Art and Vitality

Kant draws two similarities between Art and Nature: first, they can both produce Beauty, second, that humans interpret both Purposively. However, his prior commitments seem to prevent him from relating two other elements of the Critique of Judgement. If he had maintained focus on his fundamental insight, that Art inspires imagination, he might have gone on to realize that the Form-Matter combination in Art is similar to dynamic unity in Nature, i. e, Organism. From that, he might have concluded that a necessary condition, at least, of Art, is that it possess Vitality. Even 'static' Artforms are Vital--even what 'still life' paintings capture is life within the stillness; the subjects of sculptures are likewise presented as if they are in the process of some activity, even thinking; and, the wonder of architecture lies in its resolution of dynamic geometric forces. In Aristotle's theory, the object of imitation is always action, and perhaps nothing is more essential to the representation of action than that it is a product of free choice, e. g. Oedipus' behavior is hardly tragic without the contrast between his presumed free will and Fate. The Vitality of Poetry consists not merely in the play of its ideas, nor in the sonic liveliness of its language, but, furthermore, in the interplay between language and imagery. So, if Vitality is essential to Art, the experience of Music is not radically opposed to that of the traditional spectator Arts. But Music itself is not Vital unless later phases of a piece are organic developments of earlier ones, not mechanically added on. Now, Dewey's thesis that the enjoyment of Art is a species of Experience, in general, is equivalent to attributing Vitality to it. And, the assertion here that the fundamental content of any Artwork is Creativity, is equivalent to the thesis that Art must be Vital. So, one key attribute of Creativity is the appearance that it is self-Created, the accomplishment of which is a mark of great Artistry.