Car as an object
Dissolves into
Manifold of sensations
A moment of sensation that bypasses conceptual understanding, offering itself directly to the body and mind.
“Art does not render the visible, but renders visible.” – Paul Klee
From a perspective
Tactile suggestion
Primary engagement
The coats, with their tangible texture and immediate presence, present a curious detachment, an objecthood that invites contemplation apart from their immediate function.
“I am myself plus my circumstance.” – José Ortega y Gasset
Light dancing
On the surface
Sensuous delight
This is the realm of pure potentiality, of qualities as they are in themselves, without reference to anything else.
“The universe is a vast representamen, a great poem, a great architecture, a great music, or a great symphony of ideas.” – Charles Sanders Peirce
Complex sign-event
Perpetually unfolding
Dynamic process of semiosis
Before any cognitive apprehension, there is the raw sensory impact: the gleaming cream-colored letters, their rounded edges and assertive presence against the cool, indeterminate blue.
“Firstness is the mode of being of that which is such as it is, positively and without reference to anything else.” – Charles Sanders Peirce
Concrete object
In space and time
Physical manifestation
The aesthete, forever engaged in the pursuit of immediate sensation and the boundless possibilities of the moment, finds in these stairs a fleeting beauty, a hint of something more, even if undefined.
“The present age is a reflective age, an age that knows that the most direct way to get what it wants is by detour.” – Soren Kierkegaard
Physical phenomena
As distinct from
Psychical phenomena
Our perception of the hood latch-spring mechanism, the blurred background, and the shimmering bokeh circles is not merely a passive reception of sensory data, but an active, directed engagement with these elements.
“The aesthetic object is not a thing but a meaning.” – Mikel Dufrenne
Spectral double
Physical origin
Inherent unpredictability
Our perceived reality is intertwined with unseen forces.
“The aesthetic object is not a thing but a meaning.” – Mikel Dufrenne
Organic rhythm
Otherwise rigid
Repetitive geometry
It is the immediate, undivided grasping of the image that constitutes its aesthetic character.
“The artist produces an image or a phantasm; and he who enjoys art turns his gaze on the point to which the artist has pointed, looks through the chink which he has opened, and reproduces the image in himself.” – Benedetto Crocea
Partial view
Hints of form
Actual occasion
The partiality of the image suggests that we are witnessing not a static object, but a fleeting glimpse of an ongoing concrescence, an actual occasion in its process of realizing its determinate character.
“The actual world is a process, and the process is the becoming of occasions of experience.” – Alfred North Whitehead