is the power of
the man who can command such fine and
rare craftsmanship, and commission the best
artists to contribute their labor to the glory
of the Republic. The immersion of a foreign
ambassador in this overwhelming assemblage of beauty and craftsmanship demands
his respect, perhaps his deference, excites his
awe, and in the process, inevitably softens
the manner (if not the message) of the ambassador. These artworks, placed where they
are, convey a measure of respect on behalf of
the Republic to visiting ambassadors, and
this, of course, makes noncompliance with
the Doge's wishes more difficult, and perhaps even a cause for offence.
On my view, the sanctuary at Delphi (like
many other classical sites), Westminster
Abbey (like countless other Renaissance cathedrals and churches), the Palazzo Vecchio
and the Palazzo Ducale (like countless other
Renaissance and pre-Renaissance palaces),
and the Palace of Westminster (like countless other parliaments and state buildings
the world over) are all compound and participatory artworks. When we think of the
many discrete artworks that a compound
artwork like Westminster Abbey contains,
the many paintings, statues, sculptures, and
tombs-as well as the music, oratory, poetry,
literature, and song that permeate the activities it houses-it is reasonable to ask why all
of these artworks have been brought together in this way, at considerable expense,
to form a single glorious and aesthetically
overwhelming whole. The answer by now is
obvious: the Abbey, to take one example, is
primarily a seat of Christian worship, and, as
I have already intimated, has carefully been
designed in a way that emphasizes, reinforces, and elevates a range of beliefs and
values associated with a particular form of
Christianity. Although a compound work of
art, it is quite wrong to think of it as an autonomous artwork; it serves a particular
function (or cluster of related functions) in
much the way that the Palazzo Ducale and
the Palazzo Vecchio do, and it is designed
with considerable care and attention to de-

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Novitz

Participatory Art and Appreciative Practice

tail only because of a strong commitment

(on the part of its designers) to that function.
Put differently, we may say of each one of the
discrete artworks within the Abbey that it is
there in the service of a particular aim, goal,
or ideal-that each occupies the place it
does, and may sometimes take the form it
does, to help complete a compound work of
art that serves a particular purpose or complex set of purposes. Certainly that purpose
need not be reflected in the content of any of
the discrete works that form part of it, but
this does not affect the fact that such purposes exist, and that they work in the service
of certain ideals.
II. SOME QUALIFICATIONS

We now have a much better idea of the nature and extent of participatory art. Whether
or not we allow that participatory art exists
at all (at least in the way that I have delineated it) will depend on the ontology of art
to which we subscribe. An idealist about art
plainly will not allow that one can be physically present in a work of art, because works
of art, on this view, are nonphysical entities.
Since I do not propose to enter this debate
here, I will simply assume that, whatever else
they are, works of art always enjoy a physical
dimension. More particularly, I will assume,
after Joseph Margolis, that they are always
physically embodied, and, for this reason,
that it is possible for viewers to be physically
present in at least some works.7 It is worth
noticing, though, that the physical presence
of a person in a work or its performance is
not sufficient for participatory art. It is possible for a violinist to be physically present in a
performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, yet this does not entail that the symphony is an example of participatory art. On
the contrary, the violinist helps to perform,
and so helps to instantiate the work; the participation required in participatory art, by
contrast, does not help instantiate the work.
The work, or a token of it, already exists; participation, rather, is required both for a comprehensive appreciation of the work and for
the satisfactory fulfillment of its function,
but not for its completion, its performance,
or its instantiation.8

