Buried Letter Press Manifesto July August 2014

performance.

Conceptual aesthetics, on the other hand, involves the relationships of the ensuing concepts and ideas that have been stimulated by perceptual awareness. Whereas, in a painting, we derive aesthetic pleasure from the relationship of colors as we perceive them, in a novel we may derive a similar measure of aesthetic pleasure from the relationship of ideas, characters and situations as we conceive them.

We have, then, two discernibly different types of aesthetic relationships, the conceptual and the pre-conceptual, or perceptual. But, merely because there is a discernible and describable difference, we cannot conclude that one exists independently of the other, or even that one does not crucially affect the other.

First, let us establish that a work of art does indeed involve both perceptual and conceptual relationships. The presence of both forms of relationships is perhaps most evident in poetry: the perceptual relationship being typified by the rhythms and the rhymes, and the conceptual relationship by the ideas and images conveyed by the poem. In prose, although both types of relationship are still present, the conceptual relationships are more complex and assume greater importance, while perceptual relationships play a lesser -- but still important – role.

Conversely, as one might well expect, in the so called perceptual arts, typified by the visual and musical arts, it is the perceptual or pre -conceptual relationship that dominates. In the visual arts more so than the musical arts, conceptual relationships are apparent. Many paintings of course have definite subject matter and moralistic or religious themes. And even in the modern, non-objective art, there is still a hint of subject matter, whether or not the artist intended it or was even aware of it.

However – and this may well be the single most misunderstood point of all in art appreciation – merely because conceptual relationships exist in perceptual art, these conceptual relationships do not necessarily have aesthetic value. They do not necessarily serve any higher function than as a tool to order the perspective, as a stepping stone into the visual realm of the painting. Visual aesthetics must always predominate in aesthetic judgments rendered by the visual artist, as well as in critical judgments rendered by the viewer.

Art historians and critics often speak of twentieth century aes-