Art and Experience:

225 Pages·2003·12.36 MB·English

by  Ananta C. Sukla

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O-RT
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EDITED BY
Ananta Cft. Sukia
STUDIES IN ART, CULTURE, AND COMMUNITIES
PMEGER Westport, Connecticut
London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Art and experience / edited by Ananta Ch. Sukla.
p. cm. — (Studies in art, culture, and communities)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-275-97394-8 (alk. paper)
1. Aesthetics. 2. Art—Philosophy. I. Sukla, Ananta Charana, 1942- II. Series.
BH39.A686 2003
lir.85—dc21 2002070869
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2003 by Ananta Ch. Sukla
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002070869
ISBN: 0-275-97394-8
ISSN: 1541-003X
First published in 2003
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
Copyright Acknowledgments
Chapter 5: Permission is gratefully acknowledged to quote from "Akkadian Myths and
Epics," translation by E. A. Speiser, originally published in Ancient Near Eastern Texts
Relating to the Old Testament by J. B. Pritchard. Copyright © 1950, 1955 by Princeton
University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press. This translation
is quoted from Heinrich Schafer's Principles oj Egyptian Art (Oxford: Griffith Institute,
1986).
Chapter 6: Permission is gratefully acknowledged to quote from Artworks: Definition,
Meaning, Value by Robert Stecker. Copyright © 1997 by The Pennsylvania State University
Press. Reprinted by permission of The Pennsylvania State University Press.
In the sacred memory of my late grandparents
LOKANATHA SUKLA
GAURI DIBYA
PANCHANAN BAHALI
KANCHAN DIBYA
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C O N T E N TS
Preface, ix
Acknowledgments, xi
Introduction by Ananta Ch. Sukla, xii
CHAPTER ONE KEITH YANDELL
Scientific Experience and Religious Experience
i
CHAPTER TWO JOHN LLEWELYN
Close Reading, Distant Writing, and the Experience of Language
20
CHAPTER THREE T. J. DIFFEY
Experiencing Nature and Experiencing Art
42
CHAPTER FOUR JOSEPH KUPFER
Experience as Art
57
CHAPTER FIVE RICHARD WOODFIELD
Pictorial Experience
71
CHAPTER SIX ROBERT STECKER
The Aesthetic Experience of Literature and Its Cognitive Value
91
Vlll CONTENTS
CHAPTER SEVEN STEPHEN DAVIES
The Experience of Music
109
CHAPTER EIGHT GRAHAM McFEE
Cognitivism and the Experience of Dance
121
CHAPTER NINE ANANTA CH. SUKLA
Aesthetic Experience and Experience of Art and Nature:
Arguments from Indian Aesthetics
144
CHAPTER TEN JOHN M. CARVALHO
Capture and Line of Flight: The Experience of Photography
and Film
159
Select Bibliography, 178
Author/Name Index, 187
Term/Concept Index, 190
About the Editor and Contributors, 201
P R E F A CE
The present volume inaugurates a new series from Praeger Publishers, a unit
of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. The series is intended to focus on the
multifarious aspects of cultural phenomena crossing boundaries of nations,
race, gender, language, and politics—crossing the boundaries of disciplines
and departments of humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, and tech
nology. Apart from the mainstream issues in human culture such as experi
ence, emotion, expression, nationalism, social engagements, and taboos, what
is more important for the twenty-first century is the erasure of the border
between the arts and sciences that was drawn during the last several centuries
in classifying the areas of human learning and culture. An interesting per
spective in studying the arts, as explored by Ali Alpan, the renowned Turkish
physicist, is the application of electromagnetic technology for recording and
appreciating cosmic music. This is an exploration, which challenges both
composition and performance of music that man has done so far. Simul
taneously, new ideas and theories of architectural design might be formulated
by studying the laws of gravitation. Philosophers have come forward to reflect
upon the aesthetic values of the five natural elements, and the relevance of
aesthetic values in human culture has been examined from multidisciplinary
and cross-cultural viewpoints, cross-culturalism itself being no more a domi
nant-dominated relationship on a comparative method for evaluation and
judgment. For the present century, cross-culturalism stands for a cultural
reciprocation, engagement or negotiation, erasing all sorts of binary evaluative
relationships such as major/minor, superior/inferior, original/imitation, and
early/late.
The present century should also find its own modes of analysis and exam
ination of the issues in lieu of the last century's dominating analytic style and
method. Thinkers must be let free for devising their own modes of thinking
as appropriate for their investigation. Keeping all these ideas and objectives in
view, the Praeger series, Studies in Art, Culture, and Communities, announces