157

All of the participatory art that we have so

far considered has been compound rather
than discrete; this is for the simple reason that
overwhelmingly most participatory art is
compound. Even so, there is no reason why a
discrete work of art should not also be participatory in my sense of this word, provided that
it makes sense to speak of it as "functioning
properly."9 While most paintings, novels,
sculptures, and plays are discrete works of art
that do not require the physical presence of
the viewer or reader in the artwork, there are
exceptions. In Charles Ray's (discrete) sculpture Still Life'Oa table stands at the head of a
room. On it are a number of everyday objects:
a bowl of flowers, a tumbler, a jar, a dish. As
one walks away from the table, bemused by
its banality, one notices that dangling from
below is an electric cord with an electric plug
appended. The cord literally dangles; it is not
attached to an outlet or socket. One is forced,
if one is attentive, first to peer and then to
scramble underneath the table, lying on one's
back, and looking upward, where one finds
affixed to the interior surface of the table-top
a vast electronic infrastructure "designed to
support" the few objects on the table above.
There are glowing green lights, "on" and "off'
switches for the bowl, the jar, and the tumbler.
Although the structure is not plugged in, it
continues to glow, flicker, and pulsate, and to
give "power" busily to the objects above,
which, with freshly discovered irony, constitute the still life.
Here we have a discrete work of art-a
sculpture-that plainly is not made up of any
other works of art, but which is nonetheless
participatory in that its appreciation and its
proper effect (hence, its proper functioning)
require the physical presence of the viewer
in the artwork, as well as specific activities on
her or his part. One cannot, for instance, experience the work properly unless one drops
on all fours and clambers underneath it. In
this case, the viewer's participation is demanded in a way that does not occur, say,
when one views Michelangelo's Pietd, or his
Moses sitting sternly above the tomb of Pope
Julius II in San Pietro in Vincolo. Ray's Still
Life requires the viewer to behave in ways
typically foreign to sculpture. It literally
forces one to one's knees; as a result, one

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

158

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

does obeisance to the objects on the table

and the electronic infrastructure that supports them, and in behaving in this way, one
finds oneself in the position of the consumer
fetishist. In appreciating the work, therefore,
one is forced into a position of traditional
subservience that highlights the irony of the
work, and this plainly figures in one's appreciation of it.
Could a series of paintings that have to be
viewed from within a recess in a gallery constitute participatory art?11We already know
that a museum or an art gallery can certainly
qualify as a participatory work. But the
problem is to know whether a particular part
of such a gallery-in this case, a recess in a
particular wall that houses a series, say, of
three paintings-is similarly a participatory
work of art.
Clearly a series of paintings cannot itself
be a participatory work of art. Paintings are
two-dimensional objects. Since viewers are
three-dimensional, they cannot be physically
present within them, thus disqualifying them
from the status of participatory art. If, however, the recess together with the paintings
constitutes a compound work of art, then
there may be a case for thinking of it as participatory art. Much, of course, depends on
the nature of the recess, and whether it and
the paintings it contains can properly be regarded as a compound work of art. If so, and
if the work also requires not just the presence
of viewers within it but appropriate behavior
on their part both in order to appreciate it
properly and so that it can function appropriately as part of a gallery, then it plainly is a
participatory work of art. Deciding, though,
whether a recess in a gallery qualifies as a
compound work of art calls for judgment;
there are no clear rules here. We appeal to
extant bodies of theory, history, and prevailing systems of value in deciding the matter,
and until it is decided, we cannot proclaim
the recess a participatory work of art.12
Most participatory art, I have said, is compound, and this, I shall show, has important
consequences both for the appreciation of
art in general and for our understanding of
the concept of art. But before proceeding to
this, it is important to see that although compound participatory art was widespread in

classical, medieval, and Renaissance art, it is

by no means a phenomenon confined to the
past. It is alive and well in the present century, not just in architecture, public gardens,
or national monuments, but also in vast public works of popular art, most especially the
theme park.
III. FROM DELPHI TO DISNEYLAND

It might seem bizarre to think of Disneyland

as a work of art, but if we allow that the Palazzo Ducale and Delphi are compound
works of art, there is no good reason for contending that Disneyland is not. Each of these
installations embodies beliefs and values of a
sort that the designers of the installation
wish to have taken seriously-Disneyland
no less than Delphi.
The analogies and the differences are obvious. Whereas Delphi overtly emphasizes
religious and political values and beliefs, and
brings people to participate in them, Disneyland emphasizes, and, in the process, legitimates, through a series of discrete works of
popular art, a range of hedonistic and economic beliefs and values that are celebrated
by the viewer's participation in this massive
compound work. Importantly, the installation conveys pleasures that are available to
all who can afford the entrance fee-from
the very young and uninformed to better informed but always playful and pleasure-seeking adults. These values are embodied in easily experienced and easily
understood events, buildings, rides, music,
and song that form part of certain self-contained worlds-simply named in ways that
advertise the pleasures that lie within: Fantasyland, Toontown, Frontierland, Adventureland, and Tomorrowland.
Each "land" contains carefully designed
buildings, gardens, statues, grand vistas,
music, sculpture, and song, and each offers
rides that appeal to a very basic understanding of history, community, well-known works
of children's literature, or else children's
movies. Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the
Pooh, The Wind in the Willows, Pinocchio,
and Snow White are just some of the literary
works and movies that are appropriated and
simplified in ways that demand very little in-

