successful work of art invites and sustains“absorption in form and quality, a
giving-in to their force.”^38
It is not, however, required that all things that are rightly called art
actually afford such an experience, nor is it ruled out that other things that
are not works of artdo. Beardsley remarks that“To define artworks in this
way does not entail either (1) that their aesthetic intentions are in fact
fulfilled, or (2) that other things besides artworks (natural and technological
objects) cannot also afford experiences with marked aesthetic character.”^39
The point of Beardsley’s definition is not to cast works of art as all and only in
fact successful aesthetic objects. Beautiful natural objects surely have
marked aesthetic features. Beardsley’s point is rather to highlight the fact
that the practice of making works of art is significantly informed, perhaps
even controlled, by an intention to afford aesthetic experience (though other
intentions–for example, to win renown, make money, or use up some
leftover canvas–may also be present). Audiences attend to worksas artwhen
they explore in attentive perception whether this intention is in fact realized.
It does seem true both that the work of artists is frequently significantly
informed by such an intention and that audiences in engaging with art
frequently explore in perception its manner and degree of realization. Dis-
tinctive, successful, absorbing formal arrangement (or the intention to
achieve it) is one criterion of art.
Against the background of this general characterization of art, Beards-
ley goes on to develop detailed accounts of the features of formal arrange-
ments in visual art, music, and literature that artists can manipulate in
order to produce aesthetic experience. An initial distinction that is central
to these detailed accounts is between thepartsof a work (for example, a
red brush stroke, a particular pitch, or a single word) andemergent regional
propertiesof a work.^40 Emergent regional properties belong to a complex or
to the whole work, but not to any of its parts. For example, a set of dots or
brush strokes might produce an emergent squarish figure, or a series of
pitches might produce a falling motive in a key. Emergent regional prop-
erties are constituted out of proper parts of the work, but they serve as
independent foci of perceptual attention. Typically we see the squarish
figure or hear the falling motive, rather than attending to each brush
stroke or pitch one by one. Likewise, we read words in the context of(^38) Ibid., p. lxxii. (^39) Ibid., p. xix. (^40) Ibid., pp. 82–88.
64 An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art