Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)
[SK's snark]
[137]
Part II
What is artistic form?
Excellent question. Perhaps this should be Part I?
Different views of artistic form
Form is an important concept for talking about art. ... However, ... it cannot serve as the
defining feature
of all art ... Formalists and neoformalists ... overplay their hand. ... But much art
possesses form
and that, in large measure, is often why we appreciate it. ...
So, what is artistic form?
Perhaps the most common way of thinking of artistic form is to conceive of it as
one half of a distinction—
the distinction between
form
and
content.
The neoformalist tries to clarify this contrast by turning it into the distinction between
meaning
and
mode of presentation.
However, ... if there are artworks without meanings, ... then this way of conceptualizing form entails that such artworks lack form altogether.
But ... Often "meaningless" artworks—such as works of pure music—are what we typically take to be the greatest exemplars of artistic form. ...
This suggests that one might look for a broader way of crafting the contrast between form and content.
One way
of doing this is to say that
content is
whatever makes up the artwork,
and
form is
the way that
whatever makes up the artwork
is
organized.
Content is the
matter;
form is the
manner.
Form operates on whatever comprises the content. Again, this makes our conception of
the form
of an artwork
dependent on
our conception of
the content
of the artwork. That is, one cannot determine
the manner of its organization,
until one knows
what is being organized.
A problem arises here almost immediately. ...
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the notion of content, as just stated, is
excessively ambiguous,
and this ambiguity is likely to infect whatever we say about artistic form ...
... Imagine a historical painting of St. Francis and a donkey. What
makes up
this artwork? In one sense, ... oil paint. At another level ... lines, colors and closed shapes. ... representational figures that refer to certain subjects or referents, ... which, in turn, may also be expressive of the human quality of kindness. Furthermore, the painting may take a point of view ... It may ... suggest a thesis about St. Francis: ... the painting may even advance a more general theme: ...
... this list could be even longer if our descriptions of these dimensions were more fine-grained.
In other words, criticism can never be fully 'objective' so long as fine-ness of grain is left to the critic themselves to decide upon. The "grain" can always be tailored to critical needs, turning up as much or as little basis for commentary as is needed/desired.
...
The problem
is that, at various times and in various contexts,
any of these things
or
combinations thereof
can be and have been identified as the content of such paintings. But that renders the distinction between form and content
unstable.
In other words, calling this notion of content excessively ambiguous is itself an ambiguous statement, or perhaps actually the wrong statement.
The problem seems to be, once again, that description ('predication'?) is unbounded . . . though it is not unbounded along all of the axes that Our Man chooses to present. Most obviously: Once we have adduced oil paint (and canvas) as among the constituent materials, we are already running out of materials to adduce. On the other hand, it is such things as theses and themes that are notorious for multiplying themselves endlessly; change of times and contexts is the obvious mechanism for this, but as long as two people standing next to each other in space and time can just as well come to different conclusions on such matters as can two people situated millennia and continents apart, then it is unnecessary to appeal to "context" in order to make this point (and it may actually be misleading to make the point this way, for the time being, as each inabitant of the Global Village seems to have become a Context Of One).
The saving grace, as always: There is absolutely no need for the vast majority of these endlessly-predicable predications to be articulated. Perhaps we cannot avoid producing them; but we do not need to articulate them. There usually is no need for this. If somehow there is such a need, then that too needs to be articulated, along with whatever thesis.
Are we really convinced by such arguments as have thus far been offered by the critical Boomerverse? Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion . . . For now, it seems obvious that to have a true need for some such thing, to have a true need for something drawn from among a theoretically infinite and infinitely multipicable ether-pool of "context"-determined "theses" and "themes", to have need of such a thing is to be in a tought spot! It is not a good situation to be in! So, one small part of a well-oiled social order might be to avoid creating any more of this kind of need than is absolutely unavoidable.
Desire is unbounded. Need is not. Or: When it comes time to figure out what we really need, we do best to engage some convergent logic so as not to merely diverge out into that void which desire can never fill.
For example, if we identify the content of the painting with its lines, colors, and shapes, then that is not only at odds with the way in which we
typically identify
these elements in painting, it also
leaves little else
for form to be.
Hmm. Do we really have to leave such domains clear until something suitably typical shows up to occupy them? It seems more that to identify lines as "content" is to make a certain kind of (critical) statement about the work, subject to whatever goes for Darwinian competition in the (critical) marketplace of ideas. If the work also has plenty of very "typical" narrative content, i.e., if it is clearly representational, narrative, expressive, etc. in addition to containing "lines" and "shapes," then identifying lines as content is indeed a curious and "atypical" move. It seems that such a critic is telling us something about themselves, whether or not they think that is what they are doing. That conclusion seems more obvious when the analysis itself is so unorthodox as to seem daft. Still, the analysis itself is perfectly comprehensible in spite of its unorthodoxy; and perhaps the orthodox analysts also show themselves thereby.
Really, if we forbid such analysis-as-content sheerly on the basis of being atypical, I would think that is most disastrous of all for the concept of content itself, since at that point there's not much we can do with it.
If the lines, colors and shapes of the painting do not constitute its form, what does?
Well, obvs, form and content would then be understood to be indivisible ontologically. Analysts would categorize elements on one side of the ledger of the other depending on the point they're trying to make with their analysis. Precedent forms the basis for understanding the two concepts, but with that understanding in hand, any element can be categorized either way. Each such choice stakes out a certain position about the work and about the role of that element in it.
