I applaud Bullot & Reber's (B&R's) decision to foreground the “doppelganger” examples of Arthur Danto (Brillo boxes, red squares) and Dennis Dutton (on forgery) in their opening brief for contextualist accounts of appreciation. These examples present cases in which context differentiates between a work of art and a mere real thing, between different but perceptually indistinguishable works of art, and between a work of art and a persuasive forgery. I suggest that Frank Sibley (Reference Sibley1959) also belongs in this pantheon. His paper “Aesthetic Concepts” identifies another locus where context helps determine essential aspects of a work. Aesthetic properties are contestable; many theorists hold that they supervene on lower-level perceptual, historical, and structural properties. In this sense, aesthetic properties too are context-dependent. In “Categories of Art” (Reference Walton1970), Kendall Walton argues that the apparent properties possessed by works of art vary according to the category in which those works are placed. He then raises the key normative question – to what category is each work properly assigned? – and suggests several criteria that need not align. So appreciators face the further challenge of determining appropriate categorization.
B&R's psycho-historical account presents appreciation as a three-stage process, with each stage a necessary condition for the one that follows. The stages are individuated in part by the different modes of reasoning in place (B&R, Fig. 2). I have questions about the partition of these stages, as well as about the characterization of the design stance. Purportedly this middle mode of appreciation develops as appreciators infer causal explanations for features noted via basic exposure. An implicit metaphor in place throughout the paper characterizes works of art as “containers” for causal information. B&R speak of “causal and historical information carried by an artwork” (sect. 2.3, para. 1; my emphasis) and note that “It is often possible to retrieve from an artwork its connection to antecedent events” (sect. 2.3, para. 3). They offer the analogy of tree rings to explain these causal inferences (sect. 2.3).
This account seems misleading in its suggestion that retrieval is a simple matter; it might also encourage a fruitless search for laws of taste. Although the proffered example of Lucio Fontana slashing his canvas (sect. 2.3, para. 3) offers a straightforward causal tale, there is a wide range of countervailing cases. The authors cite Dominic Lopes's (Reference Lopes2005) discussion of Rembrandt's painting Belshazzar's Feast as an example of design stance detection. Building on Lopes, these claims might be gleaned from the work: Rembrandt knew Hebrew, he believed Biblical figures dressed like seventeenth-century Dutchmen, and he was influenced by the Caravaggisti (Lopes Reference Lopes2005, p. 134). Unlike the tree ring case, no simple and direct algorithm leads from the painting to these conclusions. The first two are likely false, although establishing influence requires first ruling out chance correlation. In general, a work of art might be as it is because of conventions in place at the time of its creation, because of inherent limitations of the medium, because the artist wanted to subvert audience expectations, because the artist failed to realize his or her intentions. Few of these circumstances can be read off from the work like growth data from the rings of a tree. Artists have complex and multifarious ties to the artworld in which they are situated, and the aesthetically relevant features of their works are likely to be overdetermined in ways that complicate the search for causal explanation.
I have additional concerns about how the three modes of appreciation are distinguished from one another. B&R introduce their model with the claim that appreciators process work information “in at least three distinct ways” (sect. 3, para. 1). Basic exposure recruits our ordinary perceptual capacities, causal reasoning informs the design stance, and theory-based reasoning generates artistic understanding. But this partition is soon breached. B&R note that appreciators often use theory-based reasoning to decipher causal history (sect. 3.2.2) and later concede that the postulated stages need not proceed sequentially (sect. 3.4, para. 3). If we jettison the idea that the output of one stage becomes input for the next and accept some commonly held views – that perception is theory-laden, that causal explanation requires some type of lawlike underpinning – then intermingling seems inevitable. Moreover, attention to the nature of expertise further fractures the architectonic, as experts possess vast background and theoretical information that they cannot easily shed. Once theory-based reasoning can permeate the design stance, it is unclear what remains to be accomplished in stage 3 beyond formulating and defending summary evaluations. Finally, although B&R seem to support an intentionalist account of appreciation, they also endorse a conflicting biologically based notion of proper function (sect. 2.2, para. 2) that eschews intention and looks instead to precursors' cultural or market success. This clearly broadens and redirects the search for context.
In section 3.4 (para.1), B&R state that empirical testability is a crucial consequence of their model. But what sort of experimentation can seek and validate art historical context? Past preference studies that B&R cite do not seem to be fine-grained enough to probe this information, although currently fashionable fMRI research seems more suited to distinguish hot versus cold moments in appreciation than to mark historical and contextual components. B&R's observation of “the greater importance experts give to historical contexts in art appraisal compared to novices” (sect. 2.4, para. 2) hints that an old-fashioned staple of psychological research – reaction time studies – might be profitably recycled here. However, their later remark that “experts might have an ability to summon historical information very rapidly by means of fast recognition” (sect. 3.4, para. 3) undercuts this suggestion. Experimental design is complicated not only by the divide between amateurs and experts, but also by the fact that acknowledged experts cannot appropriately hold forth about just any work. Suitability requirements need to be in place. I have argued elsewhere (Ross Reference Ross2012) that experts ought only to judge works of types in which they are capable of taking an interest. I conclude that even after my worries about B&R's psycho-historical framework have been quieted, considerable artfulness will be required to design effective empirical tests of their theory.
