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significant elements in aesthetic experience manifestation. Croce, who rejects the no-
are apprehended as copresent and copre- tion of communication in art as belonging
sented. At most, the various aspects or ele- to mere "technique" and hence to the
ments resemble each other iconically-in an "practical" sphere, nevertheless contends
act of reciprocal mimesis-but they do not that artistic expression includes "every sort
denote one another. Only if the sensuous of manifestation." 23 D. W. Gotshalk defines
surface were converted into a hard percep- expression as "a kind of objectification or
tulm or if the import were transformed into objective manifestation of whatever is said
a pure concept, would we begin to have a to be expressed." 24 In contrast with com-
situation in which indication could occur munication, manifestation as a term has the
in art. But this would mean the destruction merit of de-emphasizing the notion that art
of the aesthetic surface. Whatever the ori- merely transmits a given content to the
gin of the elements in this surface, once spectator. Instead, it stresses the presenta-
they are part of the aesthetic object they tional character of the aesthetic object. The
must all exhibit a common sensuousness for model for manifestation is often an act of
expression in art to be possible. This sen- "disclosure" which may (a) take time in
suousness acts as an indelible monogram which to unfold; (b) require extensive inter-
and cannot be distorted or reduced without pretation; (c) retain some unapprehended
losing the unique affective quality that pro- aspects even following disclosure. This view
vides the aesthetic object with its character- of manifestation lies at the heart of many
istic coherence. The intrusion of the indica- theories of art as possessing symbolic, meta-
tive relation into this rich qualitative tex- physical, or ontological significance. Hei-
ture would mean the disintegration of a degger's interpretive essays on Holderlin
seamless whole. are among the more extravagant examples
We should also observe that if Husserl is of this type of approach.25
correct, all communication is indicative in Yet the idea of art as manifestation is
nature; and strictly speaking, communica- subject to the same basic error as the theo-
tion is restricted to language. Thus he ries of art as communication examined
writes that "in communicative discourse all above. For manifestation is itself a form of
expressions function as indices." 22 As a re- indication understood in the broad Hus-
sult, any attempt to interpret art as commu- serlian sense of Anzeige to which we have
nicative in nature will fail, for it will always appealed. In fact, it is a modification of the
involve the more or less pronounced effort communicative act. This is most clearly
to force indication into the heart of expres- seen in Husserl's further analysis of verbal
sion. Yet the two are incompatible in art-a communication, where there is said to be a
fact we realize each time we are confronted mutual manifestation between speaker and
with the grosser forms of Socialist Realism. hearer of their respective "psychic experi-
Only in language and (less explicitly) in ences" (Erlebnisse). Such experiences form
gesture can expression and communication the content of manifestation: a content in-
coexist successfully. And while communica- dicated by the spoken or written words of
tion is a legitimate and necessary feature of discourse. These words are taken as "dis-
language and gesture, it is a falsifying and tinctive signs" (Kennzeichen) of psychic
even corrupting presence in art, diverting content. But manifestation, so conceived,
art from its proper purpose: expression. would be as destructive of the aesthetic sur-
face as was the original thesis of communi-
III cation. The autonomy of this surface is de-
nied in analyzing it into signs designating
The communication theory of art dies otherwise inaccessible inner experiences.
hard. It tends to reappear under guises On Husserl's view, in expression proper
more sophisticated than Tolstoy's simple no such signs are necessary; all indicative
transmission model or his related view that relations of association or motivation disap-
the work of art is an indicative sign. One of pear. A signification (Bedeutung) animates
the most frequent of these guises is that of the expression. This signification is a self-
ing that a certain abstract expressionist other is in terms of how we perceive the
painting is suffused with a frenetic quality two phenomena in question. In the case of
quite similar to the personality of someone the other person, what we perceive is taken
we know. Of course, the descriptive terms as a sign of something inherently non-per-
of the analogy are often imprecise, since ceptual-i.e., inner thoughts and feelings
physiognomic characters are notoriously which on principle can never become ob-
difficult to name with precision. But it is jects of perception. When we perceive the
undeniable that on occasion we may feel a aesthetic object, however, the perceptual el-
"community of essence" between a person ement is not taken as a sign or even as a
(often the artist himself) and a painting. symbol of something unperceivable, but as
What must rather be denied is that the aes- a constituent part of the aesthetic surface.