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Novitz

Participatory Art and Appreciative Practice

tellectual competence or sensitivity on the

part of the audience, but which nonetheless
convey to them a warmed-over, highly enjoyable, well-digested, and hence easily accessible experience of the more obvious aspects of these works. The rides are carefully
designed in some cases to convey the impression of an unspoiled, innocent world filled
with goodwill, color, and song (It's a Small
World); in other cases, they convey the thrill
of high-adventure movies and novels by allowing the participant to feel part of the action of Indiana Jones or Star Wars.Virtual reality and computer simulation offer one all
the (supposed) sensations of flying in a Star
Wars space transporter, whereas, in the case
of Indiana Jones, one sits in a jeep that traverses most of the "space" of the Indiana
Jones adventures, exposes one to rolling
boulders, volcanoes, cliff edges, dangerous
mountain passes, and savage tribes-all at
breakneck speed as one careers through
"hostile" territory in a jeep.
Each land, and the rides that it includes, is
skillfully designed to maximize the enjoyment and pleasure of the participants. Participation is secured by allowing oneself to
enjoy the experience, by "letting oneself go,"
where this specifically excludes an intellectualized response to the work and its parts. The
barrier to inclusion and participation in the
case of Disneyland is not religious or political affiliation (as with Delphi or Westminster
Abbey), nor is it a lack of information or
proper education. Rather the primary barrier is economic wherewithal. So whereas
Delphi would have normalized and entrenched certain attitudes to religion and
politics, Disneyland legitimates certain views
of wealth and desert-namely, that pleasure
is only properly deserved by those who can
afford it. Put differently, one view that is
clearly, albeit inadvertently, conveyed by the
fact that it costs over one hundred dollars for
a family of three to enter Disneyland for a
day's entertainment is that it is entirely
proper that those who cannot pay should not
partake of the pleasures that Disneyland affords. Similar constraints on entry were not a
part of the Palazzo Ducale, Westminster
Abbey, or Delphi during their heydaythough there were of course other con-

159

straints on entry.13Of course, if the community served by Disneyland is very wealthy,

the entrance fee will not be considered a barrier to entry. On the contrary, Disneyland
will convey the view to members of this community that the United States is a land of
plenty, a robustly wealthy country that offers
pleasure and delight to all.
These values and beliefs certainly can be
conveyed by Disneyland but, even when
conveyed, somehow remain unspoken and
unremarked. They do not form part of the
content of the discrete works (the rides,
sculptures, buildings, songs) that constitute
it. Far from being a message "in" these
artworks, and so a part of their content, they
are what I have elsewhere described as messages "through" art.14That is to say, they are
messages that do not properly attach to, and
cannot be derived from, the content of the
discrete works that constitute Disneyland.15
Nor need it be the case that it is a message
intended by those who designed the work.
Rather, a message "through" a work of art is
one that is a function of certain widely held
beliefs, values, or presupposed attitudes that
surround its production and display, and to
which the artist appeals, either deliberately
or inadvertently.
What is true of Disneyland is, I would venture, true of all compound participatory
works of art, each of which is premised on,
and arises out of, certain background beliefs
and values that sometimes permeate our
perception of the value of the work of art.16
It is not a message "in" Disneyland that hedonism is harmless and worthwhile, but it is a
message that the compound work nonetheless conveys-as well as the message that
those who work hard and so have wealth
ought to be allowed to enjoy the harmless
yet beneficial pleasures that their money can
afford. It is a message, too, that permeates
our appreciation of each ride, for we assess
the ride in terms of pleasure per dollar; this,
at least, is what we mean when we ask
whether it offers value for money.
IV. COMPOUND ART AND APPRECIATION