Is there a way of handling a line—its length or thickness—that is separable from the line?
I assume the answer that goes without saying here is, "no." Of course it's very easy to separate the handling from the element: you compare it to another element. But then the problem becomes justifying this single comparison above infinite others that may have been made. That effort almost certainly fails, and so once again the critic is telling us more about themselves than about the work.
(Beardsley considers "handling" to be an 'intentionalistic' term. I think he's right, but it's difficult to explain exactly how and why.)
If the line is a content element of the painting, and it is a nonrepresentational painting, where is the form of the painting?
Can't all of these questions simply be reversed, without any loss of urgency? "If the line is a form element, and there are no pictures or stories, then where is the content?"
(Isn't a line especially likely to present as content in a nonrepresentational work, and isn't this similarly un-likely in a representational work?)
One might say that the form of the painting is some emergent property of the line—an expressive quality, for example—but, then, expressive qualities are content elements of artworks, not formal elements.
Conventionally, yes, this seems open and shut. So why are we having such a hard time nailing down these two terms? If we're so sure about expressive qualities, can't we keep naming other elements that we're sure belong only on one side of the ledger? (Or is it because we're not actually so sure about almost any other elements besides this one?)
Similar problems beset pure music. If their musical structures are their content, what is their form? Their expressive qualities?
This structure-as-content thing has occasionally been argued, perhaps seldom in quite those terms. Once again, it's an analysis that's hard to understand only if we are very motivated not to understand it. Of course it's soulless and absurd, but that is not the same thing as being incomprehensible. They're telling us about themselves. We gotta stop pretending not to understand!
Form becomes a moving target on this conception of content, and, at times, an altogether invisible one.
In fact, another reason that it is probably impossible to
distinguish form from content
on
the supposition that content is whatever makes up the artwork
is that, speaking this broadly,
form is undeniably
one of the things
that make up the artwork.
I'm losing the thread here.
Some might, indeed, embrace the notion that
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there is no difference between the form and content in an artwork. But that is hardly a contribution toward characterizing the nature of artistic form.
Okay, so if we do embrace the notion (just say), then we should at least be able to say by ostension what the difference is between x-element-as-form and x-element-as-content.
I don't have a good answer just yet, probably because I don't feel the crying need for one. As a viewer/listener the form-content distinction seems like a floating psychological distinction with no guarantee of stability across multiple works nor across multiple experiences of the same work. I would call content 'granular' and form 'coarse.' It's tempting also to say 'figure' and 'ground.' Perhaps all of that is metaphorical and vacuous. I can't seem to do any better.
Sticking to the art that I'm most competent to judge: maybe a screaming tuba solo, e.g., is more of a content-element if it is one of many consecutive scream-solos, one player after another, and/or if it comes and goes several times throughout a movement; maybe it's more of a form-element if it is continuous throughout the movement while myriad subordinate elements come and go. I find it counterintuitive prima facie that an ever-present element could be 'content' or that a fleeting element amongst a much larger aggregate of events could be 'form,' but certainly there is a contrary tendency in music analysis to identify 'form' narrowly with 'structure,' in which case a 'fleeting' element may in fact be the linchpin of 'form' simply because it marks, by way of contrast, a 'landmark' or 'tentpole' in some flow of time that would otherwise be, somehow, significantly less well marked-out; the entire piece then consists of stuff before and stuff after the tentpole; or maybe there are numerous such markings. (I just really dug into Schnittke for the first time; there's plenty of that!)
Our Man might say that this notion of form-as-structure once again "leaves nothing for content to be," or perhaps that it merely "leaves nothing for structure to be," but I don't find that view compelling at all. Rather, I've never been convinced that what is thereby called 'structure' has any isolable correlate in lived experience. Without such a correlate, there is no urgency to rope off any conceptual preserves. To speak of some collection of fleeting moments as 'structuring' a piece seems to betray an unstated purpose which is not the purpose of any listener; rather, it is the purpose of someone who likes the sound of their own voice as well as they enjoy any sound of music, and who, in order to make unambiguous reference to particular "elements" of some piece, thus requires that the piece be structured for reference. This is structure-for-reference. It is not structure-for-experience. But experience can quite well structure itself; it will in any case; perhaps it cannot not structure itself, for better or worse; and if it does so 'wrongly' then that, as 'wrong' as it may ever get, is at least introspectively informative; and if someone dares to go further, to articulate this as 'analysis,' they also show themselves, certainly, but what they show is at least honest. I'll take that.
Conversely, obvs the way the incessant scream-solo ends up rendered as 'content' is that it ends up granularized against some even larger backdrop-of-experience, despite the fact that, as a matter of 'structure-for-reference,' it has occupied the entire duration of the piece, and so any 'reference' specifically to the scream-solo is a reference to the structural whole. (Not, of course, to the 'textural' or 'timbral' whole.)
I gather that the territory I'm staking out here is customarily dismissed by analytic art-philosophers as Subjectivism. But that seems to me an unavoidable outcome in this domain. Maybe by the end of this chapter we will have finally landed on truly 'analytic' concepts of form and content. I just can't imagine that even then it will be simply impossible for someone to honestly analyze a "line," e.g., as content rather than as form. I would be more inclined to think, in that case, that there was something wrong with the concept.