thetic object always, or necessarily, possesses In the latter, feeling and thought are ren-
a distinctly physiognomic aura. It may be dered sensuous, hence can coexist with the
felt as non-human altogether, as in certain perceived in a common affective whole.
of Tanguy's desolate surrealist landscapes. Thus perception is indispensable in art,
Thus the physiognomic is by no means a but its aim is exhausted in what is con-
permanent trait of art, which can be expres- cretely presented, whereas the perception of
sive in other ways. the other typically transcends the presented
There is a more fundamental respect, toward what Husserl calls the "appre-
however, in which confrontation with art sented."32 The appresented supplements
differs from confrontation with the other. the directly presented because of the una-
This is found in the fact that the other vailability of the other's Erlebnis. By con-
possesses a privacy and inwardness denied trast, the work of art is capable of self-pres-
to the aesthetic object regarded as a surface entation, that is, an open disclosure of its
with no aesthetically relevant interior. Yet surface without any significant undisclosed
the other's interiority is inalienable, even residue. Hence appresentational supple-
though we cannot feel his experience from mentation is not necessary.
within. There is no direct or privileged ac- This point can be made without invok-
cess to the other's "inscape"; only the other ing the elaborate trappings involved in
can live his own psychic acts immediately Husserl's theory of the analogical "transfer
and simultaneously. Hence we can ap- of sense" that occurs in perceiving the
proach these inner acts in the other only other. All we need observe is that interper-
indirectly, by inferring their existence from sonal expression in language or gesture is
certain indicative signs. The necessity for not only incomplete but inevitably indica-
such signs is the result of the radical non- tive as well. The other can never express
presence of the other's Erlebnisse to us; we himself with his "whole being." 33 Bodily
need the mediating clues provided by writ- gestures are never totally expressive because
ten or spoken language, by certain bodily they aim constantly at an exteriorization; as
gestures, clothing habits, etc. Only these Merleau-Ponty said, they "recuperate the
manifest the other. As Jacques Derrida re- world," making "what they aim at appear
marks, "if communication or manifestation outside." 34 This means that in the case of
is essentially indicative, this is because the the other's gesture the perceptual element is
presence of the other's Erlebnis is refused to never made wholly congruent with the
our originary intuition." 31 In art, however, affective or thought dimensions; rather, the
we have no need of such clues, for there is perceptual tends to achieve a determinate-
nothing interior or hidden to be revealed. ness that is exterior in character, as if the
Indication is absent from aesthetic expres- phenomenal crust could somehow restore or
sion because it would fulfill no function at least signify its inner core. It is this very
there; in fact, its encroachment upon ex- exteriority that is subdued, if not entirely
pression represents, as we have seen, the de- eliminated, in art-without a compensating
struction of the latter. interiority being required. The perceived
Another way of viewing the basic differ- remains, but not as an exteriorizing or out-
ence between the aesthetic object and the standing factor. It merges with the other
this surface are only obliquely, never trans- in this compresence. At best, a vivid com-
parently, given; no essence, least of all an munion takes place: an experience in which
essence of expressiveness itself, is shown on aesthetic expression is most fully realized.
or through its dense affective texture.42 But
the expression never becomes wholly exter-
nal; it does not give itself away; it never 1J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Ox-
becomes entirely express. What Merleau- ford Univ. Press, 1965), p. 26.
Ponty once said of language is, in this case, 2 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investiga-
more descriptive of art: it cannot "detach tions, 1: 580.
8See, for example, Sellars, Science and Metaphys-
itself entirely from the precariousness of the ics (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968) pp. 73-77; Hamp-
forms of mute expression, reabsorb its own shire, Feeling and Expression (H. K. Lewis, 1961),
contingency, or consume itself to make the passim.