My claim, then, is that a painting or a statue

that exists within a compound work of art

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

160

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

cannot be comprehensively appreciated if

we attend only to its formal features or representational content. Unless viewers also
take into account the messages conveyed
"through" the work-messages that derive
from the beliefs, values, and aims that infuse
the compound work-their understanding
and appreciation of it will inevitably be limited.
To get a better grasp of this, let us return
once more to Delphi. How contemporaries
perceived and understood discrete works
such as the Sanctuary of Athena Pronaia or
the Athenian Treasurywas, of course, greatly
influenced by a range of complex beliefs and
values. These were the same beliefs that had
led to, and had strongly influenced, the construction of the entire sanctuary at Delphi,
and that had helped regulate the participatory behavior deemed appropriate within it.
Hence, to admire the formal features-the
symmetry, the elegance-of the Treasury is
not to understand and so not to appreciate
the discrete work in all of its different dimensions. This is because it plays a role in a
complex of effects that are not just formal,
expressive, or, for that matter, representational; it is religious and political as well.
Certainly, the political dimension of the
Treasury is not a message that can be found
"in"9 it, or, indeed, "in" the sanctuary at
Delphi itself. Rather, the political dimension
of the sanctuary, like its religious dimension
and the intricate relationships between the
two, is a message "through" the work-a
message, moreover, that needs to be grasped
not just in order to appreciate the grandeur
of the sanctuary but also in order to understand and appreciate the force of any discrete work within it.
If this is right, then there is something
wrong with the widespread view bred, I
think, of our romantic and high modernist
heritage, according to which we can and
should view discrete works of art, such as the
Tintoretto paintings in the Anticollegio, independently of their broader surroundings
in a compound work. For, as I have tried to
show, the Anticollegio, like the Palazzo
Ducale in which it is located, is politically
motivated: it is expressly designed to convey
the consummate taste, wealth, and power of

the Doge, while seeming to pay respect to

the artistic sensibilities, refinement, and sensitivity of visiting ambassadors. But it does
this in order to make disrespect to the Venetian Republic and its officers more difficult,
to extract compliance from its petitioners,
and, in the end, to reinforce control and assure its dominance.
This is the message "through" the
Anticollegio, and it is a message that needs to
be taken into account if we really mean to understand and appreciate the impact that the
four Tintoretto paintings would have helped
to create. It is true, of course, that at one
level-what we could call an explicit level, or
the level of conventional art appreciation-these paintings were meant, not just by
Tintoretto but also by those who commissioned them and had them placed in the
Anticollegio, to be considered more or less
autonomously, with a mind only to their formal, representational, and expressive qualities. It would be quite wrong, at the conventional level, to respond to these works by
attending to the extraneous beliefs that led to
their commission and to their current location in the Palazzo Ducale. This is why a visiting ambassador might be permitted to speculate aloud on the formal beauty of the
Tintorettos and their majestic content, but
not on the Doge's political reasons for including them in the Anticollegio. This is the circumspection that the proper, conventionally
prescribed participation in the compound
work-the Anticollegio-requires. Failure to
respond in the appropriate way would have
been the occasion of strong disapproval, even
a lengthy stay in the austere chambers below.
What begins to be apparent, I think, is that
some of the conventionally prescribed forms
of participation in the participatory works of
art of Renaissance Europe also stipulated
what have since come to be regarded as the
only appropriate ways of appreciating and so
understanding works of art in general. This I
venture as a reasonable empirical hypothesis, to be confirmed in due course by art-historical research. It is a reasonable hypothesis
only because of the hold that tradition has
over human thought and practice. Since, as
we now know, the prescribed participatory
responses of some compound artworks were

