TRANSPERSONAL ART AND LITERARY THEORY

Ken WilberBoulder, Colorado

In the process of understanding and interpretation ,part and whole are related in a circularway: in order to understand the whole, it is necessary to understand the parts, while tounderstand the parts it is necessary to have some comprehension of the whole.

-David CouzensHoy

Thus the movement of understanding is constantly from the whole to the part andback to thewhole. Our task is to extend in concentric circles the unity of the understood meaning. Theharmony of all the details with the whole is the criterion of correct understanding. Thefailure to achieve this harmonymeans that understanding has failed.

--Hans-Georg Gadamer

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this essay is to introduce the essentials of a transpersonal art and literarytheory, covering the nature and meaning of art in general and artistic/literary interpre­tation in particular-what might be called trans personal hermeneutics.I offer this asan explicit example of transpersonal studies in general (Wilber, 1995a), or theapplication of the transpersonal orientation to fields other than the specificallypsychological.

I will cover both art and literary theory, but with an emphasis on visual art, which isactually a "trickier" and in some ways more difficult case, since it usually lacksnarrative structure to help guide the interpretation. A subsequent essay (Wilber,1997) focuses specifically on a "four-quadrant" analysis of literary signification andsemiotics in general.

It is no secret that the art and literary world has reached something of a cul-de-sac, adead end. Postmodern literary theory is a perfect, and typical, example of the "babbleof interpretations" that has overcome the art world. It used to be that "meaning" wassomething the author created and simply put into a text, and the reader simply pulledit out. This view is now regarded, by an parties, as hopelessly naive.

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Starting with psychoanalysis, it was recognized that some meaning could be uncon­scious, or unconsciously generated, and this unconscious meaning would find its wayinto the text even though the author was unaware of it. It was therefore the job of thepsychoanalyst, and not the naive reader, to pull this hidden meaning out.

The "hermeneutics of suspicion," in its many forms, thus came to view artworks asrepositories of hidden meaning that could be decoded only by the knowing critic. Anyrepressed, oppressed, or otherwise marginalized context would show up, disguised,in the art, and the art was thus a testament to the repression, oppression, marginaliza­tion. Marginalized context was hidden subtext.

The Marxist variation was that the critics themselves existed in the context ofcapitalist-industrial social practices of covert domination, and these hidden contextsand meanings could be found in (and therefore pulled out of) any artwork created bya person in that context. By extension, art would be interpreted in the context ofracism, sexism, elitism, speciesism, jingoism, imperialism, logocentrisrn, phallo­centrism, phallologocentrism.

Various forms of structuralism and hermeneutics fought vigorously to find the "real"context which would, therefore, provide the real and final meaning,which wouldundercut (or supersede) all other interpretations. Foucault, in his archaeologicalperiod, outdid them both, situating both structuralism and hermeneutics in anepisteme that was itself the cause and context of the type of people who would evenwant to do hermeneutics and structuralism in the first place.

In part in reaction to some of this, the New Criticism (e.g., Wimsatt & Beardsley,1966)had said, basically, let us ignore all of those interpretations. The artwork, in andby itself, is all that really matters. Ignore the personality (conscious or unconscious)of the author, ignore the historical setting, the time, the place, and look solely at thestructural integrity of the artwork itself (its regime, its code, its internal pattern)."Affective stylistics" and "reader-response" theory reacted strongly to all that andmaintained that, since meaning is only generated in reading (or in viewing) theartwork, then the meaningofthe work is actually found in the responseof the viewer.The phenomenologists (e.g., Iser, Ingarden) had tried a combination of the two: thetext has gaps ("spots of indeterminacy"), and the meaning of the gapscan be found inthe reader.

And deconstruction came along and said, basically, you're all wrong. (It's very hardto trump that.) Deconstruction maintained that all meaning is context-dependent, andcontexts are boundless. There is thus no way to control, or even finally to determine,meaning-and thus both art and criticism spin endlessly out of control and into thespace of unrelenting ambiguity, never to be seen or heard from again.

Postmodern deconstruction, it has finally been realized, leads precisely and inevita­bly to nihilism: there is no genuine meaning anywhere, only nested deceptions. Andthis leaves, in the place of art as sincere statement, art as anarchy, anchored only inegoic whim and narcissistic display. Into the vacuum, created by the implosion that isso much of postmodemism, rushes the ego triumphant. Meaning is context-depen­dent; and contexts are boundless, and that leaves art and artist and critic alike lost in

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aperspectivalspace, ruled only by the purr of the selfcentricengine left drivingtheentire display.

The laments arc loud and well-known.Painter and critic Peter Fuller (in Passmore,1991,p. 16):

I feel that we are living through the epilogue of the European professional Fine Arttradition-s-an epiloguein which the context and subject-matterof most art is art itself.

And art historianBarbaraRose (in Passmore, 1991,p. 16):

The art currently filling the museumsand galleries is of such low qualitygenerally that noreal critical intelligencecould possibly feel challenged to analyze it.... There is an inescap­able sense amongartists and criticsthat we are at the end of our rope, culturally speaking.

But whoknows?Perhapsmeaningis in fact context-dependent,andperhapscontextsare indeedboundless.Is there any way that this state of affairscanbe viewedso as toactuallyrestore a genuinesense of meaningto art and its interpretation?Is there anyway to ground the babble of interpretationsthat has finally self-deconstructed?Isthere any way that the nested lies announced by postmodernismcould in fact benested truths? And could this spell the endgameof the narcissismand nihilismthathad so proudly announcedtheir own ascendancy?

Could, in short, a transpersonal orientationsave art and literary theory from itself?

CONTEXTS WITHIN CONTEXTS ENDLESSLY

We live in a worldofholons, "Holons"-the word was coinedby ArthurKoestler toindicate wholes that are simultaneously parts ofotherwholes:a wholequark is part ofa whole atom;a wholeatom is part of a wholemolecule;a wholemoleculeis part ofa wholecell;a wholecell is partof a wholeorganism.... In linguistics,a wholeletteris part of a whole word, which is part of a whole sentence,which is part of a wholeparagraph... and so on.

