Maritains Ontology Of The Work Of Art

I. Since the appearance in 1902 of Benedetto Croce's L'estetica come scienza dell' espressione e linguistica generale, the problem of the ontology of the work of art or aesthetic object - what kind of thing it is and what its mode of being is - has come to occupy a central place in the philosophy of art. Moreover, a particular conception of the identity of art objects is at present a driving force in some quarters of the art world itself. As Harold Rosenberg so well points out, Minimalist or Reductive Art has attempted, sometimes quite self-consciously, to establish the autonomous physical reality of the work of art by empty ing it of all expressive and representational content. ! What is the ontological problem? One rather crude way of stating it is to ask where the work of art or object of aesthetic contemplation 2 exists. Is it, to pick some examples, to be identified with the material product of the artist's labors which exists spatially "outside of" and independently of artist and beholder? Or does it exist only "in the mind" of the beholder or the artist? Is it either one perception of a beholder or a series of his perceptions? Or is it the class of all percep tions of either all spectators or all "qualified" spectators? Put another way, it would be a question of whether and to what such purported names as 'Beethoven's Fifth Symphony' refer.

In these studies Roman Ingarden investigates the nature and mode of being of four kinds of art works: the musical work, the picture, the architectural work, and the film. He establishes that the work of art is a purely intentional object but considers also its connections to the real world. By analyzing a work of art in its "constitutive heterogeneous strata," Ingarden demonstrates that a work of art will reveal, when examined in the appropriate way, its own inherent structure. Further, he shows that in consequence of the art work's structure, we must distinguish between the work itself and the concretizations of it by the listener or viewer. Ingarden elaborates upon the conception of concretization which he present in The Literary Work of Art and applies it to music and visual art. He also employs the concept of aspect to clarify the ontic structure of these art works and the distinction between the concretization of the work and the work itself. The distinction between the work's concretization - effectuated in the mental experiences of the listener or viewer - and the work itself serves to help Ingarden confirm and account for the work's intersubjective identity. The problem of aesthetic value, Ingarden maintains, can be fruitfully treated only after the ontic structure of art work has been clarified. His primary concern in Ontology of the Work of Art is to ascertain and describe that structure and the mode of existence of works of art. In addition, he offers several discussions of aesthetic value, showing in the m the connections between questions of aesthetic value and the structure of the work of art.

Multiple artworks are works that can have multiple 'instances' which can play a particular kind of role in the appreciation of those works: for example, there can be multiple copies of a novel, or multiple performances of a musical work. An Ontology of Multiple Artworks is the first book-length critical analytic treatment of the metaphysical issues relating to 'multiple' artworks for over three decades. David Davies takes various considerations to which authors have appealed in arguing for ontological understandings of works in particular multiple art-forms as putative explananda, arguing that an adequate ontology of multiple artworks should be reflectively accountable to these. After clarifying what 'multiplicity' in the arts amounts to, Davies critically assesses the 'Platonist' idea that multiple artworks must be abstract or generic entities of some sort ('types') that exist independently of our creative and appreciative practices. The evolution of this idea is traced, and its ability to deal with the different explananda in play in the literature is gauged. The methodological constraints that should govern this kind of inquiry are also assessed. On the basis of these investigations, it is concluded that Platonism about multiple artworks is seriously compromised. Different non-Platonist options are then considered, and it is argued that the account that best explains the weighted explananda is the 'Wollheimian type' theory, according to which multiple artworks are performances essentially embedded in artistic practices. Finally, sceptical challenges to the very idea that there are such things as multiple artworks are considered.

Work and Object is a study of fundamental questions in the metaphysics of art, notably how works relate to the materials that constitute them. Issues about the creation of works, what is essential and inessential to their identity, their distinct kinds of properties, including aesthetic properties, their amenability to interpretation, their style, the conditions under which they can go out of existence, and their relation to perceptually indistinguishable doubles (e.g. forgeries and parodies), are raised and debated. A core theme is that works like paintings, music, literature, sculpture, architecture, films, photographs, multi-media installations, and many more besides, have fundamental features in common, as cultural artefacts, in spite of enormous surface differences. It is their nature as distinct kinds of things, grounded in distinct ontological categories, that is the subject of this enquiry. Although much of the discussion is abstract, based in analytical metaphysics, there are numerous specific applications, including a study of Jean-Paul Sartre's novel La Nausée and recent conceptual art. Some surprising conclusions are derived, about the identity conditions of works and about the difference, often, between what a work seems to be and what it really is.

Redeeming Beauty explores the richness of orthodox Christian tradition, both Western and Eastern, in matters of 'sacral aesthetics' - a term used to denote the foundations, production and experience of religiously relevant beauty. Aidan Nichols investigates five principal themes: the foundation of beauty in the natural order through divine creative action; explicitly 'evangelical' beauty as a quality of biblical revelation and notably at its climax in Christ; the legitimacy of making and venerating artworks; qualities of the self in relation to objective presentation of the religiously beautiful; and the difficulties of practising a sacral aesthetic, whether as producer or consumer, in an epoch when the visual arts themselves have left behind not only Church but for the greater part the public as well. The thought of theologians such as Augustine, Aquinas, Balthasar, Ratzinger, Bulgakov, Maritain and others are explored.