Nature and culture meet in artistic practical experiences of
human self- constitution, as they meet in any other human
experience. What makes their meeting extraordinary is the fact
that what we see, or hear, or listen to is the expression of
their intersecting. Through art, humans project sensorial, as
well as cognitive, characteristics. The experience of
structuring a category of artifacts, defined through their
aesthetic condition, and the complementary experience of
self-definition through aesthetically relevant actions
constitute the realm of the artistic. In their interaction with
objects and actions resulting from such experiences, individuals
conjure meaning as they define themselves in respect to the
experiences in a given context. Like any other practical
experience, the production of art belongs to the pragmatic
framework. We are what we do: hunting, running, singing,
drawing, telling stories, creating rhymes, performing a play. In
their respective doings, artists identify themselves through
particular aptitudes and skills: rhythm, movement, voice, sense
of color, harmony, synchronism, contrast. The emergence of
language and the consecutive experience of recording led to the
association of skills with the writing of the language, that is,
drawing and reading it to others, performing it in rituals.
The domain of art seems to be characteristic only of the human
species. Since the practical experience of art is so close to
our biogenetic structural reality, while at the same time
constitutive of a non-existential domain, the making of art and
the cultural appropriation of art are perceived as similar
experiences. Nevertheless, language exercised coordination for
the simple reason that successive motivations of the art
experience-such as the mytho-magical, practical, ritual, sexual,
gnoseologic, political, or economic-and the underlying structure
of art belong to different domains. The underlying structure of
art defines its aesthetics. The underlying structure of magic,
ritual, or the sexual defines their respective condition, as it
expresses human understanding of the unknown, or the many
aspects of sexuality.
The interaction between artist and society, once markets emerged
and art was acknowledged as a product with its own identity,
resulted in specific forms of recurrence: recognition of the
uniqueness of the work, of the artist, and of interpretive
patterns. Once the framework for recognizing artworks as
merchandise was established, transactions in artworks became
transactions in the artist-society relation, with a lot of
give-and-take that was difficult, if not impossible, to encode.
The nature of the relations can be partially understood by
examining behaviors of artists, who are almost always seen as
eccentric, a little off the middle of the road, and behaviors of
the public. There is much instinctive interaction, and even more
learned behavior, mediated through an experience constituted in
and communicated through language.
Looking at a painting-once painting is acknowledged as
artifact-is more than acknowledging its physical reality: the
optical, and sometimes the textual, appearance, or the context
of contemplation. The action of painting, sculpting, dancing,
performing, or writing poetry or a novel is simultaneously an
action of constituting oneself as artist or writer and
projecting this self, as it results from the practical experience
characteristic of such an endeavor, into the social space of
interactions. This is why art is in the first place expression,
and only secondly communication. This is also why looking at a
work is to constitute the individual experience of context, in
the first place, and only secondly to conjure and assign
meaning. In both the action of painting and looking at a
painting, biologically inherited characteristics, together with
learned elements (skills), participate in the process of
constituting the being (the painter and the onlooker, for
instance) as both individual and member of the community.
The natural and the acquired, or learned, interact. And in the
course of time, the natural is educated, made aware of
characteristics connected to culture rather than nature. Two
simultaneous processes take place: 1) the recurrent interaction
of those making art and those acknowledging it in their
practical life; 2) establishment of patterns of interpretation
as patterns of interaction mediated by the artwork. Language
experiences take place in both processes. Consequently, artistic
knowledge is accumulated, and art-related communication becomes
a well defined practical experience, leading to
self-identification such as art historian, art theoretician, art
critic, and the like. The nature and characteristics of the
practical experience of art-related language ought to be
examined so that we can reach an understanding of the
circumstances under which they might change.