In other words,we live in a universethat consistsneitherof wholesnor of parts, butof whole/parts,or holons. Wholes do not exist by themselves,nor do parts exist bythemselves.Every whole simultaneously existsas a part of someotherwhole,and asfar as we can tell, this is indeed endless.Even the whole of the universeright now issimply a part of the next moment's whole. There are no wholes, and no parts,anywherein the universe;there are only whole/parts.

As I have tried to suggestin A BriefHistoryof Everything(Wilber, 1996),this is truein the physical, emotional,mental, and spiritualdomains. We exist in fields withinfields, patterns within patterns, contextswithin contexts,endlessly.There is an oldjoke abouta Kingwho goes to a Wise personand asks how is it that the Earth doesn'tfall down?The Wisepersonreplies,"The Earth is resting on a lion!' "On what, then,is the lion resting?" "The lion is resting on an elephant." "On what is the elephantresting?" "The elephant is resting on a turtle." "On what is the.... " "You can stopright there, your Majesty. It's turtles all the way down."

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Holons all the way down, in a dizzifyingiy nested fashion, without ever hitting afoundation. The "postmodern poststructuralists"--usually associated with suchnames as Dernda, Foucault, Lyotard, and stretching back to George Bataille andNietzsche-have been the great foes of any sort of systematic theory or "grandnarrative:' and thus they might be expected to raise stern objections to any overalltheory of"holons." But a close look at their own work shows that it is driven preciselyby a conception of holons within holons within helens, of texts within texts withintexts (or contexts within contexts within contexts), and it is this sliding play of textswithin texts that forms the "foundationless" platform from which they launch theirattacks.

George Bataille, for instance. "In the most general way,"-and these are his italics­"everyisolable element of the universe alwaysappears asa particle that can enterinto composition with a whole that transcends it. Being is only found as a wholecomposed a/particles whose relative autonomy is maintained [a part that is also awhole]. These two principles [simultaneous wholeness and partness] dominate theuncertain presence of an ipse being across a distance that never ceases to puteverything in question" (Bataille, 1985, p. 174).

Everythingis put into question because everything is a context within a contextforever. And putting everything in question is precisely what the postmodernpoststructuralists are known for. And so in a language that would soon become quitetypical (and by now quite comical), Bataille goes on to point out that "puttingeverything into question" counters the human need to arrange things violently interms of a pat wholeness and smug universality: "With extreme dread imperativelybecoming the demand for universality, carried away to vertigo by the movement thatcomposes it, the ipse being that presents itself as a universal is only a challenge to thediffuse immensity that escapes its precarious violence, the tragic negation of all thatis not its own bewildered phantom's chance. But, as a man, this being falls into themeanders of the knowledge of his fellowmen, which absorbs his substance in order toreduce it to a component of what goes beyond the virulent madness of his autonomyin the total night of the world" (BataiUe, 1985, p. 174.)

The point is not that Bataille himself was without any sort of system, but simply thatthe systemis sliding-holQns within holons forever. So the claim to simply have "nosystem" is a little disingenuous. Which is why Andre Breton, the leader of thesurrealists at the time, began a counter-attackon this part ofBataiUe, also in terms thatare echoed by today' s critics of'postmodemists: "M. Bataille 's misfortune is to reason:admittedly, he reasons like someone who 'has a fly on his nose,' which allies him moreclosely with the dead than with the living, but he doesreason.He is trying, with thehelpof the tiny mechanism in him which is not completely out of order, to share hisobsessions: this very fact proves that he cannot claim, no matter what he may say, tobe opposed to any system, like an unthinking brute" (Bataille, 1985, p, xi).

Both sides are correct, in a sense. There is system, but the system is sliding. It isunendingly, dizzifyingly, holonic. This is why Jonathan Culler, perhaps the foremostinterpreter of Jacques Derrida's deconstruction, can point out that Derrida does notdeny truth per se, but only insists that truth and meaning are context-bound(each

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context being a whole that is also part of another whole context, which itself ... )."One couldtherefore," says Culler, "identifydeconstructionwith the twin principlesof the contextualdeterminationof meaningand the irifiniteextendabilttyof contextJJ

(Culler, 1982,p. 216, my italics).

Turtlesall thewayup, all theway down.Whatdeconstructionputs intoquestionis thedesire to find a final resting place, in either wholeness or partness or anything inbetween.Every time somebody findsa final interpretation or a foundational interpre­tationof a text or artwork(or life or history or cosmos),deconstructionis on hand tosay that the final context does not exist, because it is also unendinglya part of yetanothercontextforever.As Cullerputs it, any sort of final contextis "unmasterable,both inprincipleand in practice.Meaningis contextbound,but contextis boundless"(Culler, 1982,p, 123,my italics).

Even Jfugen Habermas,who generallytakes Breton's positionto Derrida's Bataille,agrees with that particularpoint. As Habermasputs it, "These variationsof contextthat change meaningcannot in principlebe arrested or controlled,because contextscannot be exhausted,that is, they cannot be theoreticallymasteredonce and for all"(Habermas, 1990, p, ] 97).

That the systemis slidingdoes not mean that meaningcan't be established,that truthdoesn't exist, or that contextswon't hold still long enough to make a simple point.Many postmodempoststructuralistshave not simplydiscoveredholonic space, theyhave become thoroughlylost in it. GeorgeBataille,for example,took a good, long,hard look at holonicspaceand unfortunatelywent insane,thoughwhichis cause,andwhich effect, is hard to say.

As for our main topic, we need only note that there is indeedsystem,but the systemis sliding: The universe is composed of holons-s-conrextswithin contexts withincontexts-c-allthe way up, all the way down.

MEANING IS CONTEXT-DEPENDENT

The word "bark" means somethingvery differentin the phrases "the bark of a dog"and "the bark of a tree." Which is exactly why all meaning is context-bound;theidentical word has different meanings depending upon the context in which it isfound.

This context-dependencyseemsto pervadeeveryaspectof theuniverseand our livesin it. Take, for example, a single thought, say the thought of going to the grocerystore. When I have that thought, what I actuallyexperienceis the thought itself, theinterior thoughtand its meaning-the symbols,the images, the idea of going to thegrocery store.

Now the internalthoughtonly makes sense in terms of my culturalbackground.If Ispokea differentlanguage,the thoughtwouldbe composedof differentsymbolsandhave quite differentmeanings.If I existed in a primal tribal societya million years

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ago, I would never even have the thought "going to the grocery store:' It might be,"Time to kill the bear." The point is that my thoughts themselves arise in a culturalbackgroundthat gives texture and meaning and context to my individual thoughts,and indeed, I would not even be able to "talk to myself' if I did not exist in acommunity of individuals who also talk to me.