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Novitz

Participatory Art and Appreciative Practice

favored because they effectively disguised

the political or economic aims of those who
had commissioned these works, people were
gradually brought to the view that one could
only properly appreciate art by attending to
its formal, representational, and expressive
properties, certainly not to any political or
economic ends that art might serve. And the
trouble, of course, is that to respond to the
Tintorettos in ways required by the appreciative conventions of the day, and demanded by proper participation in the compound work, would be to fail to understand
their effect properly, and would be to succumb to the Doge's preference to have viewers leave certain facts unheralded and unremarked.
It is important, as well, to see that different
appreciative traditions could easily have
arisen out of different kinds of participatory
art. Those responsible for some compound
works, such as cathedrals and churches, obviously did not wish to confine the appreciation
of the discrete works within them to formal,
expressive, and representational considerations. Quite the contrary, they wanted people to appreciate the compound work and its
components religiously, by feeling the presence and majesty of God in these works, by
expressing their feelings of awe, and by apprehending and admiring the devotion of
those of God's servants who had so labored,
sometimes over centuries, to create these
works. In other words, those responsible for
the great cathedrals of Europe had every
hope that the viewing public would comprehend both the messages "in" and some of the
messages "through" these works. It is this
variation in conventionally prescribed participatory responses that set in place, so I hypothesize, different appreciative traditions,
and that, historically speaking, set the scene
for the theoretical disputes about appropriate modes of appreciation that are so much a
part of the contemporary philosophy of art.
In a nutshell, what we inherit from such
participatory traditions, and what infuses
much critical discourse on the arts,is the idea
that there are forms of inquiry that are
proper to appreciation, and others that are
wholly improper, even when they inform us
about important dimensions of the work that

161

require considerable artistry and skill for

their execution. We therefore have ample
reason to subject particular appreciative traditions to critical scrutiny. For if, in appreciating a work, we hope to arrive at a more or
less comprehensive understanding of it, anything that prevents comprehension should
be exposed and disposed of. Relative to this
goal, any appreciative tradition that confines
appreciation of the Tintorettos in the
Anticollegio to the formal, representational,
and expressive properties of these works
should be resisted. There plainly is another,
and a different, way in which such works
must be appreciated if we hope to have a
more comprehensive understanding of them:
a form of appreciation that allows us to extract the message conveyed "through" the
work and to assess how well the paintings
achieve their ulterior end. On the view I
favor, therefore, the conventions that rule
our participation in the work, and that determine what will count as a proper appreciation of it, often hide important aspects of the
work and the actual, albeit unspoken, effects
that it has.
Participatory art also affords to art theory
the widely held belief that genuine art requires an active, contributory-usually a
considered and a thoughtful-response on
the part of a viewer, and that it is this that
distinguishes genuine art from mere entertainment, hence from low or popular art,
which, it is thought, requires a wholly passive, hedonistic response to the work. But
this view is also suspect. Very little that
passes as entertainment requires physical,
intellectual, or emotional passivity on the
part of an audience. There are, of course, degrees of passivity, but it soon becomes clear
that if popular entertainment is at the lower
end of this scale, so too is abstract impressionism. Still more, we have already seen
that as a compound participatory work of
popular art, Disneyland requires the active
involvement of the viewer and that this is not
the least bit incompatible with its being a
form of entertainment. When we come to
consider computer games as forms of entertainment, it becomes entirely obvious that
any attempt to characterize entertainment as
passive hedonism is simply mistaken.

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

162

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

Nonetheless, the related belief that much

good art, sometimes high art, requires active
intellectual work on the part of a viewer or
audience is entirely correct. What we need to
notice is that a compound work such as Disneyland does have the effect of creating an
appreciative tradition in which intellectual
effort on the part of the viewer is considered
both unwelcome and avoidable. It is because
of works such as these, and the appreciative
traditions they create, that the words "highbrow" or "pointy-headed" have the force that
they do, and that so many people are encouraged to dismiss works of art that require a demanding and informed intellectual response.