... In
ordinary speech,
we often restrict content terminology to what the artwork represents. ... its subject ... and whatever it says about that subject ... Thus, we might say that
the lines,
shapes and
colors
of the painting are the
formal elements
that are
deployed in a certain manner
in order to
articulate the content
of the painting
I assume that for the Beardsleyan, deployment is akin to handling?
...
But it is not clear that the invocation of representation will draw the distinction between form and content sharply. Think of
point of view
as a feature of artworks.
Well, I prefer not to.
It is a representational element of an artwork— ... often connected to the theme of a work ... Since it is
a representational feature
of the work, it seems as though it should count as
a feature of the content
of the work. And yet isn't it
a formal feature
as well? Isn't it the result of
how
the representational material in the work is
handled?
Moreover, if we revert to the container/contained analogy, isn't the point of view that in which all the representational elements in the work are contained?
Well, that seems like two analogies, each nested in the other. And, once again, at least to me, it seems more probable that a point of view would be the thing contained rather than the thing doing the containing; but really neither is any less (I should say any more) sensical than the other.
Thus, invoking the concept of representation won't mark determinately the boundary between form and content for us.
And, of course, another problem ... is that many works of art have no representational content. On the face of it, this entails that
they can have no form,
since
there is no content
upon which form can operate.
Really?
If "form" and "content" are different things, then mustn't it be possible to have one without the other? If they are the same, is it (only) then that either both or neither must be present, but not just one or the other?
But there are many examples of nonrepresentational artworks that have form.
How do we know this if we have not yet established any satisfactory analysis? Isn't this one of the things we're (still) trying to figure out here?
Moreover, if it is stipulated that those works do have content
Well, it seems we are plenty willing to stipulate that they do have form, so why stop there?
—for example, their lines, colors and shapes—then again we are left with no way to speak of their form.
I find this bizarre. (Not that this is surprising at this point in the book.)
Either such works have content or they do not; but on either supposition, they appear to lack form. Thus,
either way,
the conclusion is unacceptable. Therefore, the alleged distinction between form and content still does not provide us with a comprehensive way of characterizing artistic form.
So far the difficulty has been with trying to characterize artistic form in tandem with content. ... Thus, an alternative approach that naturally recommends itself to us is to attempt to define artistic form without reference to content. ...
Great news!
Remind me why we began with the tandem approach, and why we stuck with it for several more pages than it evidently warrants? Because the most common way of thinking of artistic form is as one half of a distinction? Why so "common" if not the least bit coherent or useful?
If we reflect upon the way in which we describe artistic form, we note that often we refer to it as
unified
or
complex.
These ... two frequently recurring comments ... provide us with a clue
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... In order to be unified or complex, an artwork must be
composed of parts.
If an artwork's parts are
related
in such a way that they
appear co-ordinated,
or, if certain relations between a work's parts are
iterated
—like the A/B/A/B rhyme pattern of a poem—we call those
unity-making features
in the artwork.
Isn't the notion of parts perfectly useless analytically? i.e., because there are infinite possible divisions-into-parts, and no such division can be shown to be any more relevant than any others?
One big hint to this effect is that unity is not always made merely by way of iteration. Perhaps "iteration" makes "parts," but it does not (necessarily) make "unity." (Or am I merely stipulating this? Is Our Man merely stipulating otherwise?)
(You can't force anyone to notice nor to care that something has been "iterated," so you probably shoudn't stake anything important on either response!)
If there are many different kinds of relations between the parts of an artwork, or, if the relations between the parts are variegated and diverse, we refer to the artwork as complex.
If this is literally true, it nonetheless proves nothing, since we may similarly refer for any number of other reasons.
And again, relations may be multiplied endlessly.
The common thread that runs through these formal descriptions are parts and relations.
Yep, and that's another problem, not a solution.
Parts and relations,
then, are
the basic ingredients of artistic form.
... When we say that the figures on one side of the painting balance off the figures on the other side of the painting, we are talking about parts of the painting in relation to each other. ...
Form-statements
are always ultimately translatable as instances of the statement
"x has such and such a relation to y."
Even where x and y are not mentioned, genuine formstatements
[sic, and too good to fix!]
can always be cashed in by reference to parts and their relations.
To say that a story or dance is unified is
often supported
by reference
to recurring motifs—parts of the story or dance that
resemble
or echo each other. The artistic form here is
just the structure
of
repeating themes,
where the themes are the parts and the relation between them is repetition.
...
Artistic form, then, consists of
relations between parts of an artwork.
Artworks may have many different parts that are related in different ways. Some of these ways may be
co-ordinated,
... Or they may be
relatively uncoordinated.
...
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... But whether or not the sets of relations in an artwork are hierarchically organized, all the relations are formal relations. When we speak of the artistic form of an artwork, then, we may take that to refer to all the webs of relations that obtain between the elements of an artwork.
This is a very democratic view of artistic form.
I would call it anarchic. Conceptually anarchic. Democracy entails some mechanism of consent, and there is nothing like that here . . . as becomes obvious whenever critics are confronted by the divergent webs put forth by other critics, or by artists themselves.
Any
relation between elements of an artwork
counts
as an instance of artistic form. This characterization is comprehensive. It obviously can apply to any artwork which has discriminable parts. They will all have form, though not necessarily commendable form. This notion of artistic form can even be applied to monochromatic paintings, since such paintings often
derive their effect
from the relation of their one color to the size or scale of the canvas. This view of artistic form will count relations between representational elements of a work—such as the contrast between good characters and bad ones—as a contribution to the artistic form of story. But that is not an untoward result. Contrasting characters
contribute
to both the
coherence
and
complexity
of the artworks that have them.