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I applaud Bullot & Reber's (B&R's) decision to foreground the “doppelganger” examples of Arthur Danto (Brillo boxes, red squares) and Dennis Dutton (on forgery) in their opening brief for contextualist accounts of appreciation. These examples present cases in which context differentiates between a work of art and a mere real thing, between different but perceptually indistinguishable works of art, and between a work of art and a persuasive forgery. I suggest that Frank Sibley (Reference Sibley1959) also belongs in this pantheon. His paper “Aesthetic Concepts” identifies another locus where context helps determine essential aspects of a work. Aesthetic properties are contestable; many theorists hold that they supervene on lower-level perceptual, historical, and structural properties. In this sense, aesthetic properties too are context-dependent. In “Categories of Art” (Reference Walton1970), Kendall Walton argues that the apparent properties possessed by works of art vary according to the category in which those works are placed. He then raises the key normative question – to what category is each work properly assigned? – and suggests several criteria that need not align. So appreciators face the further challenge of determining appropriate categorization.
B&R's psycho-historical account presents appreciation as a three-stage process, with each stage a necessary condition for the one that follows. The stages are individuated in part by the different modes of reasoning in place (B&R, Fig. 2). I have questions about the partition of these stages, as well as about the characterization of the design stance. Purportedly this middle mode of appreciation develops as appreciators infer causal explanations for features noted via basic exposure. An implicit metaphor in place throughout the paper characterizes works of art as “containers” for causal information. B&R speak of “causal and historical information carried by an artwork” (sect. 2.3, para. 1; my emphasis) and note that “It is often possible to retrieve from an artwork its connection to antecedent events” (sect. 2.3, para. 3). They offer the analogy of tree rings to explain these causal inferences (sect. 2.3).
This account seems misleading in its suggestion that retrieval is a simple matter; it might also encourage a fruitless search for laws of taste. Although the proffered example of Lucio Fontana slashing his canvas (sect. 2.3, para. 3) offers a straightforward causal tale, there is a wide range of countervailing cases. The authors cite Dominic Lopes's (Reference Lopes2005) discussion of Rembrandt's painting Belshazzar's Feast as an example of design stance detection. Building on Lopes, these claims might be gleaned from the work: Rembrandt knew Hebrew, he believed Biblical figures dressed like seventeenth-century Dutchmen, and he was influenced by the Caravaggisti (Lopes Reference Lopes2005, p. 134). Unlike the tree ring case, no simple and direct algorithm leads from the painting to these conclusions. The first two are likely false, although establishing influence requires first ruling out chance correlation. In general, a work of art might be as it is because of conventions in place at the time of its creation, because of inherent limitations of the medium, because the artist wanted to subvert audience expectations, because the artist failed to realize his or her intentions. Few of these circumstances can be read off from the work like growth data from the rings of a tree. Artists have complex and multifarious ties to the artworld in which they are situated, and the aesthetically relevant features of their works are likely to be overdetermined in ways that complicate the search for causal explanation.
I have additional concerns about how the three modes of appreciation are distinguished from one another. B&R introduce their model with the claim that appreciators process work information “in at least three distinct ways” (sect. 3, para. 1). Basic exposure recruits our ordinary perceptual capacities, causal reasoning informs the design stance, and theory-based reasoning generates artistic understanding. But this partition is soon breached. B&R note that appreciators often use theory-based reasoning to decipher causal history (sect. 3.2.2) and later concede that the postulated stages need not proceed sequentially (sect. 3.4, para. 3). If we jettison the idea that the output of one stage becomes input for the next and accept some commonly held views – that perception is theory-laden, that causal explanation requires some type of lawlike underpinning – then intermingling seems inevitable. Moreover, attention to the nature of expertise further fractures the architectonic, as experts possess vast background and theoretical information that they cannot easily shed. Once theory-based reasoning can permeate the design stance, it is unclear what remains to be accomplished in stage 3 beyond formulating and defending summary evaluations. Finally, although B&R seem to support an intentionalist account of appreciation, they also endorse a conflicting biologically based notion of proper function (sect. 2.2, para. 2) that eschews intention and looks instead to precursors' cultural or market success. This clearly broadens and redirects the search for context.
In section 3.4 (para.1), B&R state that empirical testability is a crucial consequence of their model. But what sort of experimentation can seek and validate art historical context? Past preference studies that B&R cite do not seem to be fine-grained enough to probe this information, although currently fashionable fMRI research seems more suited to distinguish hot versus cold moments in appreciation than to mark historical and contextual components. B&R's observation of “the greater importance experts give to historical contexts in art appraisal compared to novices” (sect. 2.4, para. 2) hints that an old-fashioned staple of psychological research – reaction time studies – might be profitably recycled here. However, their later remark that “experts might have an ability to summon historical information very rapidly by means of fast recognition” (sect. 3.4, para. 3) undercuts this suggestion. Experimental design is complicated not only by the divide between amateurs and experts, but also by the fact that acknowledged experts cannot appropriately hold forth about just any work. Suitability requirements need to be in place. I have argued elsewhere (Ross Reference Ross2012) that experts ought only to judge works of types in which they are capable of taking an interest. I conclude that even after my worries about B&R's psycho-historical framework have been quieted, considerable artfulness will be required to design effective empirical tests of their theory.