Art and Experience, Utrecht, © 1996. All rights reserved

Art. I characterize art as having the task to represent the experiential dimension. This is not a definition of art. Instead of specifying art's necessary and sufficient conditions, I describe artworks in terms of four orders of choices. Only things and events compliant to this characterization may answer to art's task. (III:4, VIII:4). From a different point of view art is threefold, consisting of presentation, reproduction, and representation. Artistic presentation is art's 'answer' to the fact that in every art form a restricted number of sense modalities is addressed. The less than full address of our embodied perception explains why our imagination should be so important in the aesthetic domain: imagination fills in the holes intentionally left open. (VIII:2-4). Cf. principle of acquaintance; intimation.