Masks of Mind
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from a jug. This ordinary scene is infused with a sense of the extraordinary, partly because the woman is wholly unified with her task, and partly because the interior light in which her resolve shows itself transfigures the entire scene and imbues it with a sense of sacredness. This mode of expressive mean-
ing has theological significance in the Christian West in the liturgical expe-rience of Eucharist. The elements of bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. It is also connected to the image of God as the light of the world.
“proclamation.” A second meaning can break into the form and content of a representational meaning, disrupting and disturbing it. This mode of expres-sion is often seen as the privileged one for the twentieth-century experience On the other hand, expressive meanings can also appear in the mode of
of dread and anxiety about the possibility for ultimate meaningfulness. This mode has its theological form in the Christian sermon. The word of God as heavenly deity breaks through ordinary human words, accusing and con-demning, as well as uplifting and edifying, those who are morally and reli-
giously serious. A famous example of art conforming to the mode of proclamation is Van Gogh’s painting power breaks through the form of a landscape painting and the content described by the title, unsettling and judging the viewer.Wheat Field with Crows 27 , in which a
We can distinguish three kinds of relations between the viewer and the art-work, which can either coexist in the same experience or may occur singly. At each level, the artwork can open the imagination to new possibilities of Next, art has a relation to some viewer, who must connect with the artwork.
reflective goods. So, the work of art can open up a shared world of meaning for the imagination. Artworks project worlds for the imagination to inhabit and in which it can discover its own possibilities to be. Call this capacity the aesthetic dimension of the work of art. It is the ability of art to open a
world that engages interest and commands attention, so that the viewer may lose hera particular way of connecting experience into a meaningful whole.In viewing a work of art one may also feel the presence of another being, self within it. By “world” is meant what the work is about, that is,
a “you” to whom respect and admiration is owed. One feels under the watch of another consciousness, as if a light has been turned toward one. The work of art assumes a personal presence with a moral status. It is not merely the opening of a world for the imagination, the work of art becomes a “you”
to whom I must answer. The work of art as embodied meaning arouses the viewer’s conscience. The work may address the viewer: “Who are you?” “What do you want from your life?” “What do you do with your time?” Call this the moral dimension of the work of art.