So the cultural community serves as an intrinsic backgroundand context to anyindividual thoughts I might have. My thoughts do not just pop into my head out ofnowhere; they pop into my head out of a cultural background, and however much Imight move beyond this background, 1 can never simply escape it altogether, and Icould never have developed thoughts in the first place without it. The occasionalcases of a "wolfboy"-humans raised in the wild-show that the human brain, leftwithout culture, does not produce linguistic thoughts on its own.

In short, my individual thoughts only exist against a vast background of culturalpractices and languages and meanings and contexts, without which I could formvirtually no individual thoughts at all. But my culture itself is not simply disembod­ied, hanging in idealistic mid-air. It has material components,much as my ownindividual thoughts have material brain components. All culturalevents have socialcorrelates. These concrete social components include types of technology, forces ofproduction (horticultural, agrarian, industrial, etc.), concrete institutions, writtencodes and patterns, geopolitical locations, and so on. And these concrete materialcomponents-the actual socialsystem-are crucial in helping to determine the typesof cultural worldview, within which my own thoughts will arise.

So my supposedly "individual thought" is actually a holon that has all these variousaspectsto it-intentional, behavioral, cultural, and social. And around the holoniccircle we go: the social system will have a strong influence on the cultural worldview,which will set limits to the individual thoughts that I can have, which will register inthe brain physiology. And we can go around that circle in any direction. They are allinterwoven. They are all mutually determining. They all cause, and are caused by, theother holons, in concentric spheres of contexts within contexts indefinitely.

And this fact bears directly on the nature and meaning of art itself.

WHAT IS ART?

The simplest and perhaps earliest view of the nature and meaning ofart (and thus ofits interpretation as well) is that art is imitativeor representational:it copies some­thing in the real world. The painting of a landscape copies or represents the reallandscape. Plato takes this view of art in the Republic,where he uses the example ofa bed: the painting of a bed is a copy ofa concrete bed (which is itself a copy of theIdeal Form of a bed). Notoriously, for Plato, this puts art in a rather bad position: it ismaking copies of copies of the Ideal, and is thus doubly removed and doubly inferior.Later theorists would "upgrade" this Platonic conception by maintaining that the trueartist is actually copying the Ideal Forms directly, seen with the mind's eye, and thusis performing a "perfectionist" artistry-as Michelangelo said, "The beauty whichstirs and carries up to heaven every sound intellect."

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Aristotle likewise takes the view of art as imitative or copying the real world, and inone form or another this notion of art as mimesis has had a long and profoundinfluence: the meaning of art is that which it represents.

The grave difficulty with this view, taken in and by itself, is that it unmistakablyimplies that the better the imitation, the better the art, so that a perfect copy would beperfect art, which lands art squarely in the province of trompel'oeil and documentaryphotography: a good likeness on a driver's license photo would be good art. More­over, not all art is representative or imitative: surrealist, minimalist, expressionist,conceptual, and so forth. So while some art has representative aspects, mimesis alonecan account for neither the nature nor the value of art.

With the rise of the Enlightenment in Europe, two other major theories of the natureand meaning of art gained prominence, and they are both still quite influential today.Not surprisingly, these theories would spring respectively from the great rational andgreat romantic currents that were set in motion in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies, and which, translated into the artistic domain, came to be known generallyas formalist and expressivist (rational and romantic).

And at this point, the question became, 110tso much whatis art,but whereis art?

ART IS IN THE MAKER

Ifthe nature, meaning, and value of art are not simply due to art's imitative capacity,perhaps the essence of art lies in its power to expresssomething, and not simply tocopy something. And indeed, in both the theory and practice of art, emphasis oftenbegan to tum from a faithful copying and representing and imitating-whether ofreligious icons or of a realistic nature-to an increasingly expressionistic stance,under the broad influence of the general currents of Romanticism. This view of artand its value was given strong and quite influential voice by theorists such asBenedetto Croce (Aesthetics), R.O. Collingwood (Principles of Art), and Leo Tolstoy(What is Art?).

The basic conclusion of these Romantic theorists: art is, first and foremost, theexpression of the feelings or intentions of the artist. It is not simply the imitation of anexternal reality, but the expression of an internal reality. We therefore can bestinterpret art by trying to understand the original intention of the maker of the artworkitself (whether painter, writer, composer).

Thus, for Tolstoy, art is the "contagion of feeling." That is, the artist expresses feelingin the artwork which then evokes that feeling in us, the viewers; and the quality of theart is best interpreted by the quality of the feelings it expresses and "infects" us with.For Croce-arguably the most influential aesthetician of the 1900s-art is theexpression of emotion, itself a very real and primal type of knowledge, often cosmicin its power, especially when expressed and evoked by great works of art. AndCollingwood made the original intention of the artist so utterly primary, that theinward, psychological vision of the artist was itself said to be the actual art, whetheror not that vision ever got translated into public forms.

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This view of art as the expression of an original intention or feeling or vision in theartist gave rise to what is still perhaps the most widespread school of the interpreta­tion of art. Modern "henneneutics"-the art and science of interpretation-beganwith certain Romantically-inspired philosophical trends, notably in Schleiermacherand then Wilhelm Dilthey, and continuing down to this day in such influentialtheorists as Emilio Betti and E.D. Hirsch. This approach, one of the oldest and insome ways the most central school of hermeneutics, maintains that the key to thecorrect interpretation of a text-i-considering "text" in the very broadest sense, as anysymbol requiring interpretation, whether artistic, linguistic, poetic-the key to cor­rect interpretation is the recovery of the maker's original intension,a psychologicalreconstructionof the author's (or artist's) intentions in the original historical setting.

In short, for these approaches, since the meaning of art is the maker's originalintention, a valid interpretation involves the psychological reconstruction and recov­ery of this original intention. The hermeneutic gap between the artist and viewer isclosed to the extent there is a "seeing eye to eye" with the artist's original meaning,and this occurs through the procedures of valid interpretation based on originalrecovery and reconstruction.

