Bullot & Reber (B&R) propose a reorientation of work in psychology of art that will make such work more sensitive to the role played by knowledge of history, culture, and intentions in our recognition of artworks as artworks and in our interpretive grasp and qualitative evaluation of artworks. The authors make a good case that what they call a “psycho-historical framework” for a cognitive science of art will be more fruitful for that nascent science than a purely neuropsychological one, and may serve to make the results of experiments designed within that framework more interesting, more valid, and more relevant to the actual practice of art makers, interpreters, and appreciators.
That said, I have some reservations about certain aspects of the psycho-historical framework that the authors propose empirical researchers on the arts take on board. I focus here on my main reservation, concerning how the authors conceive the notion of the causal-historical information that a work embodies and how they deploy the notion of a work's causal history.
The authors claim that appreciators perceiving a work of art are “exposed” to causal-historical information that it contains (sect. 2.4). But is that quite so? First, is such information really present in the work, rather than just plausibly attributed to it? Second, even if such information is present, is it really perceived by appreciators rather than just inferred? I think not. What instead seems true is that the work as open to observation makes some hypotheses or conjectures about the originating contexts and generative actions of the work more plausible than others, not that its observable features assessed from a design stance transparently indicate those contexts and actions. In other words, one generally needs independent access to facts about origin and generation in order to appreciate a work of art correctly, for sometimes the most likely inference to or explanation for why a work appears as it does is not the causally or historically correct one. The authors' emphasis on “adopting the design stance” in appreciating art threatens to obscure this.
“We thus propose that … appreciators adopt the artistic design stance when they use inferences … to process causal-historical information carried by artworks and discover facts about past art-historical contexts” (sect. 3.2, para. 5). This assumes that causal history can be reliably inferred from what the authors call the causal-historical information carried by artworks, but which I would describe rather as causal-historical traces left in artworks, from which true causal history is not infallibly extractable. The authors claim that adopting the design stance enables appreciators “to address basic questions about the history of the work, such as authorship attribution, dating, influence, provenance …” (sect. 3.2.2) insisting that “appreciators need to decipher the causal history of the work, often by means of theory-based reasoning” (sect. 3.2.2). Once more, this seems to discount the necessity, for correct artistic appreciation, of determining actual causal history by appeal to sources outside of the art object as perceptually available, even to conceptually informed observation. Adoption of something like the design stance, though it clearly has a role to play in the interpretation of artworks, cannot substitute for independent ascertaining of facts about a work's provenance and the processes involved in its creation. Despite what the authors maintain, it is hence not the case that art-historical knowledge can be reliably “acquired as an outcome of the design stance” (sect. 3.3, para. 1).
The basic point is most easily made through a concrete example. (What follows is a modification of an example given in Walton Reference Walton2008.) Think first of a classic Jackson Pollock drip painting, made by Pollock's signature technique of paint spraying by brush while moving around a canvas that is lying on the floor. It is normally thought, with some justice, that the action by which the painting was produced is perceivable in the painting itself. Now, consider a second painting, whether by Pollock or someone else, which aims to reproduce exactly the look of the first, but by meticulously applying paint to canvas using an assortment of eyedroppers. And suppose that that aim is achieved, so that the two canvases are perceptually indiscernible. Should we say that the action by which that painting was produced is perceivable in the resulting painting, and if so, what action? And if an action of paint spraying by brush is evident in the first painting, then why is it not evident in the second?
The ostensible causal history of both paintings is that they are the result of paint spraying by brush. And that is the action we are right to see in the first painting, and which we will see in it, given knowledge of Pollock's working methods. Yet that is not the action we are right to see in the second painting, but rather an action of eyedroppering designed to simulate paint spraying. These two paintings are manifestly different artistically, but for that to enter into our appreciation of them the actual causal history of the presented object must be ascertained. Ostensible causal history, which is all that “adopting the design stance” will deliver, thus derails proper understanding in this case.
What this shows in effect is that causal appearances are not yet causal information. For appearances can be deceptive, allowing for causal history to be simulated. Hence appreciation can be misled if relying solely on appearances and plausible conjectures from such appearances.
Consider as another example the “slash” paintings of Lucio Fontana. With such works it is indeed hard to imagine a causal history other than the one that so strongly suggests itself to the eye, given one's knowledge of the properties of stretched canvas and the capabilities of the Stanley knife. So let us grant for the sake of argument that one can know, just by looking at the object, if perhaps not with certainty, that the canvas was cut with such an implement. But can one know, just on the basis of observation, that Fontana cut the felt himself, rather than, for example, commissioning it to be cut by a tailor, or finding it already so cut in the discard heap of some fellow artist's studio? I claim not, and yet such knowledge of the actual process of creation, of the actual causal history of the object before one, invariably makes an artistic and appreciative difference.
The authors posit three stages of art appreciation: basic exposure, involving registering of observable features; artistic design stance, involving interpretation of causal information carried by the work; and artistic understanding, derived from knowledge of the art-historical context of generation (sect. 3). In light of the foregoing discussion, however, it is unclear that these stages separate out quite so neatly as the authors claim. In particular, it looks as if one may need to be already at stage three in order to succeed in the activity central to stage two.
