Abstract
This chapter takes into account the “material” aspect of artistic work not following an historical and philosophical path, but rather starting from the idea of the mind as part of the body. We intend to analyze, theoretically and empirically, the human capacity to create shapes, sounds and movements that society defines as ‘artistic forms’: this ability is related to the handedness and senses. From a sociological point of view culture comes from the mental structure of those who create and those who view artistic work.
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Notes
- 1.
Descartes thought that the mind and the body were joined in a single point, in the pineal gland in the brain.
- 2.
In Italian corpomentale is a neologism created by G. O. Longo [16] which expresses well the union between the body and the mind.
- 3.
It must also be remembered that no single performance of Hamlet can be said to be identical to Shakespeare’s Hamlet itself. Neither is Shakespeare’s work the class or set of all its performances, in a way similar to that in which a building or a sculpture may be said to be represented by one or several photographs or prints of varying quality. Although it can be said that its reproductions belong both to the World 1 of physical things and to the World 3 of the products of the mind, the play Hamlet itself belongs only to World 3. A symphony is a similar case.
- 4.
Goodman [12] maintains that some works are autographic and others allographic. The former, e.g., the plastic arts, do not need an intermediary. Other arts, e.g., music, but drama too, belong to the latter type as they have to be interpreted by an intermediary to go through the musical writing (reading printed music scores and playing an instrument).
- 5.
Rarely is a work immediately considered perfect. See, among others, Mozart and Rossini as regards music, the changes Manzoni made to his novel “The Betrothed” as regards literature.
- 6.
The decision, however, is not the consequence of a whim, but comes from the perception that what he has done is complete (the union of mind and body).
- 7.
Objects have a length in the sense that a certain class of measurement can be applied to any object and the result of the operation is a number. Measuring occurs through the body up to quantum mathematics [6]. Cassirer settles the debate between art and science with simple words: between art and science there is only a difference of degree.
- 8.
This observation is critical of a tradition seen as a foreclosure against creativity. “Tradition does not expand, nor does it free; it is restrictive and tends to assert. He is the master and the pupils are disciples rather than apprentices. Tradition is no longer tradition, but a fixed and absolute convention” ([9], 23).
- 9.
In the Genesis at the end of creation, the sentence “God saw all that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” is repeated over and over.
- 10.
Stimmung is very hard to translate because of its many nuances: spiritual tuning, mood, feeling, atmosphere, according to context.
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Tessarolo, M. (2015). The Last ‘Touch’ Turns the Artist into a User: The Body, the Mind and the Social Aspect of Art. In: Scarinzi, A. (eds) Aesthetics and the Embodied Mind: Beyond Art Theory and the Cartesian Mind-Body Dichotomy. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 73. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9379-7_9
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