I'm all but certain that we can find plenty of examples of bad art wherein such contrast makes no such contribution. We are then forced to concede that "contrasting characters" could "contribute" anything and/or nothing; and then, to concede that such "content" as this therefore is no unqualified good (or bad); and then, having already conceded that "parts" and "relations" and "resemblances" can be multiplied endlessly, that not even the isolation of "contrasting characters" as "parts" has any necessary salience or significance.
We can call this approach to artistic form
the descriptive account.
According to the descriptive account,
any instance
of a relation among elements of an artwork is an instance of artistic form. On this view, in order to provide
a full account
of the artistic form of a given artwork, one would list or summarize
all the relations
among the parts of the work.
i.e., Once we unpack what is really required to rationally, pragmatically, and utilitarian-ally limit the classes: "elements" and "relations" to some bounded domain, we see, then (probably only then and not before), that all parties to this boundary-drawing maneuver must think, feel and believe very much alike in order for the project to be able to proceed an inch toward the accomplishment of whatever truly-necessary objective has been posited; a project whose rationale all concerned may support, but without this all being (or becoming) any more able to think, feel and believe as one; they are no more able to do this than they were before the identification of the objective, or before the universally-accepted rationale for it was formulated.
We call this approach the descriptive account because it classifies any relation among elements in an artwork as an instance of artistic form,
irrespective of any principle of selection.
On this conception of artistic form,
the ideal analysis
of the artistic form of a given artwork would be
a long description of all
the relations among the elements of an artwork. Some art criticism in the 1960s and 1970s
actually aspired to
this ideal.
In favor of the descriptive account is its comprehensiveness.
It does not seem
to leave anything out.
That counts . . . in its favor?!
Arguably it will track everything that one is
likely to regard
as an instance of artistic form. However, ... We rarely, if ever, encounter
such exhaustive accounts
... Nor is it clear that we even desire such descriptive accounts. The accounts of artistic form we find
are almost always more selective.
. . . and this too counts not at all "in favor" of those accounts! But yes, this seems both true and significant.
Nor are they more selective simply because few would have the energy to read or to write up such exhaustive descriptions. They are more selective because typically we think of the artistic form of an artwork as
comprised of
only a subset of
the relations
among the elements of
an artwork. But this raises the question
"which ones?"
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Form and function
... This is a plausible and a coherent view of artistic form. However, ... In such situations, we standardly only focus on
some of
the relations among elements of the work, but not all of them. The relations that concern us are
the ones that
contribute to the realization of
the point of
the artwork.
...
That is, our ordinary conception of artistic form is
explanatory
rather than
descriptive.
Notice that explanations and descriptions do not work quite the same way!
How do we evaluate conflicting "explanations"? Conflicting "descriptions"?
It does not aim at listing every relation in the total web of relations discoverable in an artwork. It selects out only those elements and relations in the work that
promote the point or the purpose
of the artwork. Our ordinary concept of artistic form seems to be
functional.
The form of the artwork is whatever functions to advance or to realize whatever the artwork is designed to bring about. ...
The American architect Louis Sullivan said, "Form follows function." What he had in mind, for example, was
. . . NOT this sort of discussion!! . . .
that the form of a garage door—its size and shape—
I thought we decided that size and shape are NOT all that form is?!
was a certain way in order to discharge its function ... Similarly, the form of an artwork is ideally determined by
what it is supposed to do
—its point or its purpose.
Must we do with it only this?
This, of course, assumes that artworks can have purposes.
How could they not? The question seems more to be: Does the artist or the critic get to stipulate for all time what that purpose will be?
However, this seems scarcely controversial, once we realize how diverse these purposes may be. ... It should not be difficult to concede that all or nearly all artworks have points or purposes—perhaps most frequently more than one—once we think of points and purposes in [the broadest possible] ...
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... way. And
the form of the artwork
is what enables the artwork to realize its purposes.
...
The point or purpose of Edouard Manet's Woman Playing a Guitar is to present the woman in the painting as an agent or doer. Traditionally, women are often presented in paintings as objects of visual pleasure, charming figures for male delight. In Woman Playing a Guitar, Manet subverts the traditional approach by presenting his model with her back to the audience, thereby undermining her availability for ogling. She is intent on her task (guitar playing), rather than posing seductively for the male viewer. The orientation of the figure—with her back to the viewer—is a formal choice. It functions to realize the point of the painting—to portray women as doers.
"So, Noël, tell us about yourself."
An artwork is designed to perform some purpose (or set of purposes, co-ordinated or otherwise) and/or to make some point.
Unless it is not?
Formal choices are elements and relations in the artwork that are the intended means to secure those points and purposes, ... A formal choice has the intended function to advance the point or purpose of the artwork, if the point in question is the intended result of the formal choice and the formal choice occurs in the work in order to function to secure a point or purpose of the work.
... Artworks, of course, may have more than one point and/or purpose, and these may be co-ordinated or not. In Woman Playing a Guitar, the theme of woman-as-doer is reinforced by the woman's glance which, rather than being coyly averted, seems absorbed in her music.
Ah yes, I can hear it now . . .
