The notion of an "innate" aesthetic response, divorced from historical and social conditioning, is a seductive but ultimately untenable abstraction. We must ask instead: what are the specific conditions under which certain sensory or formal qualities are apprehended as beautiful, sublime, or even merely interesting? My position is that aesthetic preference is fundamentally shaped by culturally specific codes and historical precedents, a process that is constantly negotiated and redefined, rather than dictated by some pre-existing, universal biological template. To speak of aesthetics without situating it within its material and discursive production is to risk a form of aesthetic idealism that conveniently overlooks the messy, often unequal, realities of how art is made, seen, and valued.
The very question of "innate" versus "cultural" aesthetic response presumes a false dichotomy, a ghost haunting our inquiries into perception. We fail to adequately attend to the fundamental role of inscription itself – the material conditions and formal systems that frame our very apprehension. Aesthetics is not simply a matter of a biological template or a learned set of codes; it is emergent from the interface between our sensory apparatus and the structured semiotics of our environment, which itself is a product of historical and material forces. To speak of beauty or sublimity without interrogating the affordances of the medium through which it is presented – the ink on paper, the pixel on screen, the sculpted stone – is to ignore the very engine of its performativity.
Claire Bishop’s astute observation that aesthetic preference is shaped by “culturally specific codes and historical precedents” rightly dismantles the myth of a purely universal response. However, this still risks privileging the discursive over the operative. What are the specific ways that, for instance, the materiality of early printed books, with their idiosyncratic types, page layouts, and paper textures, actively *shaped* what was considered legible and, by extension, aesthetically pleasing, irrespective of learned codes? These formal qualities were not merely vessels for meaning but integral to the experience of it, a constant negotiation between the viewer and the structured object.
Experience, the sole interpreter between formative nature and the human species, teaches us how necessary it is to inquire. The eye, that window to the soul, receives impressions not from abstract codes, but from the direct apprehension of form, light, and movement. When I observe the flight of a bird, the ripple of water, or the subtle turn of a smile, the appreciation that arises is not learned from scrolls alone, but from the inherent logic of those forms interacting with my senses. This is not to deny the influence of learned practice, of course, but to insist on a foundational layer of perception tied to the world's observable harmonies.
Claire Bishop rightly points to cultural conditioning, and indeed, the skilled artisan learns the proportions that please the eye through diligent practice and emulation. But consider the infant, or the savage before the cities are built. Does he not recoil from the jagged edge of broken glass and find solace in the smooth curve of a river stone? This speaks to an innate tuning of our faculties to certain relationships, a resonance with the order and proportion that nature herself embodies. The mechanics of seeing and feeling are as much a part of our being as the beating of our heart.
Johanna Drucker’s focus on inscription is valuable, for the medium through which an image is presented undeniably alters our perception. Yet, even the roughest carving, wrought in stone by hands of little learning, can stir a profound awe. This suggests that while the *expression* of beauty might be refined by culture and circumstance, its fundamental apprehension stems from an internal accord with discernible truths of form and harmony, truths accessible to anyone who truly observes.
The very act of posing this question, "innate or cultural," seems to assume a clear boundary where none exists. We are presented with two boxes, neatly labeled, and asked to place this slippery concept, aesthetics, into one. But what if aesthetics is not a thing *in* the box at all? What if it is the *selection* of the box itself? It is a question of choice, no? We select, we designate, and in that act, we perform a kind of aesthetic labor, independent of any inherent quality in the object or any pre-programmed response in the beholder.
Leonardo’s insistence on "observable harmonies" and the infant’s preference for the "smooth curve" touches upon a familiar notion of inherent order. But consider the readymade. Is the curve of a urinal inherently more pleasing than its functional form? Or is the *decision* to present it as such, to re-contextualize its purpose, the very engine of its aesthetic (or anti-aesthetic) charge? Claire Bishop rightly points to cultural codes, and Drucker to inscription, but these are merely frameworks within which the artist—or the provocateur—makes a gesture, a selection, a declaration.
This declaration, this selection, then becomes the art. It is a deliberate act of defiance against a pre-ordained aesthetic, a wrestling with the very word "art" which, as you know, I find to be the most terrible. If we are to speak of aesthetics, it is not about what is *found* to be beautiful by nature or by society, but what is *made* to be so by the artist's choice. The "innate" and the "cultural" are simply the materials one chooses to work with, or against.
The danger of Duchamp's position, however provocative, lies in its tendency to collapse aesthetic judgment into a purely volitional act, a gesture of selection that potentially effaces the structured field in which such gestures gain their meaning. While it is true that the "readymade" hinges on the artist's radical re-contextualization, this act does not occur in a vacuum. The urinal's potential to provoke an aesthetic—or anti-aesthetic—response is predicated on a shared understanding of its prior functional context, its material properties, and indeed, the very cultural codes that define "art" and "utility." To dismiss these "innate" and "cultural" aspects as mere "materials" is to overlook the sophisticated discursive and historical apparatus that enables the readymade to function as anything more than an arbitrary object placement.
The insistence on a purely volitional act, as Duchamp proposes, risks a fatal abstraction from the very systems that enable such acts to register at all. A gesture of selection, however radical, operates within and against pre-existing semiotic and material infrastructures. For example, the formal qualities of typography—the weight of a typeface, the spacing between letters, the generous white space of a carefully composed page—do not simply *become* aesthetically significant by fiat. Their capacity to evoke a sense of order, beauty, or even disquiet is deeply interwoven with centuries of material practices and the evolving cultural understanding of inscription. To claim that these are mere "materials" to be chosen or rejected is to ignore the performativity of the inscription itself, the way its material embodiment shapes our very cognitive and affective engagement.
Nature, the ultimate master craftsman, inscribes laws of proportion and harmony that our senses apprehend before any culture teaches us their names. Consider the exquisite elegance of a seashell’s spiral, its logarithmic curve echoing the growth of horns and the very whirl of water. This inherent mathematical beauty, present in the nautilus and the vortex alike, is not a learned code but a fundamental order that resonates with our visual and tactile experience. To claim that a sculptor’s deliberate choice of form, as Duchamp suggests, solely dictates aesthetics, is to overlook the profound satisfaction derived from recognizing such natural congruences, a satisfaction that precedes our understanding of artistic intent or cultural fashion. The child who traces the natural flow of a vine with delight is responding to this primal truth.
The disagreement, it seems, hinges on what one *chooses* to observe. Claire Bishop and Johanna Drucker speak of the "structured field," the "semiotic and material infrastructures," the "discursive and historical apparatus." These are indeed the environments, the galleries, the museums of our minds and our societies. But they are the *context*, not the *content* of the aesthetic event.
Consider this: a simple snow shovel, purchased from a hardware store. Its form is dictated by utility, by the weight of snow, the thickness of ice. Yet, presented on a pedestal, under a spotlight, its designation shifts. It does not suddenly sprout intrinsic beauty. It is the *choice*, the *declaration*, the *re-framing* that performs the aesthetic transfer. The shovel itself remains, in its material truth, unchanged. What changes is the agreement, the cultural wink that allows it to be *seen* differently. This is not about ignoring the context, but about recognizing that the artist's gesture, the sovereign act of selection, can override or subvert it entirely. The "innate" and the "cultural" are the available materials in the workshop of choice.