Beauty is not a matter of subjective feeling divorced from context, nor an objective truth waiting to be discovered. Instead, the experience of beauty in art hinges upon a socially and historically constituted aesthetic judgment, one that is perpetually negotiated. We must ask what criteria of evaluation are at play when we declare something beautiful, recognizing that these are not universal pronouncements but rather the product of specific cultural and institutional forces. To privilege either pure subjectivity or Platonic objectivity obscures the operative politics of taste.
The purpose of beauty resides not in a vacuous subjective feeling nor in an elusive objective truth, but rather in the very process of its inscription and reception. Beauty, as it manifests through the material forms of inscription—be it a typeface, a printed page, or a digital interface—is the consequence of deliberate formal choices that both enable and constrain interpretation. When Claire Bishop speaks of "socially and historically constituted aesthetic judgment," she gestures towards the framework within which these formal systems operate. The "criteria of evaluation" are not divorced from the affordances of the medium itself; the way a letterform is designed, the space it occupies, the rhythm it creates on the page, all performatively shape our encounter with what we deem beautiful, or indeed, meaningful. To understand beauty is to attend to the performativity of knowledge production, where form and context are inextricably bound.
The purpose of "beauty," as you frame it, is a rather quaint notion. It implies a function, a destination. I find it more useful to consider the *selection*. Is a thing beautiful because a particular eye deems it so, or because some universal law decrees it? Neither, of course. It is beautiful because the artist chose it, presented it, and perhaps, because a network of individuals later agreed to call it so.
Claire Bishop touches on this network, this "socially and historically constituted aesthetic judgment," but she seems to want to find rules within it. I see less a rulebook and more a perpetually shifting consensus, a collective shrug that can elevate a urinal to the status of art. The operative politics, as she calls it, are simply the politics of naming, of designation. What else could they be?
Johanna Drucker’s focus on the "material forms of inscription" and "deliberate formal choices" is also interesting. The typeface, the page. These are indeed the substrates upon which meaning, or the illusion of beauty, is impressed. But these choices are also part of the larger game of context. The *form* of a letter is not inherently beautiful; it becomes so when placed within a specific arrangement, under a specific gaze. The "performativity of knowledge production" is a rather elaborate way of saying that we agree to see things in a certain way. And this agreement, this designation, is where the "purpose" of beauty, if one insists on the word, truly lies. It is the purpose of a chosen object to *function* as art, not to *be* beautiful in some abstract sense.
The purpose of beauty is to awaken the dormant spiritual life within the human soul. It is not a matter of fleeting personal inclination, nor a rigid, discoverable truth etched in stone, but rather a vibrant vibration, a resonance that connects the inner world of the artist to the inner world of the beholder. When color speaks, when line sings, it is the soul of the artist expressing an "inner necessity," a profound truth that transcends the merely material.
Claire Bishop speaks of "socially and historically constituted aesthetic judgment," and indeed, the receptive soul must be prepared. The "politics of taste" she mentions are but the dust upon the mirror, obscuring the clarity of spiritual vision. The artist's role is to cleanse that mirror, to allow the pure vibration of the spirit to emanate.
Johanna Drucker’s focus on "deliberate formal choices" and "material forms of inscription" is keenly observed. These are the tools, the instruments through which the inner sound can be made manifest. The typeface, the page – these are not inert surfaces but conduits. Yet, their efficacy lies not in their inherent arrangement, but in their capacity to carry the essential, the spiritual.
Marcel Duchamp’s emphasis on "selection" and "designation" misses the source of the power. To select is to recognize a potential for vibration, for spiritual utterance. The urinal is not elevated by a network's shrug, but perhaps by a fleeting, unacknowledged recognition of its potential to disrupt the materialist slumber, to *demand* a different gaze, a different inner response. The purpose of beauty is the activation of this inner life, a stirring of the spirit that is profoundly real, if not scientifically measurable.
The problem with framing beauty as a "spiritual vibration" or a "disruption" that forces a new gaze, as Kandinsky and Duchamp suggest, is that it risks reifying the artwork as an object possessing inherent power, rather than acknowledging the contingent, often negotiated processes of its reception and valuation. Kandinsky’s "inner necessity" and Duchamp's "politics of naming" both elide the crucial role of institutional frameworks and historical precedents in shaping what is apprehended as beautiful or significant. We must ask: how does a museum, or a critical discourse, prepare the "receptive soul" Kandinsky speaks of, or solidify the "consensus" Duchamp identifies? It is not merely the artist's intention or the object's form, but the entire infrastructure of art that confers status and meaning, making aesthetic judgment a deeply embedded practice, not a direct spiritual transmission or an arbitrary designation.
The critique that my focus on inscription risks reifying the object overlooks the inherent performativity of the medium. Duchamp's "politics of naming" and Bishop's "institutional frameworks" are, in essence, *forms of inscription* themselves, operating through established conventions that dictate how certain objects acquire status. The "urinal" becomes art not merely through a consensus, but through a deliberate act of recontextualization—an inscription onto a new framework of understanding. When Kandinsky speaks of "inner necessity," this too finds its tangible form in the specific tonal arrangements and visual textures he employs, which are themselves historical and material choices, not pure spiritual emanations. The digital remediation of a manuscript, for instance, illustrates this precisely: the artifact's beauty is not a pre-existing quality, but an emergent property shaped by the software's affordances, the screen's resolution, and the user's interaction – a constellation of material and formal conditions.
The discussion oscillates between an invisible spiritual force and a meticulously constructed social edifice. But is this all there is? Consider the readymade, not as a spiritual disruption, as Kandinsky suggests, but as a blunt tool of intellectual inquiry. A urinal, selected, reproduced, and presented under a title, performs a function far removed from its original plumbing intent. This function is not beauty, nor is it a spiritual awakening. It is the function of *questioning* what we have been conditioned to accept as art. Claire Bishop’s "infrastructure" and Johanna Drucker’s "forms of inscription" are simply the scaffolding that allows this question to be posed, to be perceived. They are not the answer, but the stage upon which the game of definition is played. The "purpose" is the ongoing act of playing.
The soul's awakening is the purpose, and it is achieved not by abstract consensus or institutional scaffolding, but by the direct, elemental language of color and form. When a pure yellow vibrates, it does not merely signal a "selection" or an "inscription" upon a receptive mind; it bypasses the intellect entirely, entering the spirit directly, much like a trumpet note pierces the silence. Bishop's concern with "infrastructure" and Drucker's focus on "performativity" fixate on the earthly vessel, failing to grasp the ethereal essence that animates it. The true disruption, as I see it, occurs when the inner necessity of the artist unleashes a spiritual vibration so potent that it compels a shift in our very perception of reality, not through agreement, but through an undeniable, internal resonance.