Glance and figural orientation here are co-ordinated to implement the same point. But, in other artworks, formal choices may not be interconnected where they still nevertheless enable different artistic purposes. Nevertheless, whether co-ordinated or not, formal choices are always functional contributions to the purposes of the artwork. ...
... we will call this the functional account of artistic form. ... the artistic form of an artwork is the ensemble of choices intended to realize the point or purpose of the artwork. This approach to artistic form is different from
the descriptive account.
Have we heard from this descriptive account?
The descriptive account says that the
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artistic form of the artwork is
the sum total of all the relations between the elements of an artwork.
The functional account says that the artistic form only comprises
the elements and relations that are intended to serve as the means to the end of an artwork.
This
could include
all the relations
in an artwork, if they were
all intended
to serve the purposes of the work, but that occurs rarely, despite the flowery critical rhetoric that frequently commends artworks for being
totalized organic wholes.
Indeed! Who are the Subjectivists now?!
Thus, almost all the time (if not all the time), analyses of the artistic form of an artwork that accord with the functional account will be far less exhaustive than the ideal that the descriptive account of artistic form encourages. And this, of course, conforms better to
the way in which we usually discuss
artistic form than does the descriptive account.
Well, no one can discuss everything exhaustively! But that is just a harsh material reality. It does not force us to exalt our practices as truth, nor to analyse them as if this is what they are.
If we cannot ever be "exhaustive," then such "discussion" always has the potential to be misleading by way of gross omission. It then seems no less reasonable to prescribe outright avoidance of "discussion" than to prescribe constant vigilance vis-a-vis "exhaustiveness"!
The descriptive account is much broader than the functional account, and the former, logically speaking, contains the latter. But the descriptive account is far too broad to capture what we generally mean by artistic form.
The functional account also differs from ... neoformalism, since the functional account defines artistic form relative to
the point or purpose of the work,
whereas neoformalism restricts artistic form solely to
relations with respect to the content
of the work.
Well, if Danto really is the "neoformalist" behind the curtain here, then this is hardly any difference at all. The only concession that this functional account threatens to extract from so-called Neoformalism is to concede that the point or purpose of at least some works does not entail having "content" per se; or perhaps that this lack itself just is "the point." But Neoformalism is an outflanking maneuver and it easily outflanks us here. I don't see how we can resolve that dispute by way of tightening up our concepts.
Speaking of the point or purpose of the work is
a broader way of conceptualizing
artistic form
I fail to see why that should count for or against it . . . but if forced to choose a priori, shouldn't we be far more skeptical of conceptual expansions than of contractions?
than speaking only in terms of content. Of course, where
the point
of an artwork
is
to advance something thought of as content
... , the functionalist will attend to the same formal features of the artwork that the neoformalist does.
Again, I don't see why the Neoformalist cannot just rope us back into their content racket by finding some "content" stowed away with "the point."
But, at the same time, functionalism is a richer approach than neoformalism, since it will also be capable of tracking artistic form where
there is a point
to the work,
but no content.
For example, works whose purpose is to instill a sense of beauty will still possess form according to the functionalist—whatever configurations engender delight—while the neoformalist has no way of speaking of artistic form where the correlative category of content is inoperative.
Maybe they have no valid or properly analytic way, but if we're trying to reach their little hearts-and-minds directly here, with the hope of inspiring change, I think we are failing miserably.
Thus, the functional account, logically, accommodates everything that neoformalism covers, while not being so restrictive. ... [it] lies somewhere between the descriptive account and neoformalism on the issue of artistic unity ...
The functional account of artistic form regards artistic
form as generative.
Form is that which is
designed to bring about the point or the purpose
of the artwork. ... The form serves a function. ...
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...
... Where the formal choices ... dovetail in this way, we refer to the form of the work as unified. ...
The formal elements of the work are referred to as choices,
" . . . whether or not the artist actually 'chose' them . . . "
since when an artist contemplates
the best way to articulate her point,
she has
an array of options
before her.
How 'intentionalistic!'
It seems more to be the critic who has the choices.
... Manet could have oriented the figure of the woman guitarist toward or away from the viewer. Creating an artwork involves electing the forms that the artist believes will
function optimally
toward realizing the point or purpose of the work. Forms are formal choices because they are elected from arrays of options.
" . . . whether or not the artist in fact ever 'arrayed' more than the single 'option' which we now see before us . . ."
... The notion of an
intention
needs to be included in the characterization of artistic form in order to allow for
the possibility of failed artistic forms.
... A formal analysis ... will pick out the elements intended ... and then go on to explain how they were compromised either by other elements in the work or by being put in place incorrectly. That is,
the formal analysis
of even
failed artworks
will be functional.
i.e.
Intention
is
the
function
that
form
follows.
It seems we have now (1) ruled out "description" because it is too inclusive to permit of identifying a clear and distinct "function," and then (2) ruled out strictly 'internalist' formal analysis because it combines badly with such a narrowing of ascribed function, i.e., because artistic failure then cannot be explained.
The fallacy of (1) is to think that anything-and-everything else that could have been "described" really is as irrelevant as (1) makes it.
