Page 44 - Studio International - May June 1975

to arrive with himself at that final stage datum by as strictly logical a chain of discursive reason is concerned). And it's
when he, the artist, has resigned himself inferences as that by which a truth of as much of a mystery in Giotto's and
as it were to saying yes to everything that knowledge is arrived at. I have never seen, Leonardo's case, whose originality was
the finished work conveys. It's at this heard, or read of any work of art that quickly hailed, as in Baudelaire's and
final stage that symmetry between artist does that. Manet's, whose originality was resisted at
and beholder is established. The former The case of the cynical artist is the first. And why and how the connoisseur,
receives the outcome of his applied taste, really special, and also the most the rare one, is not put off by originality
the latter the outcome of his own applied illuminating, one. The ideally cynical and welcomes its expansion of his taste is
taste. That the outcomes won't always artist does what he does in order to equally a mystery (to discursive reason).
agree doesn't affect the symmetry, which ingratiate his art at the cost of his own
doesn't depend on agreement; it depends judgment-decisions. He rejects his own Postscriptum
rather on the maintaining of 'aesthetic judgment-decisions and chooses It will be pointed out, I'm sure, that
distance' on both sides: that is, letting deliberately those that he anticipates will attention to an aesthetic object or
aesthetic intuition alone decide be accepted by a kind of taste which he occasion requires a willed decision. Yes
everything. himself regards as inferior to his own. In and no, I would have to answer. There is,
Yet not every decision received in the this kind of art-making volition and of course, the conscious decision to
course of making formal art has to be an calculation do play the crucial role, and attend to the experiencing or making of
aesthetic intuition or a judgment- not spontaneous and involuntary art. But there are times when this
decision. There are decisions motivated intuition. Insofar as he lets this happen decision is felt as involuntary. Something
by extra-aesthetic factors having to do the cynical artist makes his relation with aesthetic catches your attention without
with religion, politics, social the beholder asymmetrical; he tries to your having made any sort of decision;
considerations. Such decisions are not manipulate the latter's aesthetic you can find yourself creating art without
judgments of taste, not in themselves; experience while keeping himself apart having set out to do so. And anyhow,
they don't contain their results in from it. He separates himself both from specifying the difference between
themselves. But they can become his own art and from its audience. But the voluntary and involuntary attention
judgments of taste, judgment-decisions, case of the cynical artist is a largely seems beyond our powers of self-
and usually do, for better or for worse. hypothetical one, and I offer it here only observation. (Harold Osborne has
For better in the case of much religious because it helps make my point the way remarked on the difficulties for
art of the past and even in the case of the negation of a truth can serve to throw investigation that the problem of
some didactic and some political art. It's that truth into greater relief. I have never `attention' continues to offer.)
a rare work of art anyhow all of whose heard of, much less come in contact with,
decisions start out as judgment-decisions, a truly cynical, integrally cynical artist,
as aesthetic intuitions. and I doubt whether complete cynicism
Some other decisions going into the is possible in art-making except as a tour
creation of formal art may be arrived at de force to show that it might be possible.
by what looks like reasoning and not This isn't to deny, on the other hand,
intuition. But usually what seems a that it would be hard to draw a hard and
reasoned decision starts from intuitive fast line in all instances of art-making
judgment and aims at one. The artist has between willed and calculated decisions
seen, read, or heard something from and honestly intuited judgment-
which he got a positive judgment of taste, decisions. Probably no sophisticated
and he infers — and hopes — that by artist, however alert, has managed to
imitating or adapting that something keep entirely away from calculated
(whether a device, a convention, a decisions, decisions that he doesn't test
scheme, or a nuance) he will make it enough by sheerly intuitive means :
produce an equally positive judgment in decisions that he takes because, whether
his own work. The same happens more or or not they please himself, he knows —
less when the artist's seemingly reasoned consciously or unconsciously — that they
decision is based on faith in a theory or a have already pleased in other art than his
formula (like the Golden Section). The own. An English poet in the eighteenth
faith usually starts off from a positive century might not have accepted, left
aesthetic intuition here too, and from alone with his taste, the way the rhymed
what the artist thinks, rightly or wrongly, couplet worked for himself, but he would
is responsible for it. He sees the Golden adopt it not only because it had already
Section at work in those paintings of worked so well — as his taste told him —
Raphael that he admires and he adopts for Dryden and Pope, but also because in
the Golden Section for himself. Or he using it those two had won so much
deems that a fixed system underlies approval. And who was he to break with
certain works of music that move him that precedent, even if aspects of it went
very much. The rarer case is that of the against his own intuitive leanings ?
artist who stakes himself on a theory or Seemingly cynical art, art that could be
system that doesn't ostensibly derive construed as cynical, is usually frightened
from his aesthetic experience, but which art. The artist is too frightened to rest
he believes is grounded in some extra- with his own judgment-decisions because
aesthetic factor like God or ultimate they diverge too much, at least at first
reality or the harmony of the spheres. glance, from what he sees as, or is
Yet even here positive aesthetic reputed to be, the best art of the past or
judgments lie usually somewhere under even of the present. In effect the
the artist's faith, whether he's aware of frightened artist decides un-aesthetically,
that or not (and crank though he may be). un-intuitively, that is practically, to be
What the artist is consciously aware of frightened. All sophisticated artists are
doesn't matter so much in any event; it frightened this way to some extent (as are
doesn't matter any more than what the most unsophisticated artists too, only
beholder is consciously aware of as he has their fright is more unfocussed and more
his aesthetic experience. That, at least, is abject). The original artist, the genuinely
what experience shows. Experience also original one, stays with enough of his
reveals that there is no such thing as own judgment-decisions in the face of
intellectual art. For a work of art to be precedents he is conversant with, but how
properly intellectual would require its and why he decides to do so is part of the
proceeding from a universally accepted greater mystery that is art itself (as far as

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