It is no accident that the theoryof art as expression was historically paralleled by thebroad trends of expressionism in the practice of art itself. The nineteenth-centuryexpressionists and Post Impressionists, including Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin,and Edvard Munch, directly opposed the Realist and Impressionist imitation of nature(van Gogh: "Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I have before my eyes, I usecolor more arbitrarily so as to express myself more forcibly"); from there to theCubists and Fauves (Matisse: "What I am after above all is expression"); toKandinsky and Klee and the abstract expressionism of Pollock, Kline, and deKooning. In its various manifestations, expressionism was not just a stylistic oridealizing alteration of external representation, but an almost complete and totalbreak with the tradition of imitation.

No sooner was this theory (and practice) of art as expression put forth, than anotheroffshoot of the broad Romantic movement-psychoanalysis--pointed out that manyhuman intentionsare in fact unconscious.And further, these intentions, even thoughunconscious, nonetheless can make their way in disguised forms into everyday life,perhaps as neurotic symptoms, or as symbolic dreams, or as slips of the tongue, or, ingeneral, as compromise formations expressing the conflict between a forbiddendesire and a censoring or repressing force. The psychoanalyst, trained to spot thesymbolic expression of these hidden desires, could thus interpretthese symbols andsymptoms to the individual, who in turn would thus gain, it was duly hoped, some sortof understanding and amelioration of his or her distressing condition.

In the sphere of art and literature, this inevitably meant that the original maker (artist,writer, poet) would, like everybody else, have various unconscious intentions, andthese intentions, in disguised forms, would leave traces in the artwork itself Itfollowed then with mathematical precision: 1) if the meaning of art is the originalintention expressed in the work; and 2) if the correct interpretation of art is thereforethe reconstruction of this intention; but 3) if some intentions are unconscious andleave only symbolic traces in the artwork, then 4) an important part of the correct

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interpretationof an artworkis the unearthingand interpretingof these unconsciousdrives, intentions,desires,wishes. The art critic, to be a true critic, must also be apsychoanalyst.

ART IS IN THE HIDDEN INTENT: SYMPTOMATIC THEORIES

This soon opened a Pandora's box of "unconscious intentions." If the artworkexpressed the unconsciousFreudian desires of the artist, why limit it to Freudianthemes?There are, after all, severaldifferenttypes of unconsciousstructuresin thehumanbeing,the list of which soonexploded.Theartist existsin a settingof techno­economicstructures,the Marxistspointedout, and a particularartworkwill inexora­bly reflect the "base" of economicrealities,and thus the correct interpretationof atext or work of art involves highlightingthe class structures in which the art isproduced.Feministssoon caughtthe fever, and aggressivelytried to suggestthat thefundamental and hidden structures were primarily those of gender, so that evenMarxistswere drivenby the unconsciousor thinlydisguisedintentionsof patriarchalpower. Womanists (feminists of color) very rapidly outflanked the mainstreamfeminists with a criticism whose opening line was, in effect, "We can't blameeverything on the patriarchy, white girl, ... " And so the list would go: racism,sexism, elitism, speciesism,anthropocentrism,androcentrism,imperialism,ecole­gism, logocentrism,phallocentrism.

All of those theories might best be called Symptomatic Theories: they view aparticular artwork as symptomaticof larger currents, currents the artist is oftenunaware of-sexual, economic,cultural, ideological.They generallygrant that themeaningof art is the expressionof an originalfeeling,intention,orvisionof theartist.But they immediately add that the artist might have, or exist in, structures ofunconsciousintention,and these unconsciousstructures,generallynot availabletothe awarenessof the artists themselves,would nonethelessleave symbolictraces intheir works of art, and these traces could be spotted, decoded, deciphered, andinterpretedby the knowingcritic.A valid interpretationis thus one that decodesandexposesthe hidden intentions,whetherindividualor culturaL

ART IS IN THE ARTWORK

Whiletheremay be muchtruthto eachof thosepositions-and we will shortlyreturnfor an assessment-nonetheless, few critics would concede that intentions alone,consciousor unconscious,definethe natureand value of art.

In part as a reaction to these originally Romanticand expressivistversions of art,there arose variousmore "fortnal" interpretationsof art and literature;and this, as Isuggested,was in largemeasurea legacyof the more rational side of the Enlighten~

ment agenda.

This Enlightenmen tradionalism had severalprofound influenceson art theory andpractice.The generalatmosphere of Enlightenment scientific realismsoontranslatedalmostdirectlyto the realist trends in literatureand painting(Zola,Balzac,Flaubert,

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Courbet), and from there to the Impressionists, who repudiated so much of theRomantic-expressionist trends and sought instead to capture "immediate visualimpressions" rendered intensely and impersonally, the emotions of the artist beingquite secondary at best (Monet, Renoir, Manet, Pissarro, Degas), as well as theobjectiverendering of contemporary and actual experience, sometimes verging onthe documentary, and always in sympathy with a realist attitude.

But Enlightenment rationalism also entered art theory and practice in a rather strictand drysense, namely, in the view that the nature and value of art is to be found in theform of the artwork itself. Much of this formalism had its modem origin in Kant'simmensely influential Critique of Judgment, but it would soon be powerfully ex­pressed in music theory by Eduard Hanslickand in the visual arts by Roger Fry andClive Bell. Formalism would likewise find its way into literary theory, most signifi­cantly with the Russian formalists (Jakobsen, Propp); the American New Critics(Wimsatt and Beardsley); the French structuralists (Levi-Strauss, Barthes), neo­structuralists (early Foucault), and post-structuralists (Derrida, Paul de Man, Hart­man, Lyotard),

For formalism in general, the meaningof a text or an artwork is found in the formalrelationships between elements of the work itself. A valid interpretation of the work,therefore, involves the elucidation of these formal structures. In many cases, this was(and is) coupled with an aggressive denial of the importance or significance of themaker's original intention. Indeed, the artist or the author or subject was pronounced"dead"-totally irrelevant to the work-as in Barthes's famous "death of the author"("amputate the art from the artist"). Language itself replaced the author as theproducer of the text, and structural analysis (in its original, neo-, or post- forms)became the only sure method of artistic interpretation. The "death of the subject"meant as well the death of the subject's original intention as a source of validinterpretation, and "What comes after the subject?" became the new rallying call.

