The Future of Aesthetic Education

Abstract

painting which is also without subject in the strict sense. We share the geometric vision of Mondrian as embodied in his Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue; our eyes become his. Or with Rothko's Red White and Brown, we gain a different empathetic knowledge; instead of clear definition and precise articulation, we come to know color as movement and space as mystery. Our connection is not with a subject, but with an act of perception, and we perceive differently thereafter as a result. It might be argued that what I am describing is not unique to art. Doesn't the football fan find his body arching and stretching with that of the wide receiver who leaps to snare a pass over the arms of the defending player? Don't we shudder with terror and anger when a friend tells us how he was mugged in an underground garage? And isn't this empathetic knowedge? It is, to the degree that elements of art exist in things other than art: sport and conversation can certainly be artful. But to partake of elements of art is not to be art. Neither the football game nor our friend's story about his mugging is art for many reasons, the most pertinent of which is that their aims are different. The aim of the football game is victory for one team and defeat for the other-the game is directed toward its score in points. The aim of our friend, in telling of his misadventure, is to tell us what happened; if our friend seems to be exaggerating or inventing his account, we will register our disbelief. Thus our role is not, in these instances, that of seeker of empathetic knowledge, and the empathy we feel is incidental to other purposes. Were the football game to abjure its dominant purpose (and the attendant mechanisms of time-outs, measuring yardage, choosing plays according to the single criterion of ground-gaining effectiveness), football would This content downloaded from 207.46.13.112 on Mon, 03 Oct 2016 04:45:18 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Future of Aesthetic Education 25 become more artful. And, insofar as its purpose became increasingly intrinsic, it could be transformed into art, most likely the art of dance. Similarly, if our mugged friend recounted his story not to tell us what happened, but to enable us to feel as if we ourselves were mugged, and if he was willing to sacrifice literal truth to this purpose, he would be increasingly artful in his narrative; he would be transforming us from concerned friend to audience of an artwork. We would then respond to his tale on the basis not of sympathy for the damages done to him, but of the effectiveness of the story in fostering our empathetic knowledge. We do not, for example, wish Lear to survive the play; but we do want to know empathetically what it is to be Lear.