rects their attention to, and allows them to

formulate, reasons for their claims about the
work. For to behave appropriately within the
Anticollegio, one would need to view the
paintings in ways that were customary at that
time: by attending to their content, their formal properties, and the skill of execution.
These considerations together would have
given any ambassador reason enough to proclaim the paintings excellent of their kind,
and, by implication, there would be reason to
suppose that the Doge, his court, or his predecessors were all people of considerable
cultivation and taste. But, given the participatory conventions that then prevailed, the
Anticollegio did not offer ambassadors explicit reasons for the view that the Doge was
oppressively powerful, someone to be
feared, and someone to be placated. Certainly they would sooner or later be brought
to this view after being ushered into the
Anticollegio, but the form of persuasion in
this case is much stealthier than reason-giving can ever be. Indeed, most ambassadors
would not have known precisely how they
came to these beliefs, or why (after exposure
to the rich artworks of the Anticollegio) they
were more inclined to act deferentially when
in the presence of the Doge. The persuasion
involved is seductive, not rational, and it
works only because the ambassadors have
grasped, they know not how, certain messages "through" the work.17
In other words, the work can only have the
impact that it does have both because the
viewer is tacitly aware of certain messages
"through" it and because she or he does not
directly attend to, articulate, and clearly apprehend the force of these messages. For to
attend directly to them is to dispel some of the
illusions that the works are meant to create
-their spell would be broken and the Doge
would stand revealed as manipulative rather
than tasteful, hence as worthy of defiance
rather than as someone to be deferred to.
Nonetheless, an adequate critical appreciation of the compound work requires that
the viewer experience it in all its different dimensions, which in its turn requires both that
the viewer respond to the work in terms of
the explicit conventions for viewing the
Tintoretto paintings and that the viewer be

V. APPRECIATING THE MECHANICS OF SEDUCTION

In responding to the Anticollegio in the prescribed way, we do not just overlook the political dimensions of the work. We also overlook the fact that it seeks surreptitiously to
persuade: that those who designed and authorized it, aimed to produce certain cognitive and affective states in its viewers without allowing them to grasp the fact that the
work and its deployment were the source of
their change in attitude and belief.
In other words, these were works that
sought to seduce their viewers. No reasons
were given for the views and attitudes that
they inculcated, and whenever this occurs,
the process of persuasion becomes tacit
rather than explicit. Those who are persuaded to particular beliefs and attitudes
without the benefit of clearly stated reasons
will not know why, and sometimes will not
know how, they have come to hold these beliefs; they will find that their attitudes have
shifted but will not be able to produce reasons for, perhaps not even the causes of,
these shifts.
There is a clear sense in which the conventions that mediate our participatory responses (and, in this way, the practice of art
appreciation) help furnish us with explicit
reasons for thinking of the Tintoretto paintings in the Anticollegio as works of considerable skill, perhaps, too, as rare and tasteful
treasures. And it is their knowledge of the
participatory conventions that govern the
ambassadors' response to the work that di-

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Novitz

Participatory Art and Appreciative Practice

aware of the manipulative function and aims

of the compound work, this despite the fact
that the protocols of their participation in it
prevent them from articulating, discussing,
and attending to these aims.
This I have elsewhere described as a critical paradox.'8 On the one hand, what is (conventionally) deemed the only appropriate
response to the Tintorettos, hence the only
appropriate participatory response to the
compound work in which they are located,
requires us to ignore the ulterior aims of the
Doge and his court and to attend only to the
formal, representational, and expressive features of these works. On the other hand, to
fail to discern the total impact of the work,
the way it strives to manipulate and control
and give effect to the Doge's political aspirations, is to miss important aspects of it that
bear on our moral, political, and artistic assessment of the work (on its artistry, skill,
craft, or techne in surreptitiously achieving
specific ends). So it seems to follow that to
respond appropriately to the work is to fail
to appreciate and so to fail to understand it
properly, and to understand and appreciate
it comprehensively is to fail to respond appropriately to it.
It is a paradox, though, that is easily dispelled once we allow that the conventionally
prescribed appreciative response to a work
of art need not exhaust all that is to be understood and appreciated in it, and it will
sometimes deflect attention from a good
deal that is integral to it. There simply is no
nonarbitrary reason to confine appreciation
to prevailing conventions, or to treat as illicit
any response that ventures beyond prescribed boundaries. This point is not always
adequately grasped, and, I have argued elsewhere, sometimes leads to avoidable confusions.'9 At best, the conventions that mediate art appreciation regulate the practice;
they do not constitute, define, or exhaust it.
This is simply because conventionally prescribed responses to a work of art can and do
limit our understanding, and hence, our appreciation of a work, something that is plain
from my argument thus far. What is also
plain from my argument is that public art
often works to best effect by relying on conventions that suppress insight into the politi-