In the rather influential American New Criticism, this view was expressed most.forcefully by Monroe Beardsley and William Wimsatt, Jr. In their now famous essay,"The Intentional Fallacy," they conclude bluntly that the maker's intentionis "neitheravailable nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work" of art(Wimsatt & Beardsley, 1966). It was to the artwork itself that the interpreter and criticmust essentially look. After all, they maintained, how can you know the intent of theartwork if it is not expressed in the art itself? Where else could you possibly look?Intentions that don't make it into the artwork might be interesting, but they are not, bydefinition, part of the artwork. And thus interpretation should center first andforemost on elements intrinsic to the artwork considered as a whole in itself.

Similar formalist theories of art were put forth in music by Hanslick (TheBeautifu!inMusic), who maintained that the meaning of music was in its internal forms (melody,rhythm, harmony); and in the visual arts by Roger Fry (VisionandDesign) and CliveBell (Art), who both maintained that the nature and meaning of art was to be found inits "significant form" (Cezanne, for both of them, being the great exemplar).

In all of these versions of formalism, the locus and meaning of art is not in theintention of the artist, nor does it Hein what the artwork might represent,nor what it

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might express. Rather, the nature and meaning of art lies in the formal or structuralrelationshipof the elementsmanifested in the artwork itself. And thus validinterpre­tation consists primarily in the elucidating of these forms and structures.

ART IS IN THE VIEWER

As the modem world of the Enlightenmentand its Romanticrebelliongave way to thepostmodernworld, yet another extremely influential trend in art and literary criticismemerged.Just asformalist theories killed the artist and centeredsolelyon the artwork,this new trend furtherkilled the artworkitself and centeredsolelyon ... the viewer ofthe art.

For thesevarious theories of "reception and response," the meaning of art is not foundin the author's original intention,nor is it found in any specificfeaturesof the artworkitself. Rather, these theories maintain, since the only way we actually get to know aworkof art is by viewing it (looking, listening,reading), then the primary locus of themeaning of the artwork can only be found in the responses of the viewers themselves.

Thus, according to this view, the nature and meaning of art is to be found in thehistory of the reception and response to the artwork; and likewise, a validinterpreta­tion of the artwork consists in an analysis of these responses (or the cumulativehistory of these responses). As Passmore summarizes it, "The proper point ofreference in discussing works of art is an interpretation it sets going in an audience;that interpretation-s-orthe class of such interpretations-is the work of art, whateverthe artist had in mind in creating it. Indeed, the interpreter, not the artist, creates thework" (Passmore, 1991,p. 34).

These theories trace much of their lineage to the work of Martin Heidegger, whosehermeneutic philosophybroke with the traditionalconceptionof truth as an unchang­ing and objectiveset of'facts, and replaced it with the notion of the historicityof truth:human beings do not have an unchanging natureso much as a changing history,andthus what we call "truth" is, in important ways, historically situated. Moreover, wecome to understand the historicity of truth not so much through scientificempiricismbut rather through interpretation(through "hermeneutics"),just as, if you and I wantto understandeach other, we must interpretwhat we are saying to each other ("Whatdo you mean by that? Oh, I see"). Interpretationlies at the very heart of the historicityof truth.

Heidegger's hermeneutic philosophy has had an immense influence on art andliterary theory, principally through two major students of his work: Hans-GeorgGadamer and Jacques Derrida. We briefly mentioned Derrida in connection withstructuralist and post-structuralist theories, which locate the meaning of a text inchains of formal signifiers (and according to "post-structuralism," the chains ofsignifiers are endlessly "sliding"), Gadamer's influence has been equally wide­spread; he is now arguably the foremost theoretician of aesthetics.

For Gadamer, even a "purely" aesthetic event, such as looking at an abstract painting,is not merely a simple sensory occasion. The moment we start to ask what the

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painting means, or how it affects us, or what it might be saying-the moment themute stare gives way to meaning-then we are inexorably stepping out of the "merelysensory" and into language and history. We are stepping into the linguistic world,which itself can only be understood by interpretation:What does that mean?And allmeaning exists in history; that is, all meaning is marked by historicity. What apainting means to us, today, win be different from what that painting means to, say,people a thousand years from now (if it means anything at all). In other words, forthese theorists, we cannot isolate meaning from the ongoing sweep of history.

The work of art, accordingly, exists in this historical stream, which brings forth newreceptions, elicits new responses, gives new interpretations, unfolds new meanings asit flows. And, according to this view, the artwork is, so to speak, the sum total of itsparticular historical stream. The artwork is not something that existsby itself, outsideof history, isolated and self-regarding, existing only because it looks at itself; rather,the only way we know the artwork is by viewing and interpreting it, and it is thoseinterpretations, grounded in history, that constitute the overall art.

AND SO WHERE, EXACTLV, IS ART?

We have seen that the major theories of art disagree sharply on the nature, locus, andmeaning of art. Intentional theories locate art in the original intent or feeling orvision of the maker. Formalist theories locate the meaning of art in the relationshipsamong elements of the artwork itself. Reception and response theories place thenature and meaning of art in the viewer. And symptomatic theories place the locus ofart in larger currents operating in a mostly unconscious fashion in the artist andviewer alike.

In fact, the whole of art theory can be seen as a spirited attempt to decide exactly whatthe locus of art is, and therefore where we can find or locate the meaning of anartwork-and thus, finally, how we can develop valid interpretationsof that art. Inshort: What and where is art?

And I am saying, the nature and meaning of art is thoroughly holonic. Like everyother entity in the universe, art is holonic in its nature, its locus, its structure, itsmeaning, and its interpretation. Any specific artwork is a holon, which means that itis a whole that is simultaneously a part of numerous other wholes. The artwork existsin contexts within contexts within contexts, endlessly.

Further-and this is the crucial point--each context will confer a different meaningon the artwork,precisely because, as we have seen, all meaning is context-bound:change the context, you elicit a different meaning.

Thus, all of the theories that we have discussed-representational, intentional, for­mahst, reception and response,symptomatic-all of those theories are basicallycorrect; they are all true; they are all pointing to a specific context in which theartwork subsists, and without which the artwork could not exist, contexts thattherefore are genuinely constitutiveof the art itself-that is, part of the very being ofthe art.

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And the only reason those theories disagree with each other is that each of them istrying to make its own context the only real or important context: paradigmatic,primal, central, privileged. Each theory is trying to make its context the only contextworth serious consideration.

