Abstract

Much recent discussion in philosophical aesthetics has focused on the issue of defining art, particularly visual art. Such efforts generally presume that art is important without explaining why it is important. It is the latter question that Alan Paskow addresses. He is interested in discovering how and why art, and especially painting, matter in our lives. This is an important topic. If art did not matter to people in some deeply personal sense, it would not be the subject of such intense interest, whether on the part of the art-appreciating public or of academic philosophers. Paskow attempts to link the work of art to the viewer’s existence, to show its continuity with life, and to provide a framework that makes sense of the many effects art can have on those who experience it. To classify something as an artwork is to identify it as the kind of thing that can and should have value in our lives; and such value is not a question of pure, disinterested contemplation cut off from quotidian existence.