definite subject matter as a focus for thought through the working of mater-
ial in a medium. But the formal limits of success in the enterprise of aesthetic
affirmation are unclear, and avant-garde work has at least the advantage of
taking the semantic and social dimensions of the practice of art making
seriously, refusing to indulge in decorativism.
It seems difficult, in the face of the complexities and antagonisms that
mark social actuality, to construct a realistic, coherent plot of the achieve-
ment of deep meaningfulness. We are now more familiar with and apprecia-
tive of explicitly ambiguous resolutions (The Graduate), disappearing
protagonists (Gravity’s Rainbow), and sheer overwhelming complexity (JR)
than audiences perhaps were in the past (though considerTristram Shandy
orDon Quixote). We are more alert to the presence of complexity and contra-
diction within works that may once have seemed to offer unambiguous
resolutions in happy marriages (Middlemarch,Pride and Prejudice). Given our
awareness of complexity and contradiction in social actuality, we are likewise
more uncertain about the value of works that seem to exemplify the reso-
lution of antagonisms in a gesture or visual experience. The beauties of
abstract expressionist painting (Morris Louis, Mark Rothko) can sometimes
seem hyperbolically self-important and sometimes to afford a guilty pleas-
ure. It is sometimes hard not to wonder,“Who am I to wallow in such color
and space?”
Two prominent artistic practices build on our awareness of complexity by
offering resistance–but differently from more manic, surrealist influenced
avant-garde experimentalism–to immediate sensuous satisfactions in the
experiences of reading, listening, or viewing. Minimalist or constructivist art
(as in Sol LeWitt’s conceptual installation works or the sculptures of Donald
Judd and Tony Smith; or in music in some of the works of Elliot Carter; or in
the stories of Donald Barthelme) call attention in the first instance to the
elements or parts of (prior) works–to lines, curves, beams, short motifs, or
words and phrases–rather than offering us immediately the satisfactions of
achieved coherent wholeness in which we might linger. They seek to make us
aware of what the artist is doing in manipulating parts or elements and of
whatweare doing ourselves in experiencing parts or elements as parts that
we, the audience, must relate to one another or for which we must find a use.
The persona of the artist seems cooler and less sensuous; the elements we are
given to experience seem more austere and related to thought; we are invited
to respond with self-conscious thinking more immediately than with278 An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art