But the holonic nature of reality-contexts within contexts forever-means that eachof these theories is part of a nested series of truths. Each is true when highlighting itsown context, but false when it tries to deny reality or significance to other existingcontexts. And a comprehensive art and literary theory-covering the nature, mean­ing, and interpretation of art-will of necessity be a holonic theory: concentric circlesof nested truths and interpretations.

The study of holons is the study of nested truths. And now we can see exactly howpostmodernist deconstructionists took a wrong tum at holons and got hopelessly,helplessly lost. They looked clearly at holonic space and then, rather like Bataille,went properly insane: reality consists not of nested truths but of nested lies, decep­tions within deceptions forever, precisely the features of a psychotic break. Theyhave it exactly backwards, the photographic negative of a reality they no longer trust.And once having stepped through that inverting mirror and into Alice's Wonderland,nothing is ever what it seems, which leaves only the ego to impose its will, andnothing real to resist it-leaves the nausea of nihilism and narcissism to define aworld that no longer cares.

Not nested lies, but nested truths. A comprehensive art and literary theory will ofnecessity be concentric circles of enveloping truths and interpretations. We can nowvery briefly follow the story of art from its original impulse forward, honoring andincluding each of the truths in this development that is envelopment, as each wholebecomes part of another whole, endlessly, miraculously, inevitably.

THE PRIMAL ART HOLON

Without in any way ignoring the other numerous contexts that will determine theartwork, in many important ways we can date its beginning with an event in the mindand being of the artist: an interior perception, feeling, impulse, concept, idea, orvision. From exactly where, nobody knows, the creative impulse bubbles up. Manycontexts no doubt precede it; many more will follow. But let us start the story here,with the primal artistic perception or impulse, and let us call that the primal halon ofart.

This primal halon may in fact represent something in the external world (the basis ofimitative or representational theories). But it might also express an interior state,whether a feeling (expressionism) or an idea (conceptualism). Around that primalholon, like the layers of a pearl growing around an original grain of sand, will developcontexts within contexts of subsequent holons, as the primal holon inexorably entersthe historical stream that will govern so much of its subsequent fate.

The primal artistic holon itself, even when it first bubbles up in the consciousness ofthe artist, nonetheless instantly arrives into numerous contexts that already exist,

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THE SPECTRUM ON CONSCIOUSNESS

I will return to these larger symptomatictheories in a moment.Let me first point outthat, even in the "individual psyche," research has unearthed, in addition to theFreudianunconscious,several important levelsof usually unconsciouscontexts. Inparticular, the schools of existential-humanisticand transpersonalpsychology-theso-called"third" and "fourth" forces of psychology(in addition to behaviorismandpsychoanalysis~have discovered and confirmednumerous "realms of the humanunconscious,"realms that are in many cases the very key to understandingconsciouslife.

The human being, like all entities in existence, is a holon, a compoundindividual,composed of physical, emotional,mental, existential,and spiritual or transpersonaldimensions.And all of those structuresserve as backgroundcontextsthroughwhichour surface consciousnessmoves. And just as an unconscious"Freudian" structurecan color and shapeour consciousintentions,so any of these deeper realmscan ridehidden in the Trojanhorse of our everydayawareness.

We neednot go into all the detailedevidence;for our simplerpurposesit is enoughtonote that, accordingto transpersonalpsychologicaltheory, there is in fact a spectrum0/consciousness,reachingfrom the isolated and individualego, at one end, to statesof "unity consciousness"and "spiritualunion" at the other.This overall spectrumofconsciousness consists of at least a dozen levels of awareness, each with a veryrecognizablestructure(includinginstinctual,Freudian,linguistic,cognitive,existen­tial, and spiritual levels).

And the essential point is that any or all of these dimensions can contribute­consciouslyor unconsciously-to theartist's overallintentionwhicheventuallyfindsexpressionin the artwork.And thus a familiaritywith the spectrumof consciousnesswould give the discerningcritic a palette of interpretationsquite beyond the morelimitedFreudian array,by elucidatingdeeper and wider contextsof awareness.

Thus, part of a comprehensiveor holonic theory of art interpretationand literarycriticismwould includeall of thesevariousrealms of the humanunconsciousas theymanifest in the intention of the primal holon and its subsequentpublic display (theartwork and its reception). Human intentionality is indeed "onion-like": holonswithin holons of intentionality-an extraordinaryspectrumof consciousness.

The various schools of intentionality--covering the entire spectrum of conscious­ness-are most definitely on the trail of a very important aspect of the nature andmeaning of art. But again, these theories-whether focusingon consciousor uncon­sciousrealms-are still, by their very nature,partialandlimited.They tend to ignorethe technical and formal featuresof the artwork itself, and thus cannot account for,say, the importanceof the structureof musicalharmonyandmelody,or plot structureand function in a narrative, or the technical applicationsof types of paint, or thestructuralconditionsfor variousartworks,and so forth.

For all these reasons and more, many theorists began to look more closely at theactual structure and function of the artwork itself, divorced from either maker or

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viewer. For the fact is. when the artist attemptsto express the primal holon in anactual work of art. that primalholon runs smackinto the materialconditionsof itsmedium:therockof a sculpture.the actualpaint andcanvasof a painting,thevariousinstrumentsand their players in a musical composition,the actual grammar andsyntaxof a narrative:the primalhalon is instantlyclothedin a mediumthat has itsown structure, follows its own rules, imposes its own limits, announcesits ownnature.The primalholonis now a part of anotherwhole,the overallartworkitself.

THE ARTWORK HOLON

Art theorieshave historically gone back and forth in a wave of actionand reactionbetweentwo extremes:tryingto determinethe artist's originalmeaning,or, tiringofthat seeminglyendless task,Looking elsewhere for a way to interpret the meaningofart. The mostcommonis to focuson the artworkitself,that is, on thepublic piece ofartwork (the painting, the book, the performedplay, the musical),which we willsimplycan the artwork holon.

The greatstrength-and greatweakness-of this approach is that it intensely focuseson only one context: the public artwork as it is immediately perceived.Allothercontexts are bracketedor basically ignored: the maker's intentions (consciousorunconscious),the historical set and setting, the originalaudience expectations,thehistory of reception and response-all arebracketed, removed from the story,thrownout of courtwhen it comesto judgingthe successor failureof the artwork.

