THE AESTHETIC FIELD ARNOLD BERLEANT THE AESTHETIC FIELD A Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience Cybereditions Cybereditions Corporation Christchurch, New Zealand www.cybereditions.com
[email protected] Cybereditions welcomes comments from readers. In particular we wish to be informed of any misprints or errors in our books, so that we may correct them. Copyright © 2000 Arnold Berleant The moral right of the author is asserted. All rights reserved. This publication is copyrighted and protected by International and Pan American Copyright Conventions. Other than for personal use, no part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of Cybereditions Corp. The unauthorized reproduction, storage, transmission or commercial exploitation of any material in this publication may result in civil liability and criminal prosecution. ISBN 1-877275-25-5 The fi rst edition of this book was published by Charles C. Thomas in 1970 Printed in the United States of America. PREFACE FOR CYBEREDITIONS THE AESTHETIC FIELD develops a distinctive way of understanding the arts, an approach that differed sharply from the prevailing thought thirty years ago, when the book fi rst appeared. The idea that art could best be understood as a complex fi eld consisting of a number of interdependent factors seemed to me, from my background in music, both obvious and unfamiliar—obvious since it offered a luminous refl ection of the experience of music and the other arts, and unfamiliar because the art object or the emotional response of a largely passive appreciator were the poles that usually magnetized discussions of art.