Meanwhile, (2) is so muddled and aggravating that I doubt I can yet process or deal with it adequately, or even render it accurately as above; but I suppose I'm here to try. For one thing, we seem to have become aware of the failure in advance of any critical analysis of form. If not, then we have reasoned our way into a failure verdict that naive experience of the work did not reach. (There is an example of this latter, regarding Hamlet, mentioned by someone, somewhere, and probably posted here, somewhere, but I can't seem to locate it or remember who related the example.) Both possibilities indict critical practice itself, whereas any subsequent impasse in finding causal explanations for "bad art" seems like the kind of nonproblem we ought to be able to live with. But if we simply can't live with it, we can always create a distinct failure, a "formal" failure in a double sense, by ascribing some before-the-fact "intention" to the artist and then showing, by way of "analysis," that the work does not fulfil it. This analysis itself may be logically airtight vis-a-vis all of the very convenient telescoping that has been done to pave the way for it; and that airtightness shouldn't be the least bit surprising, since if we dare to metacriticize this critical method by applying it to itself, it seems obvious that the ruling out of the descriptive account, the turn to the functional account, and the appeal to intention as a measure of functional success, all of this is supremely effective in partitioning off a manageable little chunk of phenomenal reality for "formal analysis" to operate on, a preserve within which it itself "functions" beautifully; but this kind of partitioning is itself arbitrary, and if it is arbitrary then it can only be performed motivatedly. That, and nothing at all about the work or the artist, seems more to be what such an "analysis" proves.
To bracket the critic's own motivations (presuming that is actually something that is desired), the partitioning has to be done, so to speak, non-arbitrarily. In other words, the artist already has 'partitioned' the work off from the infinite expanse and flux of the universe; and so if this work is, ostensibly and actually, the object of the analysis, then it not only is not necessary to go outside of it, it is necessary not to do this. That is just one more reason, besides the fraughtness of the issue in general, why "intention" cannot be allowed to cross the partition. Then, if a choice of "account" and the concrete application of that account lead unavoidably to an analytic impasse whereby intention needs to be included in order to keep the enterprise afloat, there is something obviously wrong with the enterprise, something which is, ironically (or is it predictably?), more or less itself the kind of form-function mismatch outlined above.
TBC, of course.
... Often the point [of the work] can be isolated pretty easily ... But also ... [it] may be elusive. This is why
formal analysis
also usually comes hand-in-hand with
interpretations
or
explications
of the work. The interpretation of the work
identifies
the theme of the work
as
its point
and
uses the function
of
advancing the theme
as a guide to the relevant formal choices.
Explication
is broader in this respect. It may identify the point or purpose of the work
in terms of some effect
(rather than some
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communication) that work aims to bring about ... and then it goes on to point to the elements of the work conspiring to bring about this result. In this regard,
the functional account of artistic form is
explanatory.
Unraveling the artistic form of the artwork in question explains how the artwork is capable ... of making its intended points and actualizing its purposes.
... what reason is there to prefer the functional account over the descriptive account? Perhaps it is that the functional account is better suited to
doing what we expect our concept of artistic form to do.
Generally when we talk about the form of an artwork or the formal analysis of an artwork, we expect that learning about the form of the artwork
will contribute to our understanding
of it. If
we are mystified
by an artwork, we think that concentrating on its form may
illuminate it.
An opponent of interpretation could hardly have written a better paragraph in service of their contrary position.
Moreover, this intuition seems to fit better with the functional conception of artistic form than it does with the descriptive account.
Obvs! Mere description neither evinces nor engenders understanding. What remains to be shown, though, is that the "understanding" that follows from this functional account of form really is what its proponents says it is, or whether it has any virtues at all.
If the artwork as a whole is already confusing, enumerating the undifferentiated totality of its internal relations will not leave you any better off. However, if you approach the elements and the relations in the work asking what they are designed to do, you are far more likely to grasp
the rationale behind the work.
Similarly, when we speak of the form of the artwork, this has overtones of
the systematic
—of there being some formula(e), or rule(s), or guiding principle(s) in operation. This connotation of systematicity is entirely lost in the descriptive account of artistic form, since it deals in the totality of relations of the artwork with no
principle of selection.
Selection from among what? How can even the most transparent intentions and functions suggest everything which might have been "selected" but wasn't?
The functional account, on the other hand, connects artistic form with underlying motivations. In that sense, it preserves the intuition of systematicity, especially in cases where the forms are co-ordinated hierarchically to secure overarching purposes.
As always, when a principle of selection is clung to, the evident function of doing so does indeed seem to be to perserve the intuition of systematicity whether or not that "intuition" has anything else going for it.
This is truly criticism 'for its own sake'!
The functional account ... let us consider some possible objections to it.
According to the functional account, the form of an artwork is correlative to its purpose. But aren't there artworks without any purpose?
And . . . aren't there 'good' artworks with weak correlatives?
Aren't there works that are simply
about their form?
The artwork
just is
its form,
someone might say.
We still haven't decided (here) whether about and is can be used quite so interchangeably.
I'm inclined to think not, but if I had to face down such a committed neoformalist IRL then I might succumb to making the substitution anyway, hoping they will leave me alone if I do.
But here the description seems elliptical.
Does it, now? A bit late in the game for that plot twist, eh?
"The artwork just is its form" is shorthand for saying that the point of the artwork is to
display its form,
to
bring its form to our attention
so that we may contemplate it.
Display/attention is yet a third thing, besides (1) 'being about', and (2) 'just being.' Or, at minimum, to display something is a very peculiar way of being 'about' that thing: this is not a relationship of signification but rather one of . . . container and contained!