4 Ideen I, sec. 124-27.
things themselves appear." 43 Art holds its
6 For this distinction, see J. N. Findlay, "The Per-
expressiveness within or on its surface ap- spicuous and the Poignant: Two Aesthetic Funda-
prehended as a self-continuous, frontal phe- mentals," in British Journal of Aesthetics 7 (1967):
nomenon with its own peculiar depth. This 13.
expressiveness is neither explicitly sayable 6 See D. W. Prall, Aesthetic Judgment (New York:
in language nor adequately intuitable in ei- Crowell, 1929), passim.
7 On the concept of "expressive meaning," see
detic insight. The voices of art are indeed Paul C. Hayner, "Expressive Meaning," in Journal
the voices of silence, as Malraux said so of Philosophy 53 (1956): 149; and my "Meaning in
eloquently; but these voices can also be Art," in New Essays in Phenomenology, ed. James
sheerly expressive and thoroughly ani- M. Edie (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1969).
8 Symbol and Myth in Human Experience (Prince-
mated.
ton Univ. Press, 1949), p. 117. Cf. the statement of
Therefore, if expression in art is never L. Abercrombie: "expression in art is also communi-
total, it is at least sensuously alive; and it is cation" (in "Communication versus Expression in
this affective aliveness that, drawing con- Art," British Journal of Psychology 14 [1923]: 70).
9 Philosophy Looks at the Arts (New York: Scrib-
sciousness toward adhesion to the aesthetic
ner's, 1962), p. 29.
surface, quickens our life of feeling. Expres- 10Art as Experience (New York: Capricorn, 1958),
sion in art is misconstrued as communica- p. 104.
tion, but it may be interpreted as commun- 11The Critique of Judgment, trans. James C.
ion between the work of art and the specta- Meredith (Oxford Univ. Press, 1952), pp. 180, 183-
tor. Rare though it is, it is precisely in such 84.
12""What Is Art?" in Tolstoy on Art, trans. and ed.
an experience that expression in art is most Aylmer Maude (Oxford Univ. Press, 1924), p. 278.
nearly complete. Yet as it is never fully "Ibid., p. 171.
complete, genuine aesthetic expression can- 14This is the danger that lurks behind C. J. Du-
not be assimilated to other modes of expres- casse's use of the term "emotional import" or Su-
sanne Langer's similar "vital import"; both seem to
sion which, like language, are capable of suggest that feeling and meaning become wholly in-
contextual or conceptual objectivity and distinguishable in the aesthetic object. I shall main-
which can thus play a role in communica- tain that they blend without losing their singular
tion or manifestation. Truly expressive art identities. See C. J. Ducasse, Art, the Critics, and
You (New York, 1955), pp. 52-56; S. Langer, Feeling
does not communicate; it possesses neither and Form (New York, 1953), pp. 31, 52, 59, 65, as
the basis (indicative sign-relations) nor the well as her Problems of Art (New York, 1957), pp.
content (the "message") of communication. 59-60.
Its sensuousness provides the foundation 1""What Is Art?" p. 173; in italics in the original.
for contemplation and, ultimately, com- See also M. Heidegger's similar analysis of communi-
cation in Being and Time, trans. C. Robinson & J.
munion. The latter defies objective descrip- Macquarrie (New York: Harper, 1962), pp. 197-8,
tion, since in this experience the aesthetic 205,211-12.
object qua object dissolves. We are left not so ' Last Lectures (Cambridge, 1939); quoted by E.
much with a process as with a continuous H. Gombrich, Meditations on a Hobby Horse (New
York: Phaidon, 1965), p. 56.
phenomenon in which consciousness and 17Phenomenology of Perception, trans. C. Smith
aesthetic surface momentarily coalesce. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962), p. 183;
Nothing is transmitted or even manifested cf. M. Heidegger, p. 266.