163

cal aims and aspirations of the work. This is

nowhere more apparent than in participatory compound art, where the required participatory response-itself, of course, highly
conventionalized-is often tailored to suit
the ends of those who have designed the
work.
VI. THE PRIORITY OF THE PUBLIC: A CONCLUSION

A few things should now be clear. The first is

that throughout the history of art, what we
now think of as autonomous works of artpaintings, sculptures, poems, musical compositions, song, and dance-have frequently occurred as discrete elements in compound
works of art that require our participation in
them. My claim is that the participatory requirements of such works, many of which are
highly conventionalized, set up certain appreciative practices that emphasize form and
content, and in the process disguise aspects of
works that deserve attention if they, and the
way that they achieve certain effects, are
properly to be understood and appreciated.
Since such participatory responses are, historically speaking, the forebears of current
appreciative practices, the latter also work to
hide important aspects of the work.
All of this gives us a schema within which to
explain and understand the notion of public
art. Not all public works of art, I have said, are
participatory or compound, although my interest is with those that are, for they, in my
view, are clearly primary. On the view defended here, they are very likely responsible
for the appreciative practices that we now see
as essential to a "proper"response to art:appreciative practices, it turns out, that tend to
emphasize both the autonomy of the artwork
and our subjective responses to it. Public art,
at least of the sort that concerns me in this
paper, is neither autonomous nor exhaustively appreciated in terms of a kind of
Kantian play of the faculties. Such artworks
bring people to view the world in closely designed ways; they serve definite functions, but
they conspire at the same time to prevent
their viewers from recognizing the artistry at
play and the ends that it serves by requiring a
closely prescribed response to the work.
A good deal of the problem is this: public

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

164

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

buildings, and the paintings, sculptures, and

music they house, are designed to an
end-sometimes the end of dominance, but
more often, and more kindly, the end of ensuring communal cohesion, a sense of identity, loyalty perhaps to a cause, a group, a nation. This can often be achieved only if those
who are to be governed are not aware of the
designs of the governor; hence, generally
speaking, the aims and devices of such art
are hidden from the viewer. But, as we have
seen, they are not well hidden. Reflection on
the ritual forms of behavior that such art requires, and the conventions that govern our
responses to them, can alert the intelligent
and reflective viewer to the hidden layers of
power and control to which such art aspires.
And, as I have already said, whenever we are
thus alerted, the illusions created by the conventional appreciative practices that surround such art are summarily dispelled.
Perhaps this explains why contemporary
art theorists take little notice of compound
art and our participatory response to it. For
by emphasizing the ritualistic participation
of the viewer in the work, we also emphasize
the control that the work has over the
viewer's attitudes, behavior, and beliefs, and
in this way bring others to understand the
deep and the dark function of the work, to
understand it in ways that expose as an illusion all conventional appeals to the autonomy of the work, and to the taste and sensitivity that are deemed necessary to
appreciate it in its entirety. Such a response,
we now know, does not offer a comprehensive understanding of the artwork. It allows
us entry into a confined practice that limits
our understanding and limits as well our appreciation of the magnificent and frightening
powers of art.20