The function of the form(s) of the artwork is to command our attention, to encourage us to take note of them, and perhaps
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to reflect on the way in which they mold our experience of them. And where the point of the artwork is
not reflexive
in this way, but where it only aspires to enrapture us with its beauty, the form of the artwork is
still functional
—it is comprised of those elements and relations that are designed to arrest us.
... aleatoric art ... In what sense are the results of these procedures "formal choices," ... ? ... of course, the relevant choice here is the chance procedure itself which is generally undertaken to make some point ...
This ... seems to imply that an avant-garde artist cannot make a truly formless work of art. ... Can he succeed in making a formless artwork?
According to the functional account, he will not— ... His strategies comprise the artistic form of the work from a functionalist perspective because
his choices
are
designed
to
serve his ends.
Thus, the avant-gardist dedicated to creating a "formless" artwork will in fact make a work with artistic form. His attempts to promote a sense of
disunity at one level of experience
will be surprisingly
unified
at the level of
the relation of form to purpose.
Hmm. I really don't think the latter is a level of experience at all.
...
... does that imply that there are no formless works of art? And ... should we reopen the possibility that artistic form construed functionally is a necessary condition for all art? No—because the functional account of artistic form can allow that there are formless
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artworks. These will be artworks where the creator, either consciously nor unconsciously, [sic]
has no point or purpose,
and makes choices willy-nilly with no idea where they are headed— not because she
intends
to make a formless artwork (since that would be a purpose), but because she
has no sense at all
of where the work is going. She simply slaps one thing on top of another thing in an act of
desperation
rather than
intention.
I suspect that many artists find themselves in this situation. Suppose that the work that results in such circumstances is just an aimless jumble. The functionalist theory of art will say that it is formless. Functionalism, that is, can acknowledge the existence of formless art.
We seem to be getting further and further away from the conventional usage we've been trying to nail down.
Thus, the functionalist account is not committed to claiming that there is no formless art. On the other hand, the proponent of
the descriptive account
would have to say that there is artistic form wherever there are
elements in relation.
This would suggest that there is no formless art. But that, then, is another reason to prefer the functionalist account of artistic form over the descriptive account.
It seems rather the opposite, because the desciptive account (I would think) is not so heavily leveraged by the notion of intention, not unless it just is describing the intention. Otherwise, if it just describes what is there, then as long as there is something there to describe, indeed there is nothing formless. (And if we decide that's not how the term "form" is or ought to be used, then that is something else worth considering, but I don't see how it could count against the descriptive account.)
Failing that, we seem merely to have talked ourselves into substituting aimless for formless.
...
Form and appreciation
... From some perspectives, such as formalism, artistic appreciation just is the appreciation of the form of the artwork. ...
This view is too restrictive. Surely, it is appropriate to respond to works of social criticism ... by being moved to
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indignation by them. That is what they were
designed
to provoke, and so responding to them with indignation is responding to them in an
appropriate
way. ... at the same time, ... one of the primary ways of appreciating artworks has to do with attending to their form.
... one common meaning of appreciate is "to like." ... But art appreciation refers to a less frequently used sense of "appreciation." When a general asks his staff for their appreciation of a battle, ... He is asking them
to size up what happened
... to recount the battle in a way that makes it intelligible. ...
When we attend art appreciation classes, the primary goal of the teacher is to enable us to
understand how art works.
If it is a class in opera appreciation, ... The teacher probably hopes that once we come to understand opera, we will like it. But that is not her bottom line. ...
The final exam is not made up of the question "Do you like opera?" It is made up of questions designed to determine whether or not we understand opera, usually in terms of whether or not we understand particular operas.
Always with the classes!
Presumably, it is precisely in those places where classes are taught and final exams administered that understanding (of something or other) is indeed the all-encompassing operative principle. And then it is merely the merest of mere coincidences that "appreciation" under such auspices would be all about "understanding" and only electively about "liking." But the paradigm of appreciation might just as well be the person who has never taken a class and does "like" the object at hand. Why could it not as easily be like this?
Who are we?
... The class could be called "Understanding Opera 101" as readily as "Appreciating Opera 101." It is intended to teach one how to appreciate opera, which means
"listening to it
with understanding."
Has anyone made a Married With Children meme generator yet? I keep looking and can't find one.
But
what
are we supposed to understand?
What is it that we need to be
taught to understand?
You tell us, bruv! That's why we're here!
... the teacher ... can teach us how the forms—musical, narrative, and dramatic—are assembled to bring about certain effects. By informing us about how certain formal choices are often used, about the way in which they have been used, and by exposing us to a variety of different examples, the teacher hopes to equip us with a rudimentary understanding of how opera
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works. ...
...
Art appreciation, then, in large measure is design appreciation—knowing how the work works, seeing how its parts are intended to function toward the realization of the point(s) or purpose(s) of the work. Thus, a natural object of artistic appreciation is artistic form, where artistic form is understood functionally. ... even where we do not feel pleasure in the design of the work, we may still understand it—"appreciate it" in the sizing-up sense of the word.
Critics enable us to appreciate artworks by providing
exemplary insight
into how the artwork under discussion works. ...
Much of our reflective life as art consumers is spent appreciating the way in which artistic forms have been adapted to serve their purposes. ...
These are not the only questions that concern us with respect to artworks. But they are central ones. They reveal that, to a surprising extent, art appreciation is preoccupied with artistic form.
