Maritain's Ontology of the Work of Art (PDF)

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.