1. What, precisely, is involved in a work functioning

properly will become clearer only as we proceed.
2. For more on gardens as an art form, see Mara
Miller, The Garden as an Art (SUNY Press, 1993).
3. For ease of expression, I refer to a person who attends to a work of art as a viewer. This, of course, is inaccurate. We view paintings, perhaps movies and stage
plays, but we do not view novels or symphonies or choral works.
4. How we identify artifacts as works of art is a problem that I cannot address here. I have done so elsewhere. See my "Disputes About Art," The Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism 54 (1996): 153-163. In the
present context, all that we need notice is that were
someone to claim of the Abbey that it is a work of art,
there would be much that would count in favor of the
claim, and very little that could count against it: architecture is an art form, and buildings often are regarded
as works of art.
5. Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art, vol. 2
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968); Arnold
Hauser, The Sociology of Art (University of Chicago
Press, 1982), chap. 5, especially pp. 284ff.; and Janet
Wolff, The Social Production of Art (London: MacMillan, 1981), p. 26.
6. For a range of related observations, see Susan L.
Feagin, "Paintings and Their Places," in Art and Its Messages: Meaning, Morality, and Society, ed. Stephen
Davies (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), pp.
17-25.
7. Cf. Joseph Margolis, Art and Philosophy: Conceptual Issues in Aesthetics (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1980), pp. 48-49.
8. It might be argued that in interpreting and so appreciating a work of art, the viewer in some sense completes it. This has often been argued by Joseph Margolis.
See his "Robust Relativism," The Journal of Aesthetics
and Art Criticism 35 (1976): 37-46; "Reinterpreting Interpretation," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 47 (1989): 237-251; Interpretation Radical but Not
Unruly: The New Puzzle of the Arts and History (University of California Press, 1995); What, After All, Is a
Work of Art? Lectures in the Philosophy of Art (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), chaps. 2 and 3.
See, as well, Michael Krausz, Rightness and Reasons: Interpretation in Cultural Practices (Cornell University
Press, 1993). I have responded to claims of this sort in
Knowledge, Fiction and Imagination (Temple University
Press, 1987), chap. 5, and in "Interpretation and Justification," Metaphilosophy 31 (2000):4-24.
9. Whether or not it does make sense depends on the
adequacy of functional accounts of art. While I cannot
argue the case here, see my "Disputes About Art," as
well as Robert Stecker, "Historical Functionalism or the
Four Factor Theory," The British Journal of Aesthetics
34 (1994): 255-265.
10. Exhibited as part of the Charles Ray Retrospective, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, November 15, 1998 through February 21, 1999.
11. The question was raised by Jerrold Levinson.
12. On this, see my "Disputes About Art," pp.
159-162. See, as well, Noel Carroll, "Art, Practice, and
Narrative," Monist 71 (1988): 140-156 and "Historical

DAVID NOVITZ
Department of Philosophy
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch
New Zealand
INTERNEr.

d.novitz@phil.canterbury.ac.nz

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Novitz

Participatory Art and Appreciative Practice

Narratives and the Philosophy of Art," The Journal of

Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51 (1993): 313-326; B. R.
Tilghman, But Is It Art? (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984);
Jerrold Levinson, "Defining Art Historically," reprinted
in Music, Art and Metaphysics (Cornell University
Press, 1991), pp. 3-25.
13. This is no longer the case. The ethos of tourism
conveys precisely the same values as Disneyland. Today,
those who cannot pay the ?5.00 to enter Westminster
Abbey as tourists cannot see the sights-the tombs of
Elizabeth or Mary Queen of Scots, Poets' Corner, and so
on. They are still allowed to enter, through a different
entrance, for purposes of prayer, but if they do so, they
are not allowed to take the tourist routes through the
Abbey.
14. See my "Messages 'In' and Messages 'Through'
Art," The Australasian Journal of Philosophy 73 (1995):
199-203.
15. Ibid., p. 199.
16. One possible exception that springs readily to
mind is the architectural folly, but even this can be seen
as a form of conspicuous consumption. The message
"through" it has something to do with the wealth of the
owner of the folly. The unintended message "through"

165

the work has something to do with human vanity and

stupidity.
17. For a defense of the distinction between rational
and seductive persuasion, see my The Boundaries of Art
(Temple University Press, 1992), chap. 10.
18. For more on the tensions here described between
forms of appreciation, see my discussion of the critical
paradox in "The Anaesthetics of Emotion" in Emotion
and the Arts, ed. M. Hjort and S. Laver (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997), pp. 246-262, especially pp.
251-254.
19. See, for example, Pater Lamarque and Stein
Haugom Olsen, Truth,Fiction, and Literature:A Philosophical Perspective (Oxford: The Clarendon Press,
1994), chaps. 15 and 16. See, as well, my "The Trouble
With Truth," Philosophy and Literature 19 (1995):
350-359.
20. My thanks to Denis Dutton, Hilde Hein, and
Jerrold Levinson for their comments on an earlier draft
of this paper. The paper was researched and partially
written while on an Erskine Fellowship in America and
Europe. I am grateful to the trustees of the Erskine
Fund for their generous support.

This content downloaded from 79.112.76.82 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:51:42 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions