Expression and Communication in Art Author(S): Edward S

Expression and Communication in Art Author(s): Edward S. Casey Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Winter, 1971), pp. 197- 207 Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/429538 . Accessed: 29/05/2014 11:04

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This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 11:04:30 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions EDWARD S. CASEY

Expression and Communicationin Art

THE PHENOMENON OF EXPRESSION iS one ward criteria." 2 Variations on this theme of the most elusive objects of philosophical can be seen in such otherwise diverse phi- description. It is not unambiguously clear losophers as Wilfrid Sellars and Stuart what kind of object expression is, or even Hampshire.3 whether it is an object at all. The very term Another form of the move toward the ex-pression seems to suggest a process rather manifest and objective is found in certain than an object: an exteriorizing of an inner versions of phenomenology. When Husserl content. Both the process and the content discusses "expression" (Ausdruck) in Ideen defy customary "objective" description; I, he links it with "logical signification," standards of exactitude and rigor de- that is, with the fully explicit, the concep- manded elsewhere in philosophy or science tual, the objective, with the realm of Logos appear to be inapplicable to such an inde- or language in its universal character.4 The terminate phenomenon. Whether it is reduc- analytic criteria of conventionality and ible to a process or not, an expressive phe- publicity are replaced by notions of pure nomenon such as a gesture, a cry, or a conceptuality and explicit meaning. In painting has an adumbrative aspect that both cases, however, we may observe a tend- cannot be neglected in any adequate de- ency to narrow the phenomenon of expres- scription. The penumbral quality of expression to its most objective, specifiable dimension eludes the tenterhooks of a traditional sions. There is nothing noxious about this empiricist approach as well as a method of recourse to objectivity, especially in the case eidetic insight. of language. For language, whether in its In this plight, the move is frequently ordinary or in an ideal form, is a kind of made to limit description to the manifest expression that must possess certain objec- content of expression, banishing any latent tive rules of interpretation and of syntax; content to the realm of the unknowable. these and other factors make possible the One version of this move is found in recent sedimentation and transmission of meaning ordinary language philosophy; linguistic on which interpersonal communication de- expression is located in behavioral patterns pends. of "utterance," which occurs within a con- But it can be questioned whether other text of social conventions. As Austin writes: forms of human expression depend to such "There must exist an accepted conventional a degree as does language on determinate procedure having a certain conventional ef- rules, contents, or contexts. These other fect, the procedure to include the uttering forms of expression include myth, gesture, of certain words by certain persons in cer- and art. None is accurately classifiable as tain circumstances." 1 An "inner process," "language" except in an extremely atten- as Wittgenstein said, "stands in need of out- uated sense. This is largely because in these instances expression is predominantly tacit. EDWARDS. CASEYis assistant professor of philosophy The expressive phenomena which we en- at Yale University. counter here do not essentially possess the

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 11:04:30 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 198 E D W A R D S . C A S E Y kind of dimensions which can be made phenomenon of expression in art, and fully overt or explicit. Such overtness and largely to a prevalent form of its misinter- explicitness are permanent and necessary pretation. Expression in art has often been features of ordinary and ideal languages; understood in terms more appropriate to this is especially the case if we assume that verbal expression, as if the latter formed a the destiny of verbal language is indeed paradigm case for all types of expression. linked with Logos as the basis for concep- This occurs most conspicuously when aes- tual objectivity. thetic expression is confused with commu- We should also notice that the phenome- nication, as we shall see. Of course, there nal surface of language differs markedly are other ways in which the linguistic from that found in gesture, myth, or art. model subtly infects our understanding of The felt surface of language does not in artistic expression-for example, by leading itself typically engage our attention; what is us to look for a "hidden" meaning not pres- presented to us phonically or in print-the ent in what we shall call, following D. W. "vehicle"- is normally surpassed and even Prall, the "aesthetic surface." 6 All too many suppressed as we attend to the specific theories of art make this transphenomenal meaning conveyed by this vehicle. Contrast- move, only to discover in the end that a ingly, in mythic, gestural, and aesthetic return to the phenomenon as originally pre- phenomena our attention is riveted directly sented-i.e., to the aesthetic surface itself- onto the phenomenal surface; what we are is necessary. Since my emphasis will be on looking for happens at or on this surface, this "return to the phenomenon," my ap- not beyond or behind it. The expressive proach will be phenomenological in a sense meaning is not experienced as detached broad enough to encompass, though criti- from the presented gesture, myth, or work cally, the pioneering efforts of Husserl and of art; it is felt as inherent in the phenome- Merleau-Ponty. nal surface. This surface is apprehended as A final preliminary note: the aesthetic an intentional, not an actual, object.5 As a surface is not necessarily superficial; it may consequence, the aesthetic object cannot be possess its own peculiar depth. The amount either as arbitrary or as determinate as the and kind of depth depend primarily on im- corresponding object in linguistic expres- port and its mode of integration into the sion. The aesthetic object is not a mere aesthetic object. Import is meaning or sig- point of transition, but something essen- nificance as it is experienced in art: mean- tially intransitive. Our attention is arrested ing without the typical conceptual proper- at the phenomenal surface of this object; it ties of abstractness and universality. It is is detained, or rather retained, there by an sense as incorporated into the aesthetic ob- adhesion of consciousness to what is felt or ject; we could equally well call it "expres- seen. This surface is the primary expressive sive meaning," that is, meaning that forms phenomenon; even though it is an inten- part of the expressiveness of a given tional object, it can no longer be said to be phenomenon.7 In any event, it is import "objective" in the sense of standing over that constitutes the depth dimension of the against us as does a resistant perceptual ob- aesthetic surface. This surface has at least ject. Even the "psychic distance" required two other crucial dimensions: the percep- by some art forms does not entail the objec- tual and the affective. The perceived in art tivity of the phenomenon in any way is the structural or formal aspect of the sur- strictly comparable to the objectivity which face; it is the most explicitly specifiable ele- functions in language or in mere percep- ment, even though its complete description tion. This does not mean that the experi- is not always possible. Feeling or affective ences of art, myth, or gesture are wholly quality is the connective tissue of the aes- "subjective" or purely personal; in fact, our thetic surface; it is a sensuous tonality that adhesion to the presented surface precludes characterizes the aesthetic object as a whole. any total assimilation of the object by the But it characterizes by individualizing-by self. infusing the object with a unique affective In this paper I shall restrict myself to the tone.

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 11:04:30 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Expression and Communication in Art 199 I veying thoughts, and art to transmitting feelings. On the one hand, no one can deny There is a recurrent tendency to connect, that there is expressive language (as in po- and even to identify, expression and com- etry) or emotive language (as in a cry) munication in art. Thus Martin Foss states whose content is primarily affective, not in- flatly that "expression in the field of art is tellectual. Even if the ultimate telos of lan- always communication." 8 Joseph Margolis guage is conceptual, it may still retain the has observed recently that "the theory of capacity to convey and evoke emotions. In a expression tends to encourage us to think of sense, it must keep this capacity, since emo- fine art and the appreciation of fine art in tions are not always adequately expressed terms of a communicative pattern between by gestures-as we know from the trying 9 artist and spectator." This tendency is not experience of viewing a foreign film whose confined to contemporary aestheticians: language is wholly unknown to us. On the John Dewey claimed that "because the ob- other hand, art is not limited to feeling for jects of art are expressive, they com- its content; it may also possess import. Ad- municate." 10 Indeed, one discovers al- mittedly, the latter is not strictly conceptual ready in Plato the idea that truly expressive in character, but neither can it be reduced art communicates, almost in spite of itself, a to, or identified with, feeling or sentiment.14 specific message. In general, it has been the We should pay special attention to the more austere and moralistic interpretations model of communication which Tolstoy of art that, from Plato through Sartre, have and others assume to function both in art most emphatically stressed its communica- and in language. Transmission is the key tive aspect, often placing expression in the term used in describing this model, and it service of communication. Yet even theories implies a sending of something across or relatively unburdened by moral preoccupa- through a medium to reach a certain spe- tions have understood art as a form of com- cific destination. There are three critical el- munication, whether of thoughts or of feel- ements in this act of transmission: a content ings; thus Kant, who limits art to being a transmitted, a medium through which the "symbol" of morality, nevertheless links ex- content is transmitted, and the object at pression and communication in art.ll which the transmission is aimed. Tolstoy One reason for this pervasive though ulti- spells this out explicitly at another point in mately perverse view of art is, as I have al- his discussion in "What is Art?": ready suggested, a misleading use of linguistic models for understanding aesthetic ex- To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, pression. Since language clearly communi- by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or cates-indeed, is the chief means of commu- forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feel- nication between human beings-expres- ing that others may experience the same feeling- sion is held to do something similar. "Art, this is the activity of art.'5 like speech," said Tolstoy, "is a means of Leaving aside the question of what communication." 12 Of course, such a bald "evoke" means here, we may observe the assertion must be further qualified, for art main consequence of the three-term analysis cannot communicate exactly as language of expression as communication: the rela- loes or it might become superfluous. Hence tive devaluation of the middle term, which Tolstoy adds that "whereas by words a man becomes merely a medium or means for transmits his thoughts to another, by means conveying feeling from artist to spectator. of art he transmits his feelings." 13 We may This devaluation is already a clue that take this as a classic statement of the thesis something has gone wrong with the analy- that expression in art is an activity of quasi- sis. For aesthetic experience is focused on or paralinguistic communication. We must the aesthetic surface-in short, on the very examine more closely the assumptions and "movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms" implications of such a contention. which Tolstoy sees as the mere means to One assumption which we can reject im- something further. In aesthetic experience mediately is that language is limited to con- itself, however, they are apprehended as in-

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 11:04:30 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 200 EDWARD S. CASEY herently attractive in themselves. Whether content becomes determinate by embodi- it is feeling or thought on which we focus, ment in the aesthetic object during and we contemplate it as ingredient in the aes- through the expressive act. In itself, this is thetic surface, not as merely conveyed by it. certainly correct: if anything is determinate The locus of what is expressed resides in in art, it is the embodied feeling or the expressive object itself, not behind it in thought, not its disincarnate forerunner or the artist's intentions or beyond it in the separable message. spectator's reactions. We might call this The main problem with Merleau-Ponty's phenomenon of surface presentation "fron- move, however, is that it ends by misinter- tality," provided this term not be paired preting the nature of the aesthetic object with a complementary "posteriority." Aes- itself. No longer viewed as an ephemeral thetic frontality has been emphasized in di- medium, the object is given an actuality verse ways, from the hieratic Egyptian pro- that it does not possess as experienced, that file to "hard-edge" and "op" art, but its is, as an intentional object. It is said, for meaning in the present context is simply example, to be a continuation of the body's that the aesthetic surface presents itself as expressivity: "the expressive operation of irrevocably frontal; even the unseen sides of the body, initiated by the slightest percep- a three-dimensional sculpture present them- tion, is expanded into painting and into selves as potential "fronts." This means art." 18 But if the work of art is an exten- that our aesthetic attention is directed pri- sion of the body, it is at most an intentional marily to the presented surface. Thus the or perhaps imaginary extension-not in the "transmitted" content is seen more truly as sense of a phantom projection but of an intromitted-sent from within the aesthetic object with a capacity to awaken or revive object, not merely conveyed by or across it. our kinesthetic and synesthetic powers. Yet even the metaphor of "sending" is More commonly, however, the aesthetic questionable, since what is sent is normally object is interpreted as a mere perceptual considered to be a message of some sort. object, e.g., as a "vehicle" or "support" for The model of transmission especially en- non-material content or value.19 The bur- courages the interpretation of content as den of objectivity is thus shifted from the message. Thus Roger Fry writes: "If we message to the medium itself, and we end take an analogy from the wireless-the art- with a doctrine of expression as a property ist is the transmitter, the work of art the of perceptual qualities. This result is seen medium, and the spectator the receiver ... in the writings of Rudolf Arnheim, who for the message to come through, the re- claims that artistic "expression is an inher- ceiver must be more or less in tune." 16 ent characteristic of perceptual patterns ... Such a message or communique may con- [and] its manifestations in the human figure tain a thought or a feeling; but in either are but a special case of a more general case it will possess a definite form, so that it phenomenon." 20 In this view, the expres- can be sent or imparted intact. On the com- sive medium is given objectivity through a munication model, there is a tendency to reduction to its perceptual determinants; consider aesthetic content as something even the body's expressiveness, seen as pri- quite determinate, even when the term mes- mary by Merleau-Ponty, is held to be deriv- sage is not explicitly used. Merleau-Ponty ative from the putative perceptual absolute appears to succumb to this temptation found in perceptual patterns. when he writes that "aesthetic expression What is missing from an interpretation confers on what it expresses [i.e., its con- such as Arnheim's is an adequate apprecia- tent] an existence in itself, installs it in na- tion of the distinction between the sensuous ture as a thing perceived and accessible to and the perceptual in art. The sensuous is all." 17 At least this is not to claim, as Tol- the affective dimension which accounts for stoy and Fry would, that the communicated the cohesiveness of the expressive, as well as content exists as determinate before the act for the feeling of continuity between aes- of expression. Instead, Merleau-Ponty thetic object and spectator. The latter feels wishes to underline the way in which the as well as perceives art; what he perceives

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 11:04:30 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Expression and Communication in Art 201 are certain structural patterns, but he feels structural element within which the sen- their impact and tension. Affective content suous appears. in art cannot be reduced to perceptual giv- These two primary forms of the commu- ens. The perceived must mingle and blend nication thesis are sometimes combined in a with elements of affect and import to com- third view. The aesthetic object is seen as pose the complex aesthetic surface; the per- both perceptually expressive in itself and ceived is not merely the empirical support yet also as indicative of a transphenomenal for this surface, and it is not the sole basis content. The medium retains a certain sub- for the intransitive character of the aes- stantiality only to become a sign for this thetic object. It is only one element among ultimate "meaning" of the work. Such a others equally crucial. meaning is not conveyed to the spectator directly (as in the ideal of the first view) but II as indicated by the perceptual medium. Thus the medium becomes the medium for Thus far, we have observed two ways of the message in the sense that all indicative construing the thesis that expression in art signs stand "for" their designatum. The me- is a form of communication. First, the phe- dium acts as what Tolstoy, in another pas- nomenon of art is seen as analogous to lan- sage, calls an "external indication": "Art guage, hence as possessing a determinate begins when one person, with the object of content transmitted through a diaphanous joining another or others to himself in one medium. This content may be viewed as and the same feeling, expresses that feeling pure feeling, as with Tolstoy; but it is even by certain external indications." 21 On this more frequently interpreted as thought in view, expressivity in art becomes a phenom- the form of a moral truth, as in Plato or enon of indication, in which content is Sartre. In general, the more determinate communicated indicatively by the percep- the content, the less important the medium tual ("external") medium. is held to be; the acme of expressive com- To understand why this claim is false, we munication would be reached if the me- need to know more about the nature of dium were to become wholly transparent or indication. Husserl provides an acute analy- even to disappear altogether. But there is a sis of this basic sign-function in the first of second view of communication whereby the his Logische Untersuchungen. Husserl sees analogy with language is muted, and the indication as a relation of sign-reference be- medium is raised into special prominence. tween one term, of whose existence one has Expressivity is located squarely within the present perceptual knowledge, and another perceptual patterns of the medium, as in term whose existence is known or presumed Arnheim's contention, and it is this expres- on the basis of the first. Thus the indicative sivity that is said to be communicated to relation is indexical or denotative, the exist- the spectator. This interpretation has the ence of one term serving to convince the merit of not confusing "what is expressed" sign-interpreter of the existence of the with something mental or conceptual, but other. If such a relation were to be found in it tends to reduce the expressed to the per- art as Tolstoy claims, the aesthetic surface would ceptually determinate, as we saw in the have to be interpreted as a perceptual to another statement from Merleau-Ponty. This is the object indexically pointing object (which could itself be or position of extreme perceptual perceptual objectivism in The link in art; the aesthetic becomes a tran- conceptual character). only be- object tween the two would be an act scendent The role of phenomena perceived particular. of "association" whereby the one motivated feeling is neglected-not only the viewer's us to believe in the other. or artist's but more the sen- feeling crucially Yet nothing like this occurs in our expe- suousness that permeates the aesthetic rience of genuinely expressive art. There is surface as a whole. This sensuous factor no indexical, hence external, relation either cannot be equated with what is perceived; within the aesthetic object or between this on the contrary, the perceived is only the object and some other object. Instead, all

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 11:04:30 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 202 EDWARD S. CASEY significant elements in aesthetic experience manifestation. Croce, who rejects the no- are apprehended as copresent and copre- tion of communication in art as belonging sented. At most, the various aspects or ele- to mere "technique" and hence to the ments resemble each other iconically-in an "practical" sphere, nevertheless contends act of reciprocal mimesis-but they do not that artistic expression includes "every sort denote one another. Only if the sensuous of manifestation." 23 D. W. Gotshalk defines surface were converted into a hard percep- expression as "a kind of objectification or tulm or if the import were transformed into objective manifestation of whatever is said a pure concept, would we begin to have a to be expressed." 24 In contrast with com- situation in which indication could occur munication, manifestation as a term has the in art. But this would mean the destruction merit of de-emphasizing the notion that art of the aesthetic surface. Whatever the ori- merely transmits a given content to the gin of the elements in this surface, once spectator. Instead, it stresses the presenta- they are part of the aesthetic object they tional character of the aesthetic object. The must all exhibit a common sensuousness for model for manifestation is often an act of expression in art to be possible. This sen- "disclosure" which may (a) take time in suousness acts as an indelible monogram which to unfold; (b) require extensive inter- and cannot be distorted or reduced without pretation; (c) retain some unapprehended losing the unique affective quality that pro- aspects even following disclosure. This view vides the aesthetic object with its character- of manifestation lies at the heart of many istic coherence. The intrusion of the indica- theories of art as possessing symbolic, meta- tive relation into this rich qualitative tex- physical, or ontological significance. Hei- ture would mean the disintegration of a degger's interpretive essays on Holderlin seamless whole. are among the more extravagant examples We should also observe that if Husserl is of this type of approach.25 correct, all communication is indicative in Yet the idea of art as manifestation is nature; and strictly speaking, communica- subject to the same basic error as the theo- tion is restricted to language. Thus he ries of art as communication examined writes that "in communicative discourse all above. For manifestation is itself a form of expressions function as indices." 22 As a re- indication understood in the broad Hus- sult, any attempt to interpret art as commu- serlian sense of Anzeige to which we have nicative in nature will fail, for it will always appealed. In fact, it is a modification of the involve the more or less pronounced effort communicative act. This is most clearly to force indication into the heart of expres- seen in Husserl's further analysis of verbal sion. Yet the two are incompatible in art-a communication, where there is said to be a fact we realize each time we are confronted mutual manifestation between speaker and with the grosser forms of Socialist Realism. hearer of their respective "psychic experi- Only in language and (less explicitly) in ences" (Erlebnisse). Such experiences form gesture can expression and communication the content of manifestation: a content in- coexist successfully. And while communica- dicated by the spoken or written words of tion is a legitimate and necessary feature of discourse. These words are taken as "dis- language and gesture, it is a falsifying and tinctive signs" (Kennzeichen) of psychic even corrupting presence in art, diverting content. But manifestation, so conceived, art from its proper purpose: expression. would be as destructive of the aesthetic surface as was the original thesis of communi- III cation. The autonomy of this surface is denied in analyzing it into signs designating The communication theory of art dies otherwise inaccessible inner experiences. hard. It tends to reappear under guises On Husserl's view, in expression proper more sophisticated than Tolstoy's simple no such signs are necessary; all indicative transmission model or his related view that relations of association or motivation disap- the work of art is an indicative sign. One of pear. A signification (Bedeutung) animates the most frequent of these guises is that of the expression. This signification is a self-

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 11:04:30 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Expression and Communication in Art 203 sufficient content; there is no further pri- ception in which all reference is (a) internal mary reference to something else (though and (b) iconic in nature. The principal le- there can be secondary references). Expres- gitimate sign-relation is one of mutual re- sion in its pure state occurs prototypically semblance between elements within the aes- in silent monologue, where all one's psychic thetic surface. If this reciprocal similarity is acts are experienced "at once" (im selben consummately successful, the work of art Azugenblick). In such a state, all manifesta- presents itself as an icon of itself-i.e., as a tion, even to oneself, becomes unnecessary self-resembling sign in which the terms are because one is already fully revealed to one- no longer radically distinct but potentially self. This means that the perceptual factor, identical. A coalescence of similarities tends bound up with all indicative signs, may toward, even if it never fully achieves, even be eliminated: iconic self-identity.28

that which is to serve as an index (a distinctive IV sign) must be perceived by us as existent (da- seiend). This holds especially for expressions in communicative discourse, but not for expressions In speaking of communication and mani- in solitary discourse.26 festation in art, we have been able to make only indirect references to the role of the Therefore, manifestation is inexorably other. I would like now to consider the ap bound with communication commu- up (we prehension of the other viewed as a possible nicate means of our by manifesting psychic analogue to the contemplation of the aes- and both are indicative states), phenomena thetic object. This analogy has been ex- nature. both lack what by They only pure ploited by a number of aestheticians. Miikel an intrinsic expression possessess: significa- Dufrenne likens the aesthetic object to a tion or This meaning. meaning animates "quasi-subject" because of its near-human the this expression. Lacking animation, expressivity; the aesthetic object is seen as communication and manifestation are de- an analogue of a human face or body.29 R. on existents in the form pendent perceptual G. Collingwood compares the experience of of indicative hence are signs; they empiri- art to the speaker-hearer relation in spoken mediated in character. cally The mundane discourse: just as thought can be recon- of these is a substantiality signs surrogate structed on the basis of the appropriate for the immediacy and direct animation of sounds, so the work of art can be "re-en- which can pure expression, deploy itself acted" by the spectator on the basis of cer- in the freely imaginary. tain "impressions." Collingwood calls this For this reason, in art is itself expression process one of "communication," though he never pure. The perceptual component can cautions that it is not a matter of mere never be eliminated as in interior wholly transmission.30 The assumption is made What can and must be brack- monologue. that the impressions, also called "psychical eted, however, is the perceptual component feelings," function much as words do: that as an indicative This ex- apprehended sign. communicating with, and apprehending, clusion of the indicative from sign-relation the other are events parallel to what hap- art both to its denotative applies apparent pens in the experience of art as expressive. aspect (e.g., in representational painting) Dufrenne makes much the same and to its authentic assump- connotative aspect (by tion. But is the assumption valid? which the aesthetic object may possess a I do not believe that it is. It is true that The aesthetic surface is nei- plural import). the aesthetic object and the other both pos- ther an isolated indicative sign nor itself a sess an expressivity which we sometimes call of indicative species sign-language. It is not by the same name: "physiognomic." By this, even if "self-designating," this term is taken we presumably mean that expressive fea- to mean a re-introduction of the indexical tures in a work of art may have a strikingly relation in terms of self-reference.27Rather, human "look," although there may be no the aesthetic surface is an automomous tex- recognizably human object present or de- ture of presented import, feeling, and per- picted. Thus we might catch ourselves say-

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 11:04:30 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 204 EDWARD S. CASEY ing that a certain abstract expressionist other is in terms of how we perceive the painting is suffused with a frenetic quality two phenomena in question. In the case of quite similar to the personality of someone the other person, what we perceive is taken we know. Of course, the descriptive terms as a sign of something inherently non-per- of the analogy are often imprecise, since ceptual-i.e., inner thoughts and feelings physiognomic characters are notoriously which on principle can never become ob- difficult to name with precision. But it is jects of perception. When we perceive the undeniable that on occasion we may feel a aesthetic object, however, the perceptual el- "community of essence" between a person ement is not taken as a sign or even as a (often the artist himself) and a painting. symbol of something unperceivable, but as What must rather be denied is that the aes- a constituent part of the aesthetic surface. thetic object always, or necessarily, possesses In the latter, feeling and thought are ren- a distinctly physiognomic aura. It may be dered sensuous, hence can coexist with the felt as non-human altogether, as in certain perceived in a common affective whole. of Tanguy's desolate surrealist landscapes. Thus perception is indispensable in art, Thus the physiognomic is by no means a but its aim is exhausted in what is con- permanent trait of art, which can be expres- cretely presented, whereas the perception of sive in other ways. the other typically transcends the presented There is a more fundamental respect, toward what Husserl calls the "appre- however, in which confrontation with art sented."32 The appresented supplements differs from confrontation with the other. the directly presented because of the una- This is found in the fact that the other vailability of the other's Erlebnis. By con- possesses a privacy and inwardness denied trast, the work of art is capable of self-pres- to the aesthetic object regarded as a surface entation, that is, an open disclosure of its with no aesthetically relevant interior. Yet surface without any significant undisclosed the other's interiority is inalienable, even residue. Hence appresentational supple- though we cannot feel his experience from mentation is not necessary. within. There is no direct or privileged ac- This point can be made without invok- cess to the other's "inscape"; only the other ing the elaborate trappings involved in can live his own psychic acts immediately Husserl's theory of the analogical "transfer and simultaneously. Hence we can ap- of sense" that occurs in perceiving the proach these inner acts in the other only other. All we need observe is that interper- indirectly, by inferring their existence from sonal expression in language or gesture is certain indicative signs. The necessity for not only incomplete but inevitably indica- such signs is the result of the radical non- tive as well. The other can never express presence of the other's Erlebnisse to us; we himself with his "whole being." 33 Bodily need the mediating clues provided by writ- gestures are never totally expressive because ten or spoken language, by certain bodily they aim constantly at an exteriorization; as gestures, clothing habits, etc. Only these Merleau-Ponty said, they "recuperate the manifest the other. As Jacques Derrida re- world," making "what they aim at appear marks, "if communication or manifestation outside." 34 This means that in the case of is essentially indicative, this is because the the other's gesture the perceptual element is presence of the other's Erlebnis is refused to never made wholly congruent with the our originary intuition." 31 In art, however, affective or thought dimensions; rather, the we have no need of such clues, for there is perceptual tends to achieve a determinate- nothing interior or hidden to be revealed. ness that is exterior in character, as if the Indication is absent from aesthetic expres- phenomenal crust could somehow restore or sion because it would fulfill no function at least signify its inner core. It is this very there; in fact, its encroachment upon ex- exteriority that is subdued, if not entirely pression represents, as we have seen, the de- eliminated, in art-without a compensating struction of the latter. interiority being required. The perceived Another way of viewing the basic differ- remains, but not as an exteriorizing or out- ence between the aesthetic object and the standing factor. It merges with the other

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 11:04:30 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Expression and Communication in Art 205 ingredients of the aesthetic surface. In this and this retains an abiding "coefficient of way, it avoids playing an indicative role, adversity." 38 Dewey claimed that "to ex- allowing aesthetic expression to emerge press is to stay by, to carry forward in de- from the surface as a whole. velopment, to work out to completion." 39 The relation to the other, by contrast, is But such completion is not possible in always marked by the indicative. Thus Hus- aesthetic expression; if it were, art would serl revealingly sought pure expression pre- be no longer necessary; it would be merely cisely in the suspension of this relation, in a historical gesture annihilating itself in its "the solitary life of the soul." 35 For pure very accomplishment. expressivity to occur, the relation to the It is at this concluding point that we other must be bracketed, since the irrevoca- must distinguish aesthetic expression from ble non-presence of the other's inner self the givenness of an essence. An essence in demands indicative mediation. It is in this the Husserlian sense possesses full self-pres- sense that "the relation to the other as non- ence and intuitive plenitude; thus it is ca- presence represents the impurity of pable of giving itself "in person." Such expression." 36 We should add that if pure total self-givenness is not an inherent fea- expressivity is to be found in the self-pres- ture of the aesthetic object. It would be ence of the transcendental ego,37 a corre- more accurate to speak of "self-presenta- sponding sheer expressivity is present in tion" in art, recalling that the "self" in art, from which the perceptual component question is only a quasi-self. In any case, cannot be wholly removed. But it can be the aesthetic surface does not present itself removed qua indicative, and we may con- with the "originary evidence" of an essence, clude that art is like a "quasi-subject" not and there is no "adequate insight" that in its physiognomic character but rather in could grasp it as a total phenomenon. The the very absence of indicative relations. role of the perceptual component may be Neither the transcendental ego nor the modified through an "aesthetic reduction" work of art needs the mediation of indica- of the indicative and the distracting, but it tive signs to realize their distinctive forms can never be wholly removed so as to reveal of presence. an intuitive content belonging to the sphere of Logos. Husserl's analysis in Ideen V I, suggestive as it is with respect to expression in art, assumes throughout that expres- But if expression in art can thus be sion, once fully achieved, belongs to "the "sheer," it cannot be total. Even if sen- original medium of the Logos." 40 Expres- suousness (operating through temporal and sion is "integral," that is, total, when it spatial schemata) is capable of unifying the "places the seal of conceptual signification notional and perceptual components of the on all of the synthetic forms and matters of aesthetic object into a single, continuous the underlying level." 41 aesthetic surface in which expression is un- This may indeed be the case with regard defiled by indicative relations, the resulting to language, but in the aesthetic surface expressiveness is not totally expressive. A signification is not so much delimiting as sheer phenomenon is not necessarily a total delimited. In this phenomenon, significa- phenomenon. In fact, a total expression tion exists in the form of import, and im- would be, through its very excess, inexpres- port is fused with the other pervasive ele- sive. Expression in art requires resistance, ments. The animated expressiveness of the limitation, form-hence a certain incom- whole is held tensionally at the surface; it is pleteness. Expressive animation in art oper- not allowed to escape from this surface to- ates only against and within the aesthetic ward a separate conceptual domain. Struc- medium; this medium, whether it is con- ture or form in art comes largely from the ceived as predominantly perceptual, imagi- perceived, not the conceived; but percep- national, or affective, cannot be eliminated tual presence is itself exceeded by the em- to reveal die Sache selbst. The only "thing blematic expressivity spread sensuously itself" in art is the sheer aesthetic surface, throughout the felt surface. The depths of

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 11:04:30 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 206 EDWARD S. CASEY this surface are only obliquely, never trans- in this compresence. At best, a vivid com- parently, given; no essence, least of all an munion takes place: an experience in which essence of expressiveness itself, is shown on aesthetic expression is most fully realized. or through its dense affective texture.42 But the expression never becomes wholly exter- it does not itself it never nal; give away; 1 J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Ox- becomes entirely express. What Merleau- ford Univ. Press, 1965), p. 26. Ponty once said of language is, in this case, 2 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investiga- more descriptive of art: it cannot "detach tions, 1: 580. 8 for itself entirely from the of the See, example, Sellars, Science and Metaphys- precariousness ics (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968) pp. 73-77; Hamp- forms of mute expression, reabsorb its own shire, Feeling and Expression (H. K. Lewis, 1961), contingency, or consume itself to make the passim. things themselves appear." 43 Art holds its 4 Ideen I, sec. 124-27. expressiveness within or on its surface 6 For this distinction, see J. N. Findlay, "The Per- ap- and the Two Aesthetic as a frontal spicuous Poignant: Funda- prehended self-continuous, phe- mentals," in British Journal of Aesthetics 7 (1967): nomenon with its own peculiar depth. This 13. expressiveness is neither explicitly sayable 6 See D. W. Prall, Aesthetic Judgment (New York: in language nor adequately intuitable in ei- Crowell, 1929), passim. detic The voices of art are indeed 7 On the concept of "expressive meaning," see insight. Paul C. Hayner, "Expressive Meaning," in Journal the voices of silence, as Malraux said so of Philosophy 53 (1956): 149; and my "Meaning in eloquently; but these voices can also be Art," in New Essays in Phenomenology, ed. James sheerly expressive and thoroughly ani- M. Edie (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1969). mated. 8 Symbol and Myth in Human Experience (Prince- ton Univ. Press, 1949), p. 117. Cf. the statement of Therefore, if expression in art is never L. Abercrombie: "expression in art is also communi- total, it is at least sensuously alive; and it is cation" (in "Communication versus Expression in this affective aliveness that, drawing con- Art," British Journal of Psychology 14 [1923]: 70). sciousness toward adhesion to the aesthetic 9 Philosophy Looks at the Arts (New York: Scrib- surface, our life of ner's, 1962), p. 29. quickens feeling. Expres- 10Art as Experience (New York: Capricorn, 1958), sion in art is misconstrued as communica- p. 104. tion, but it may be interpreted as commun- 11The Critique of Judgment, trans. James C. ion between the work of art and the specta- Meredith (Oxford Univ. Press, 1952), pp. 180, 183- tor. Rare though it is, it is precisely in such 84. 12""What Is Art?" in Tolstoy on Art, trans. and ed. an experience that expression in art is most Aylmer Maude (Oxford Univ. Press, 1924), p. 278. nearly complete. Yet as it is never fully "Ibid., p. 171. complete, genuine aesthetic expression can- 14This is the danger that lurks behind C. J. Du- not be assimilated to other modes of casse's use of the term "emotional import" or Su- expres- sanne sion which, like are of Langer's similar "vital import"; both seem to language, capable suggest that feeling and meaning become wholly in- contextual or conceptual objectivity and distinguishable in the aesthetic object. I shall main- which can thus play a role in communica- tain that they blend without losing their singular tion or manifestation. Truly expressive art identities. See C. J. Ducasse, Art, the Critics, and does not communicate; it neither You (New York, 1955), pp. 52-56; S. Langer, Feeling possesses and Form (New York, 1953), pp. 31, 52, 59, 65, as the basis (indicative sign-relations) nor the well as her Problems of Art (New York, 1957), pp. content (the "message") of communication. 59-60. Its sensuousness provides the foundation 1""What Is Art?" p. 173; in italics in the original. for contemplation and, ultimately, com- See also M. Heidegger's similar analysis of communi- munion. The latter defies cation in Being and Time, trans. C. Robinson & J. objective descrip- Macquarrie (New York: Harper, 1962), pp. 197-8, tion, since in this experience the aesthetic 205,211-12. object qua object dissolves. We are left not so ' Last Lectures (Cambridge, 1939); quoted by E. much with a process as with a continuous H. Gombrich, Meditations on a Hobby Horse (New York: phenomenon in which consciousness and Phaidon, 1965), p. 56. 17Phenomenology of Perception, trans. C. Smith aesthetic surface momentarily coalesce. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962), p. 183; Nothing is transmitted or even manifested cf. M. Heidegger, p. 266.

