Art criticism is a conscious and systematic procedure for revealing the expressive significance of works of art. People encounter things in their world through behavior and perception, thus an inquiry into these processes is important to art criticism. To be effective, art criticism must provide some means of realizing the expressive value of works of art, which presents a problem in aesthetics. / The purpose of this inquiry was to gather and explain selected aspects of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology in the areas of perception, behavior, and aesthetics in order to apply his ideas toward an appropriate methodology for art criticism. / According to Merleau-Ponty, a person is engaged in a dialectic with things in the world. This dialectic is realized through an individual's behavior and perception, which holistically and synergetically operate to order, create, and respond to the world. A work of art, in this context, is a communicative object. / Behaviors, which may be categorized into instinctive, transferable, and symbolic forms, function in a milieu to create complex structures, or orders, which involve language and art. As individuals gain experience, their behaviors are modified; they learn, adapt, and develop aptitudes for interacting with their world. / Perception is the relationship of a person's body and consciousness with the world. An individual probes the world for meanings through intersensory contact and acts of intention. Things reveal themselves only partially due to their perspectival and temporal nature. Intending a work of art involves the phenomenological reduction, wherein the object in question is placed within conscious brackets in order to focus upon its inherent qualities without interference from tangential or irrelevant information. The significance of an object is discovered through reflection, which is the synthesis of experiential moments into an interpretation of what is perceived. / Although Merleau-Ponty did not provide any method for the practice of art criticism, he did indicate that critical dialogue should be restricted to the visible surface qualities of a work of art and ideas implied by that surface. / Eleven propositions were derived from the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty by this investigator, and are intended to serve as guidelines for the development of a method of art criticism. These propositions were divided into three clusters: (1) presuppositions for art criticism, (2) proposals for the practice of art criticism, and (3) statements suggesting significant individual and social benefits which may accrue from experiences in art criticism. / Based upon these propositions, and generally following the phenomenological method of description explained in the text, a method of art criticism was outlined. The method involves five consecutively ordered components. Each component is absorbed into the function of the next. The components are: (1) receptiveness, (2) orienting, (3) bracketing, (4) interpretive analysis, and (5) synthesis. Two or more people engaged in critical dialogue may revise and expand an interpretation beyond what one person might discover alone. A major advantage of a phenomenological method of art criticism is that it allows variations in the expression of feelings and ideas about a work of art, provided those expressions reflect an authentic experience of the work itself. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-07, Section: A, page: 2890. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74229 |
| Contributors | LANKFORD, E. LOUIS., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 170 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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