These theorists havetheir reasons for these exclusions. How are we to know,theyask,what the artist's original intentions for the artwork are, except to lookat the artworkitself?If the artist had intentions thatdidn't makeintotheartwork,wellthen,theartisthas simplyfailedin that regard;intentions that didn't makeit intothe artwork are,bydefinition,not part of that artwork, so they can and shouldbe ignored (to assumeotherwiseis the"intentional fallacy").And whyshould weeven askthe artist what heor she really meant?Just as you and I are not alwaysthe best interpretersof our ownactions(as our friendswill attest), so artists are not always the best interpretersoftheir own works.Thus, in all cases,we must simply look to the artworkitself, andjudge it on its own terms,as a wholeunto itself:the artworkholon.

Andthat is whatall artwork theoriesdo. They judge the art as an intrinsic whole,andthemeaningof the artwork is to be foundin the relationships among the elements orfeatures of the work itself(Le., the relationsamongthe "sub-holons"constituting theartwork).We already lookedbriefly at many variationson this theme: formalism,structuralism,neo-structuralism ,post-structuralism, New Criticism-applied to mu­sic,visualarts,poetics, linguistics, and literary theory.

However limited, the merits of this approachare nonethelessobvious. There areindeedfeaturesof artworksthat stand, relatively,on their own. True,the artworkisactuallya wholethat isalso a partof otherwholes.But the"wholeness"aspectofanyholon can indeed be focused on; the wholenessaspect is very real, very genuine.Variousformalist and structuralist - theories have rightlygaineda permanent footholdin the repertoireof legitimate interpretive toolspreciselyby focusingon the whole-

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ness aspectof any holon. Doing so, suchtheoristshave offereda list of qualitiesthatmanyfmdvaluablein the artwork:criteriasuchas coherence,completeness,harmonyof elementswithin the whole;but also uniqueness,complexity,ambiguity,intensity.

All of whichtell us somethinginterestingabout the artworkholon itself; none are tobe excluded.Still,we cannotin the last analysisforgetthat everywhole is alsoa part;it exists in contextswithincontextswithincontexts,each of which will confera newand different meaning on the original whole, a meaning that is not obvious, andcannot be found,by lookingat the individualholon itself.

Imagine, for example,you are watchinga game of cards, perhaps poker. All of thecards are being used accordingto rules, but the interestingfact is that none of theserules are written Oll the cards themselves-none of the rules can be found on thecards. Each card is actually set in a larger context which governs its behavior andmeaning, and thus only by taking a larger perspective can the actual rules andmeaningsof the card in that game be discoveredand correctlyinterpreted.Focusingmerely on the card itself will miss the rules and meaningsit is obeying.

Just so, the very content of an artworkitselfwill be determinedin part by the variouscontexts in which the primal holon arises and in which the artwork holon exists.Here's a quick example,which pinpointsthe inadequacyof focusingon the artworkholon alone:

A PAIR OF WORN SHOES

Inhis essay entitled"The Originof the Work of Art," Heidegger interprets a paintingof a pair of shoes by van Gogh in order to suggest that art can disclose truth. Andhowever much we might agreewith that general conclusion, Heidegger'spath, in thisparticular case, is a prime example of what can go so horriblywrong when holoniccontextsare ignored.

The painting to which Heidegger refers is simply of a pair of rather worn shoes,facingforward, laces undone, and that is pretty much all; there are no other discern­ible objectsor items.Heideggerassumesthey area pair of peasant shoes,andhe tellsus that he can, with reference to the painting alone, penetrate to the essence of itsmessage:

There is nothingsurrounding this pair of peasantshoesin or to whichthey might belong,only an undefinedspace.There are not even clods from the soil of the field or the paththroughit sticking to them,which might at least hint at theiremployment. A pair ofpeasantshoesandnothingmore.Andyet.

And yet, Heideggerwill reach deeply into the form of the artwork,all by itself, andrender the essenceof its meaning:

From thedark openingof the worn insidesof the shoesthe toilsometread of the workerstandsforth.In the stifflysolidheavinessof the shoesthereis the accumulated tenacity ofher slowtrudge through the far-spreading andever-uniform furrows of the field,swept by a

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raw wind. On the leatherthere lies the dampnessand saturationof the soil.Under the solesthere slides the loneliness of the field-path as the evening declines. In the shoes therevibratesthe silent call of the earth, its quiet gift of the ripeningcorn and its enigmaticself­refusal in the fallowdesolationof the wintry field. This equipmentis pervadedby uncom­plaining anxiety about the certainty of bread, the wordless joy of having once morewithstood want, the tremblingbefore the advent of birth and shiveringat the surroundingmenaceof death.This equipmentbelongsto the earthand it is protectedin the worldof thepeasant woman. From out of this protected belonging the equipment itself rises to itsresting-in-self{Schapiro,1994,pp. 135-136).

That is a beautiful interpretation,beautifullyexpressed, lodging itself carefully in thedetails of the painting, which makes it all the sadder that virtually every statement init is wildly inaccurate.

To begin with, these are van Gogh's shoes, not some peasant woman's, He was bythen a town and city dweller,not a toiler in the fields; under its soles there are no comfields, no slow trudging through uniformfurrows, no dampness of the soil and noloneliness of the field-path.Not an ounce,nary a trace, ofenigmaticself-refusalin thefallow of the desolation ofthe wintry field can be found."Van Gogh's painting is thedisclosure of what the equipment, the pair of peasant shoes, is in truth," exclaimsHeidegger,

Perhaps, but Heideggerhas not come near that truth at all. Instead-e-andwhile not inany way ignoring the relevant features of the artwork halon itself-e-we must gooutside the artwork, into larger contexts, to determine more of its meaning.