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1Signes (Gallimard, 1960), p. 87; Signs, trans. prets self-reference in terms of denotation, as on p. Richard C. McCleary (Northwestern Univ. Press, 59 n; see also p. 4 f. 1964), p. 70. 'gSee Mikel Dufrenne, Phenomdnologie de l'ex- 18I am thinking especially of Max Scheler's con- perience esthetique (Presses Universitaires de France, cept of Traiger as this has been applied to aesthetics 1953), I: 197,200,249,255-6,291, 302, 306 f., 408-9. by Eugen Fink in his essay "Vergegenwartigung und Principles of Art (Oxford Univ. Press, 1938), p. Bild" (esp. sec. 31-33), reprinted in Fink's Studien 140. zur Phiinomenologie (Nijhoff, 1966). 31La Voix et le phdnomene (Paris: Presses Uni- 20 R. Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception (Univ. versitaires de France, 1967), p. 43. of California Press, 1963), pp. 347-48. 82See Cartesian Meditations, trans. D. Cairns Tolstoy, p. 171. (Nijhoff, 1960), sec. 50-54. 22See E. Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen (Nie- 33As Pauline Kael claims of Greta Garbo in her meyer, 1913), vol. II, I, chap. 1, sec. 7. review "In Vain" in the New Yorker, Jan. 11, 1969, 23 B. Croce, Aesthetic, trans. D. Ainslie (New York, p. 64. 1956), p. 8. "Signes, p. 84; Signs, p. 67; my italics. Cf. M. 24 D. W. Gotshalk, "Aesthetic Expression," JAAC, Heidegger, "What is expressed is precisely. . Being- (Sept. 1954): p. 80. outside" (Being and Time, p. 205). 25 See M. Heidegger, Eriauterungen zu Holderlins 3 Logische Untersuchungen, vol. II, I, sec. 8. Dichtung (Frankfort: Klostermann, 1951). " J. Derrida, p. 44. 26 Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, vol. II, I, 37 For this notion, see Husserl, Ideen II (Nijhoff, sec. 8: my italics. 1952), p. 105. 27Eugen Fink employs this term in his Studien "8This term, first used by Gaston Bachelard, is zur Phdnomenologie, p. 72. Of course, "self-designa- developed by Jean-Paul Sartre in Being and Noth- tion" does have the merit of underlining the in- ingness, trans. Hazel Barnes (Philosophical Library, transitive character of the work of art; but this in- 1956), pt. 4. transitivity should not be conceived in terms of an 89J. Dewey, Art as Experience, p. 64. internal indicative relation. 40Sec. 126. 28I1 am thinking of icon in the sense of "iconic 41Ibid. sign" as originally formulated by C. S. Peirce in 421 am thinking here of Bernard Bosanquet's use Collected Papers, ed. C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss of the term "expressive a priori" in Three Lectures (Harvard Univ. Press, 1960), 2.282, 3.556, 4.448, on Aesthetic (New York: Macmillan, 1923), chap. 2; 4.531. One could also speak here of "metaphorical see also Mikel Dufrenne, The Notion of the A self-exemplification" in following out the suggestions Priori, trans. Edward S. Casey (Northwestern Univ. of Nelson Goodman in Languages of Art (New York: Press, 1966), pp. 110-13. Bobbs-Merrill, 1968), chap. 2. But Goodman inter- 43Signes, p. 98; Signs, p. 78.

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