It seems more that form has (here) been redefined to mean: intended function.
...
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...
The functional account of artistic form obviously squares better with this picture of design appreciation than does the descriptive account. ... Attending to
all the relations
in an artwork is an unlikely road to understanding the work. Why are some relations in the work pertinent and others not? The descriptive account provides no reliable clue here.
Here is something else that we don't need to be taught. We only need to be taught to reason our way to knowing what is pertinent if we are expected to defend that conclusion verbally and reason-edly.
However, conceiving the artistic form of the work functionally
connects it directly
to the issue of understanding, since, on the functional account, a formal element must be
linked to a larger purpose,
the disclosure of which yields understanding of
the place
of a feature in
a broader context.
Aaah-HAH!
So,
form is to be defined as
elements in relation,
because
artists fulfil their
larger purposes
by
choosing
to
articulate
certain "relations" from among
an array of
such
options.
This is
a braoder context
than
a mere
descriptive account
can provide; namely, it implicates
intention
and
design
. . .
and by this time we can assume that these two, in turn, implicate
pretty much anything and everything else
in the entire world.
... some theorists identify design appreciation with the whole of artistic appreciation. This is too extreme. ... But ... That the functionalist account elucidates how artistic form is capable of serving in this capacity as a proper object of artistic appreciation is a major consideration on its behalf.
Any chance we could find a theorist to relieve us of appreciation altogether? That would seem to benefit everyone, except for those in constant search for major considerations on behalf of the Appreciation Racket.
... Following a story with appreciation is like driving a car correctly; ... , noting how smoothly it corners and thinking about how the steering mechanism must have been made to facilitate that. Design appreciation is not the whole story of art appreciation. But it is such an important subcategory ... And the functionalist account of artistic form does this better than its competitors.
...
the intended function
that formal choices are meant to acquit.
Some might suggest that talk about artistic intentions here might be best forgotten.
👀 👀 👀
Why not merely say that a formal element in an artwork is whatever serves to realize the point of the artwork, whether or not the artist had any awareness, conciously or subconsciously, of the relevant point?
Suppose the artist intended a comedy, but the results are tragic, ... Why not say then that the
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artistic form of the work is whatever realizes the tragic effect of the work? ... Why not just talk about what the work
actually does,
as opposed to
what it was designed to do?
... for the time being, suffice it to say that whether we are talking about the intended function of an element or the function an element serves to perform irrespective of the artist's intentions,
we are still talking about functions.
In that regard, some type of functionalist account of artistic form still appears more promising than rival views. ...
Chapter summary
Artistic form is a major factor in our appreciation of artworks. So much of
our reflection
about artworks is
preoccupied with their design.
Reflection is cheap! No matter how 'expensive' its object!
Taking note
of how suitably an artwork is
designed to acquit its purpose
is a powerful
source of the pleasure
we find in artworks.
All of this is news to me!
Just as we
appreciate
tools
for the way in which they implement the ends they are designed to serve,
!!
so
reflection upon artwork
is frequently gratified by contemplating the way in which their design functions to secure their points and purposes.
... Formalist theories of art had the beneficial consequence of alerting spectators to what was of value in much twentieth-century art. ... However, the formalist intends to theorize about the nature of all art, not just modern art.
Of how many seminal formalists can this actually be said?
And as a comprehensive theory of all art, formalism fails.
A major failing of formalism is its tendency to regard content as strictly irrelevant to art status. ... not only is most traditional art as concerned with content as much as it is with form, but also ... in many cases it would be impossible to discern significant form in artworks, if content were irrelevant to art status.
Neoformalism attempts to remedy this shortcoming of formalism ... by replacing the
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notion of significant form with that of the satisfying appropriateness of form to content. However, neoformalism, like neorepresentationalism, confronts the problem that not all works of art possess content. ...
Nevertheless, even if form is not the
defining feature
of all art, it is a
notable feature
of much art. ... we need an account of artistic form, despite the fact that form may not be a feature of every artwork. ...
... The functional account—that the artistic form of an artwork is the ensemble of choices intended to realize the point or purpose of the work—illuminates perspicuously why artistic form is a natural object of one important dimension of appreciation, design appreciation. Why this should be so is far from obvious on a descriptive account of artistic form. Consequently, the functional account of artistic form appears superior to the descriptive account. Though we may argue about exactly how to frame the best account of artistic form—should it be keyed to artistic intentions or not?—still, functionalism of some sort seems our best bet as a comprehensive theory of artistic form.
Annotated reading
...
One of the most important statements of formalism with respect to music is Eduard Hanslick, On the Musically Beautiful, translated by G.Payzant (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett, 1986).
Here, we can be sure, is a formalist (of whatever importance) who was definitely not theorizing about all art!
...
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...
The locus classicus for the claim that form and content are identical is A.C.Bradley's "Poetry for Poetry's Sake," which is reprinted in Eliseo Vivas and Murray Kreiger, (eds), The Problems of Aesthetics (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960). This view is criticized at length in Chapter 4 of Peter Kivy, Philosophies of Arts (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
... Students interested in pursuing the topic of artistic form at greater length are advised to consult the philosophical literature on style, since
"style" is often just another word for the artistic form of an artwork.
A good place to begin studying philosophical conceptions of style is Berel Lang's anthology The Concept of Style (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1987). ...
...
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