Art and Meaning

Because of the misconception that it is only through verbal language that meaning is expressed, the arts often go unappreciated. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate through the works of John Dewey, Mark Johnson, Donald Kuspit, and others the ways in which meaning is rooted in aesthetic bodily experience. Acts of expression must engage this realm of embodied understanding before verbal meaning can take place. Only then can the arts create a dialogue that is shared by all human beings regardless of nationality, gender, ethnicity, and culture. Our experiences are more than what is found in our concepts and verbal communication. Our collective potential to build a more educated, constructive and creative future relies on our acceptance of the shared bases for meaning that the aesthetic can access.

These shared bases for meaning cannot be achieved through conformity to strict ideological systems, or through a relativism that treats subjective truths as arbitrary. In the arts the first standpoint represents itself in dogmatic adherence to aesthetic canons and "isms" that all claim to express the truth about the human condition. The latter reveals itself in disregard to the aesthetic experience all together. It isn’t uncommon to hear people say that art is all a matter of opinions that result from culturally biased standpoints. For people who adopt this ideology there is no common ground in which art can be experienced on a shared human level. These two standpoints may appear in opposition to each other but are more similar than different in that they attribute meaning to some higher source, whether that source is believed to be real, which results in absolutism, or absent resulting in a destructive form of nihilism. Neither of these paths are constructive, and in order to move forward, meaning must be rooted not in brittle doctrines, but human experience itself. We often attribute human meaning to the mind and demote the sensuous experiences provided by the arts to the body (which is in itself thought to be inferior to the mind). Because of this, an understanding of the meaning in aesthetic experience relies on the rejection of mind-body dualism.

The pragmatist philosopher John Dewey understood this. He searched and argued for a principle of continuity that involves an ontological continuity between the mind and body. You cannot have one theory of being that explains our ability to use abstract concepts and another that explains our felt bodily experience. In the book Art as Experience this principle is brought to the arts. Dewey writes that those of us who wish to philosophize about the fine arts must attempt to “restore continuity between the refined and intensified forms of experience that are works of art and the everyday events, doings, and sufferings that are universally recognized to constitute experience” (Dewey 2). By this he means that one's experience of a work of art is not something separate or imposed on life but a part of it. Often we do not notice the aesthetic significance of ordinary experiences. Dewey writes, "The man who poked the sticks of burning wood would say he did it to make the fire burn better; but he is none the less fascinated by the colorful drama of change enacted before his eyes and imaginatively partakes in it. He does not remain a cold spectator" (Dewey 3). For Dewey the struggle was against those who treated any attempt to ground the higher or ideal realm of experience (such as art) with the vital roots of experience as a betrayal of their nature and denial of their value (Dewey 20). In the modern era, meaning in experiencing a work of art is obscured and lost because we lose sight of the value and meaning of experience in general. In the modern world there has been an enforced separation of the “mode of activity commonly called practice from insight, imagination from executive doing, of significant purpose from work, of emotion from thought and doing” (Dewey 21). In a world like this, Dewey writes:

We undergo sensations as mechanical stimuli or as irritated stimulations, without having a sense of the reality that is in them and behind them. . . . We use the senses to arouse passion but not to fulfill the interest of insight, not because that interest is not potentially present in the exercise of sense but because we yield to conditions of living that force sense to remain an excitation on the surface. Prestige goes to those who use their minds without participation of the body and who act vicariously through control of the bodies and labor of others. (Dewey 21)

Often relatively little value or status is put into our aesthetic felt experiences. Perhaps this is why I can’t even begin to recall all the times I have listened to intelligent people from various disciplines refer to the pursuit of artistic excellences as impractical, useless, self-absorbed, pretentious, and absolutely meaningless. On numerous occasions I’ve met students whose parents threaten to stop sending money unless they go into the commercial arts. A friend’s parents refused to help her pay for art school despite her merit scholarship for her portfolio because “it won’t teach you common sense.”

Mark Johnson, like Dewey, continues the task of restoring the continuity between meaning and everyday experience through the book The Meaning of the Body. In this book Johnson gives compelling arguments for how meaning is made up of felt bodily experience. He pursues the issue on many fronts, which include references to the pragmatist philosophy of Dewey and James, child development, discoveries in neuroscience, conceptual metaphors and image schemas, and a compelling argument for grounding our abstract concepts and logic in our body. For my purposes it is unnecessary to illustrate every argument in his book, but I will take the time to briefly elaborate on some of the key points.

Johnson argues that adults are all “big babies.” By this he means that our ways of constructing meaning as adults go back to the ways in which infants experience and grow to make sense of the world. Infants must learn the meaning of objects and events that adults take for granted through their sensorimotor and conceptual capacities, which are developed through ongoing experiences with the outside world. Johnson cites the results of surveys done by Eleanor Gibson and Anne Pick on child development. They concluded that there are three stages of infant development. The first is communication, in which infants immediately learn how to respond in order to get nourishment, care, and affection. Then there is object perception and manipulation. In this stage infants learn through the use of physical interaction with the world that they can use objects to achieve desired effects. In the third stage, bodily motion, children learn through moving around their environment a “world of meaningful objects and possibilities for accomplishing goals and realizing intentions” (Johnson 36). All of this is done through “bodily perceptual capacities, motor functions, posture, expressions, and ability to experience emotions and desire.” These capacities are “at once bodily, affective, and social.” They do not require language and are the basic ways in which humans make sense of the world (Johnson 35-36).

Johnson also cites the work of developmental psychologist Colwyn Trevarthen. Trevarthen writes that the infant, through bodily gesture, makes a statement of feeling, and the caregiver reacts in complementary ways. This creates an engagement he calls a proto-conversation (Johnson 39). This connection does not end with infants. There is growing evidence for the mirror-neuron system. When one observes another performing an action, the observer’s motor cortex will be partially activated as if they were to perform that action themselves (Johnson 39-49). This all suggests that we have built into us the ability to communicate and empathize through the body without the aid of language.

In drawing classes, when trying to accurately capture what I will call the meaning in a pose, students are sometimes instructed to physically imitate the model. There is a felt bodily connectedness, an empathy that must be achieved. This is why, while watching a dance, so much emotion can be generated in the observer. We feel reflected in our own physical and emotional states the movements of the performers on stage. It may be why the human figure is one of the most enduring forms in Western art. It is why even abstract forms such as those in the works of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning carry a sense of physicality without the figure as a pictorial subject. We connect with the physical motion of the artist through a bodily understanding rooted in the emotional qualities of their gesture. This is why mark making is not just a tool for depicting symbols or describing borders, but a mode of expression it itself.

Meaning is also known and expressed through what psychologist Daniel Stern calls vitality affects. They are not emotions in the sense that anger, joy, or fear are emotions but patterns in the flow of experience. Stern writes “These elusive qualities are better captured by dynamic, kinetic terms, such as ‘surging,’ ‘fading away,’ ‘fleeting,’ ‘explosive,’ ‘crescendo,’ ‘decrescendo,’ ‘bursting,’ ‘drawn out,’ and so on.” These qualities are experienced through all of our sensory and motor capacities (Johnson 43). An infant experiences all of these vitality effects in the bang of something falling off the shelf, the light caress of a mother’s touch, the anticipation of desiring a toy, and the reward of achieving it in one’s possession. These vitality effects are not just the qualitative changes in how we experience the world but also how we experience and communicate through art. A painting may feel “quiet” or “still.” The marks one makes can be gentle and loving or brutal and violent. They may express the peak of action or a crescendo of events or the steady flow of lonesome observation. The language of infants and the language of the arts are the same. They are both expressions of the quality of experience and are based in the interaction of a living creature and its environment.

Johnson writes that “When we grow up, we do not shed these embodied meanings or our bodily ways of meaning-making. Instead, we appropriate and recruit them in what we might think of as our more refined, abstractive modes of understanding and thinking.” He continues that:

we are not solitary, autonomous creatures who individually and singly construct models of our world in our head. On the contrary, we learn about our world in and through others. We inhabit a shared world, and we share meaning from the start, even if we are completely unaware of this while we are infants. (Johnson 51)

Meaning does not come from a higher source or mind that transcends the body. It is not in the objects of the world either. Meaning exists in the engagement between an organism and its environment. Johnson refers to this as body-environment coupling (Johnson 51).

One of the most insightful and useful passages in understanding embodied meaning comes from the philosopher Eugene Gendlin. He questions, when we are writing a letter, a poem, or an essay, how we know which words to use. How do we know when to stop and try again when something just doesn’t seem right? The quality of your experience went from a harmonious flow to a frustrating block. You struggle to find the right words, but how do you know when you find them? Gendlin writes:

The poet reads the written lines over and over, listens, and senses what these lines need (want, demand, imply…). Now the poet’s hand rotates in the air. The gesture says that. Many good lines offer themselves; they try to say, but do not say—that. The blank is more precise. Although some are good lines, the poet rejects them.

That … seems to lack words, but no. It knows the language, since it understands—and rejects—these lines that came. So it is not pre-verbal; Rather, it knows what must be said, and knows that these lines don’t precisely say that. It knows like a gnawing knows what was forgotten, but it is new in the poet, and perhaps new in the history of the world. (Gendlin)

The reason for this, as Johnson writes, is that “you have meaning or are caught up in meaning, before you actually experience meaning reflectively” (Johnson 79). This “. . .” is not limited to just writing. It is the same struggle that an artist goes through when finding the right color or brush mark. It is the same struggle a musician goes through in finding the right articulation of a passage. We are all striving toward a felt sense of meaning that could be called a felt truth. Overcoming the “. . .” leads to a sense of accomplishment and accuracy in expression that runs deeper than mere rendering. Ultimately what all this brings us to is that despite our differences, which are so often emphasized in our culture, we have basic ways of experiencing and understanding the world that are inherently human. These experiences and the means by which we create meaning do not give us the absolute objective truth about the world, but they do provide common human truths.

In his closing chapter, "The Meaning of the Body," Johnson addresses numerous implications of his work. One topic entitled "Embodied spirituality" addresses some of the concerns one may have about embracing embodied meaning. In this passage Johnson divides spirituality into two possible conceptions of transcendence. One is vertical transcendence. This is “the alleged capacity to rise above and shed our finite human form and to ‘plug into’ the infinite.” Throughout human history we have struggled against “our finiteness, which each of us experiences as limitation, weakness, dependence, alienation, loss of meaning, absence of love, and anxiety over sickness and death.” If vertical transcendence were possible, it would be the answer to these problems. The other conception of transcendence is horizontal transcendence. This form of transcendence is compatible with human finitude, and embodied meaning. It consists in our ability to go beyond our current situations through creative acts that transform ourselves and our world. We are apart of a “human and more-than-human ongoing process in which change, creativity, and growth of meaning are possible.” Horizontal transcendence transforms how we look at terms that traditionally are valued as being something beyond and above embodied meaning:

Faith thus becomes faith in the possibility of genuine, positive transformation that increases richness of meaning, harmony among species, and flourishing, not just at the human level, but in the world as an ongoing creative development . . . None of this is grounded in the infinite, but rather in the creative possibilities of finite human experience. It gives each of us more good work to do than we can possibly realize within our lifetime. (Johnson 281-283)

While ideological standards may bring about self-righteousness, the judging and alienation of others, and an inability to cope with new and complex problems, an emphasis on human experience on a shared and common level could satisfy needs and solve problems with humility and adaptability. I do not believe that this necessitates the rejection of all forms of vertical transcendence, such as belief in god or an afterlife, so long as it can have a relation to horizontal transcendence that is compliant and constructive. You don’t have to look too far to see examples of desperate longing and dissatisfaction in people’s lives. As a community we should be trying to employ the resources available to us through our various disciplines to relieve others and help with the struggle of accomplishing a life that is more than just getting by. The arts can help those who are in need of aesthetic beauty. This may sound trivial, but remember that the aesthetic nature of experience reaches down to the very foundation of how we build meaning in our lives.

This is not to say that that meaning is easily accessible by all people. The previous arguments are in support of a level of universality in human aesthetic experience, but by no means is this intended to be a walk in the park. Our own traditions and previous personal experiences influence our aesthetic experiences. When I was in Prague with some classmates of mine we visited a Gothic cathedral. I was moved by the contrast of the dark wooden interior and the piercing intensity of the stained glass windows. I could appreciate the peace of mind it gave me just through the sheer aesthetic power of the interior. The colors that dominated the stained glass were cool blues and greens, which gave the light flowing into the cathedral an otherworldly atmosphere. It wasn’t the religion of the place that grabbed me but the art. My classmates did not share my enthusiasm. One in particular called the interior oppressive. It’s no fault of his to feel this way. Many have experiences that make them uncomfortable with various religious centers. Nonetheless, it is important to understand that one could appreciate and feel the beauty and power of the cathedral without being a member of the church.

I, for example, am not a descendent of the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico, yet when I visited the Native American ruins in Chaco Canyon, and watched one particular Pueblo perform a ceremonial dance, I was deeply struck by a sense of common truth, or better yet, common harmony that exists in the aesthetic of their ceremony. I can’t understand all the meaning to their dance, but to say that I was an isolated, cold spectator due to cultural differences would be foolish. After breathing the air of New Mexico and feeling the weight and deafening silence of the landscape in Chaco Canyon, I knew when they struck their drums that something was resonating inside of me. It was so particular and so right. It was music like none I had ever heard that so appropriately harmonized with a landscape I had never experienced. I knew in that moment that there was a shared experience between us, the spectators, and the performers. There was a shared sense of wonder. No institution, religion, or ideology has a monopoly on the power and importance of aesthetic experiences because they speak directly to our experience as embodied human beings.

What does all of this say about art and its relationship to religion? Throughout the history of humanity artistic expression has been regulated, commissioned, and created to serve various religious institutions. This has been the case in music, architecture, painting, poetry, dance, and many more modes of expression that are foreign to our Western traditions. The question now, I believe, is Does it have to be that way? Art has celebrated vertical transcendence for centuries, but if the beauty in those works is not bound completely to the ideology under which they were created, can there then be art that celebrates horizontal transcendence? In a sense, all meaningful works of art celebrate horizontal transcendence in that they have to speak to our experience as embodied beings in order for us to get meaning out of them at all. Take, for example, Michelangelo's "Pieta." Two individuals may look at the piece, one a devout Christian and the other a nonbeliever. The Christian may look at the work and think about the miracle of Mary's virgin birth and Christ's death and resurrection, all of which are examples of vertical transcendence. The nonbeliever may know these stories, but they won't have the same meaning. Nevertheless, what both viewers can empathize with in the work is the relationship between a mother and her child. You don't have to be Christian to be heartbroken by the image of a mother holding her dead son in her arms. This image speaks directly to our finite human experience and is an example of horizontal transcendence. It grounds us in our compassion and humanity, which is a noble accomplishment. It fills us with an emotional (perhaps conscious) awareness of the value and richness of life. No matter what your beliefs are about Christ and Mary, ask yourself if there could be any meaning to this work at all if it did not touch us on this human level? Another important question to ask is how such experiences contribute to our lives? What use do we have for the meaning we take with us after looking at great art. Like all experiences, this meaning comes out of body-environment coupling and is never arbitrary. Like all organisms, it results in the construction of means toward survival. Dewey elaborates on this:

In the process of living, attainment of a period of equilibrium is at the same time the initiation of a new relation to the environment, one that brings with it potency of new adjustments to be made through struggle. . . . But, through the phases of perturbation and conflict, there abides the deep-seated memory of an underlying harmony, the sense of which haunts life . . . (Dewey 16)

Art for Dewey is very much a part of this struggle. It comes out of that “deep-seated memory of an underlying harmony.” But how can that be? How does art connect with our struggle for survival in the world? Many would argue that it serves no function. It seems to many that unlike farming and many other occupations it has no obvious use in sustaining life. To better understand this, it is useful to look at Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh knew the struggle for equilibrium in a dangerous, hostile world quite well through his relapses into insanity and depression. Between these relapses he painted with great discipline and faith. The art critic Donald Kuspit writes:

van Gogh wanted “to accomplish something with heart and love in it.” His art preached universal empathy rather than blind obedience to aesthetic law. It was informed by the spirit not the letter of religion; a painting was a spontaneous sermon rather than a theological lesson in correct religious thinking . . . (Kuspit 146)

The secular sermons that van Gogh gave through painting is a fine example of what Mark Johnson calls embodied spirituality. Van Gogh’s work does not promise us eternal salvation but it does serve the purpose of uplifting us through aesthetic embodied experience.

This raises the question of what art as a secular sermon means. What resolution, what peace of mind can one get from a work of art? Kuspit writes that when faced with our own mortality, we lose our ability to manage our own feelings and mind. But through the arts

the self can plumb the depths of destruction and death in itself and the world. It can never fathom them, but art enables the self to explore their effect on its sense of life, which gives it some hold on itself despite its insecurity. Art can never give it the enlightenment of the Buddha, but aesthetic experience can show the self that life is not futile, however limited. (Kuspit 190)

He continues that “Pure intellect is a poor defense against the traumatic ugliness of life compared to art, for ugliness has to be defended against with the whole psyche not simply a part of it” (Kuspit 190). If meaning is based in the body, then aesthetic experiences speak directly to how we construct meaning, and that makes the aesthetic fundamental in the psyche’s defense against the ugliness of the world. All our abstract ideas and concepts used to defend and protect ourselves from suffering are based in the aesthetic of experience. Without the aid of the aesthetic we cannot cope and enjoy passages of triumph over human suffering. The arts make it so that, while reflecting upon death and destruction, “we no longer compulsively brood about them, as though that would bring them into intellectual focus” (Kuspit 191). Like positive aesthetic experiences, suffering too knows no boundaries. No ideology or institution can contain it.

Kuspit speaks of ugliness as the underlying state of things when he writes that “the aesthetic pleasure beauty gives always has a mournful, poignant undertone. . . . Scratch a work of art and one will discover the urgent ugliness beneath its beauty—the rupture within its harmony. . .” (Kuspit 187). Dewey on the other hand speaks of “the deep-seated memory of an underlying harmony, the sense of which haunts life” (Dewey 16). Whether ugliness underlies harmony or harmony underlies ugliness, what truly matters is that as organisms searching for harmony with our environment we are constantly engaged in living out a rhythm between the two. I will not call it good and evil, because that implies entities beyond the body. What I will call it is the ongoing struggle for survival. The creation of art is a way in which we keep our head above water as we face new challenges. Making art is more than just the venting of one individual’s thoughts. It is a means by which we all can share and reflect on experience. It is a necessary service to the greater community of people with whom it is shared. Without engaging ourselves and the world around us with aesthetic experiences, we are stunted and incapable of meeting the demands life makes on us.

Works Cited

Johnson, Mark. The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding. Chicago & London: The U of Chicago P, 2007. Print

Dewey, John. Art as experience. New York: Perigee Books, 1980. Print.

Kuspit, Donald. The End of Art. New York: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print.

Gendlin, Eugene T. "Crossing and Dipping." The Focusing Institute. Web. 27 July 2009. http://www.focusing.org/gendlin.html.