or asensumcharged with an emotion–is transformed into an emotion of
consciousness which may be consciously worked through via the intentional
development of the work. Also as in Collingwood, however, one may wonder
whether the more cognitive and intellectual aspects of the artistic process are
given sufficient weight. Peter Kivy has objected that Robinson projects
abstract, banal psychodramas into pure music and that she fails to account
for the intellectual interest of repeats in music, which may be followed by an
audience with less“hot”and more intricately and intellectually imaginative
interest than Robinson allows.^102 This objection of Kivy’s might be answered,
however, by arguing, first, that a musical motive or contour can function as
aninitialobject of affective appraisal and hence of emotion, and, second, that
that motive or contour is made an object of reflective, intentional attention
and subjected to extended composition involving variation, counterpoint,
register, and so on. As John Spackman has noted, specific musical motives
and their expressive qualities“can be grasped by demonstratives,”^103 in that
we can think reflectively aboutthismotive and then consciously do some-
thing compositionally on the basis of this thinking. Arguing in this way
amounts, however, to de-emphasizing the role of initial affective appraisals
(though they may be present) and emphasizing instead the role of“feedback”
or reflective attention in the compositional process. This seems apt in that
any verbal description of a complex musical work–for example Shostako-
vich’s Cello Sonata in D minor, Opus 40 (1934) as nostalgic, dramatic, ironic,
or any combination of these–seems insufficient to capture either the
expressive quality or aesthetic interest of the piece, which expressive quality
and aesthetic interest attach significantly to the way in which the piece
develops its motives overall. As this example further indicates, expressive
quality in a work of art, above and beyond ordinary objects as objects of
affective appraisals, is arguably inseparable from achievement in the devel-
opment of artistic form–a fundamental insight both of the intransitive
theory of expression and of formalist understandings of music. After all, as
Saam Trivedi notes, it is“the music itself”–as composed, where something
(^102) Peter Kivy,“Critical Study: Deeper than Emotion,”British Journal of Aesthetics46, 3 ( July
2006), pp. 287–311 at pp. 302–03.
(^103) John Spackman,“Expressiveness, Ineffability, and Nonceptuality,”Journal of Aesthetics
and Art Criticism70, 3 (summer 2012), pp. 303–314 at p. 312B. See also the discussion of
Spackman’s work on demonstrative thought in Chapter 2 above.
Expression 107