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Bullot & Reber (B&R) propose a reorientation of work in psychology of art that will make such work more sensitive to the role played by knowledge of history, culture, and intentions in our recognition of artworks as artworks and in our interpretive grasp and qualitative evaluation of artworks. The authors make a good case that what they call a “psycho-historical framework” for a cognitive science of art will be more fruitful for that nascent science than a purely neuropsychological one, and may serve to make the results of experiments designed within that framework more interesting, more valid, and more relevant to the actual practice of art makers, interpreters, and appreciators.
That said, I have some reservations about certain aspects of the psycho-historical framework that the authors propose empirical researchers on the arts take on board. I focus here on my main reservation, concerning how the authors conceive the notion of the causal-historical information that a work embodies and how they deploy the notion of a work's causal history.
The authors claim that appreciators perceiving a work of art are “exposed” to causal-historical information that it contains (sect. 2.4). But is that quite so? First, is such information really present in the work, rather than just plausibly attributed to it? Second, even if such information is present, is it really perceived by appreciators rather than just inferred? I think not. What instead seems true is that the work as open to observation makes some hypotheses or conjectures about the originating contexts and generative actions of the work more plausible than others, not that its observable features assessed from a design stance transparently indicate those contexts and actions. In other words, one generally needs independent access to facts about origin and generation in order to appreciate a work of art correctly, for sometimes the most likely inference to or explanation for why a work appears as it does is not the causally or historically correct one. The authors' emphasis on “adopting the design stance” in appreciating art threatens to obscure this.
“We thus propose that … appreciators adopt the artistic design stance when they use inferences … to process causal-historical information carried by artworks and discover facts about past art-historical contexts” (sect. 3.2, para. 5). This assumes that causal history can be reliably inferred from what the authors call the causal-historical information carried by artworks, but which I would describe rather as causal-historical traces left in artworks, from which true causal history is not infallibly extractable. The authors claim that adopting the design stance enables appreciators “to address basic questions about the history of the work, such as authorship attribution, dating, influence, provenance …” (sect. 3.2.2) insisting that “appreciators need to decipher the causal history of the work, often by means of theory-based reasoning” (sect. 3.2.2). Once more, this seems to discount the necessity, for correct artistic appreciation, of determining actual causal history by appeal to sources outside of the art object as perceptually available, even to conceptually informed observation. Adoption of something like the design stance, though it clearly has a role to play in the interpretation of artworks, cannot substitute for independent ascertaining of facts about a work's provenance and the processes involved in its creation. Despite what the authors maintain, it is hence not the case that art-historical knowledge can be reliably “acquired as an outcome of the design stance” (sect. 3.3, para. 1).
The basic point is most easily made through a concrete example. (What follows is a modification of an example given in Walton Reference Walton2008.) Think first of a classic Jackson Pollock drip painting, made by Pollock's signature technique of paint spraying by brush while moving around a canvas that is lying on the floor. It is normally thought, with some justice, that the action by which the painting was produced is perceivable in the painting itself. Now, consider a second painting, whether by Pollock or someone else, which aims to reproduce exactly the look of the first, but by meticulously applying paint to canvas using an assortment of eyedroppers. And suppose that that aim is achieved, so that the two canvases are perceptually indiscernible. Should we say that the action by which that painting was produced is perceivable in the resulting painting, and if so, what action? And if an action of paint spraying by brush is evident in the first painting, then why is it not evident in the second?
The ostensible causal history of both paintings is that they are the result of paint spraying by brush. And that is the action we are right to see in the first painting, and which we will see in it, given knowledge of Pollock's working methods. Yet that is not the action we are right to see in the second painting, but rather an action of eyedroppering designed to simulate paint spraying. These two paintings are manifestly different artistically, but for that to enter into our appreciation of them the actual causal history of the presented object must be ascertained. Ostensible causal history, which is all that “adopting the design stance” will deliver, thus derails proper understanding in this case.
What this shows in effect is that causal appearances are not yet causal information. For appearances can be deceptive, allowing for causal history to be simulated. Hence appreciation can be misled if relying solely on appearances and plausible conjectures from such appearances.
Consider as another example the “slash” paintings of Lucio Fontana. With such works it is indeed hard to imagine a causal history other than the one that so strongly suggests itself to the eye, given one's knowledge of the properties of stretched canvas and the capabilities of the Stanley knife. So let us grant for the sake of argument that one can know, just by looking at the object, if perhaps not with certainty, that the canvas was cut with such an implement. But can one know, just on the basis of observation, that Fontana cut the felt himself, rather than, for example, commissioning it to be cut by a tailor, or finding it already so cut in the discard heap of some fellow artist's studio? I claim not, and yet such knowledge of the actual process of creation, of the actual causal history of the object before one, invariably makes an artistic and appreciative difference.
The authors posit three stages of art appreciation: basic exposure, involving registering of observable features; artistic design stance, involving interpretation of causal information carried by the work; and artistic understanding, derived from knowledge of the art-historical context of generation (sect. 3). In light of the foregoing discussion, however, it is unclear that these stages separate out quite so neatly as the authors claim. In particular, it looks as if one may need to be already at stage three in order to succeed in the activity central to stage two.