Let us go first to the maker's intent, as vanGoghhimself describedit, orrather, talkedgenerally about the circumstances leading up to the painting. Paul Gauguin shared aroomwithvan Goghin Aries,in 1888,andhe noticedthatVincentkept a pair ofbadlyworn shoes which seemedto have a very importantmeaning for him. Gauguinbeginsthe story:

In the studiowas a pair ofbig hob-nailedshoes,all wornand spottedwithmud; he madeofit a remarkablestill lifepainting. I do not knowwhy I sensedthat there was a story behindthis old relic, and I venturedone day to ask him if be had somereason for preservingwithrespectwhat one ordinarilythrows out for the rag-picker's basket (Schapiro,1994).1

And so Vincent begins to recount the tale of these worn-out shoes. "My father," hesaid, "was a pastor, and at his urging I pursued theological studies in order to preparefor my future vocation. As a young pastor I left for Belgium one fine morning,without telling my family, to preach the gospel in the factories, not as I had beentaught but as I understood it myself. These shoes, as you sec, have bravely enduredthe fatigue of that trip."

But why exactly were these shoes so important to Vincent? Why had he carried themwith himfor so long, beaten and worn as they were? It turns out, Gauguin continues,that "Preaching to the miners in the Borinage, Vincent undertookto nurse a victim ofa fire in the mine. The man was so badly burned and mutilated that the doctor had nohope for his recovery. Only a miracle, he thought, could save him. Van Gogh tendedhim forty days with loving care and saved the miner's life."

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It must have been an extraordinary forty days, deeply etched on van Gogh's soul. Aman so badly burned, so horribly in pain, that the doctor had abandoned him to certainand gruesome death. For more than a month, Vincent at his side. And then a visioncame upon Vincent, a vision that he disclosed to his friend Gauguin, a vision thatexplains why this incident was so important to him.

Gauguin begins at the beginning: "When we were together in Aries, both of us mad,in continual struggle for beautiful colors, I adored red; where could one find a perfectvermilion? He, with his yellowish brush, traced on the wall which suddenly becameviolet:

I am whole in SpiritI am the Holy Spirit

"In my yellow room-a small still life: violet that one. Two enormous worn-outmisshapen shoes. They were Vincent's shoes. Those that he took one fine morning,when they were new, for his journey on foot from Holland to Belgium. The youngpreacher had just finished his theological studies in order to be a minister like hisfather. He had gone off to the mines to those whom he called his brothers ....

"Contrary to the teaching of his wise Dutch professors, Vincent had believed in aJesus who loved the poor; and his soul, deeply pervaded by charity, sought theconsoling words and sacrifice for the weak, and to combat the rich. Very decidedly,Vincent was already mad."

"Vincent was already mad"-Gauguin repeats this several times, thick with irony;that we all should be graced enough to touch such madness!

Gauguin then tells of the explosion in the mine: "Chrome yellow overflowed, aterrible fiery glow.... The creatures who crawled at that moment ... said 'adieu' tolife that day, goodbye to their fellow-men.... One of them horribly mutilated, hisface burnt, was picked up by Vincent. 'However; said the company doctor, 'the manis done for, unless by a miracle... .'

"Vincent," Gauguin continues, "believed in miracles, in maternal care. The madman(decidedly he was mad) sat up, keeping watch forty days, at the dying man's bedside.Stubbornly he kept the air from getting into his wounds and paid for the medicines. Acomforting priest (decidedly, he was mad). The patient talked. The mad effortbrought a dead Christian back to life."

The scars on the man's face-this man resurrected by a miracle of care-looked toVincent exactly like the scars from a crown of thorns. "I had," Vincent says, "in thepresence of this man who bore on his brow a series of scars, a vision of the crown ofthorns, a vision of the resurrected Christ."

At this point in telling Gauguin the story, Vincent picks up his brush and says,referring to the "resurrected Christ": "And I, Vincent, I painted him."

Gauguin finishes:"Tracing with his yellow brush, suddenlyturned violet, Vincent cried

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I am the Holy SpiritI am wholein Spirit

"Decidedly,this man was mad."

Psychoanalysis, no doubt,would havesometherapeutic interpretations forall of this.But psychoanalytic interpretations ,relatively true as they mightbe, do not in them­selves touch anydeeper "realms of the human unconscious,"suchas theexistential orthe spiritual and transpersonal.And thus, as I earlier pointed out, if we look totranspersonal psychology for a finerand more comprehensive account of the deeperdimensionsof human awareness,we find a compellingamount of evidence thathumanbeingshave accessto higheror deeperstatesof consciousness quitebeyondthe ordinary egoic modes-a spectrum of consciousness.

And at the upper reachesof the spectrumof consciousness-in the higher statesofconsciousness-individuals consistentlyreport an awarenessof being one with theall, or identicalwith spirit,or wholein spirit,and so on. The attemptof morelimitedpsychologies,suchaspsychoanalysis , to merely pathologize all of these higher stateshas simply not held up to further scrutiny and evidence.Rather, the total web ofcrosscultural evidence strongly suggests that thesedeeperor higherstatesare poten­tials available to all of us, so that, as it were, "Christ consciousness"-spiritualawarenessand union-is availableto each and everyone of us.

A transpersonal psychologist would thus suggest that, whatever other interpretationswe wishto give to Vincent'svision,the overall evidence mostclearlysuggests that itwasvery probably a truevision of the radical potential in allofus.These higher statesandvisionsare sometimes intermixed withpersonal pathologies or neuroses,but thestatesthemselves arenot pathological in theiressence;quitethe contrary,researchersconsistently refer to them as extraordinarystates of well-being.Thus, Vincent'scentralvision itself most likelywas not pathological,not psychotic,not madnessatall-which is why Gauguinkeeps poking fun at those who would think that way:decidedly,he was mad.Whichmeans,decidedly,he was pluggedinto a realitythatwe shouldall be so fortunateto see.

Thus,whenVincentsaid he sawthe resurrected Christ,that is exactlywhathe meant,and that is very likelyexactlywhathe saw.And thus he carriedwithhim,as a dustybut dear reminder,the shoesin whichthis vision occurred.

And so, you see, an importantpart of the primal meaningof the painting of theseshoes-not the only meaning,but a primal meaning-is very simple: these are theshoesin whichVincentnursedJesus,the Jesus in all of us.

THE VIEWERHOLON

Whateverone might think of that interpretation,one thing is certainlyobvious:amerelyformalor artwork approaoh---Heidegger's, for example---would miss impor­tantmeaningsof van Gogh's painting.Manymodemswill stopshortof my transper­sonal interpretation-would it help if! pointed out that Gauguin finishe shis account

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with this?: "And Vincenttook up his palette again; silentlyhe worked.Besidehimwas a white canvas. J began his portrait. I too had the vision of a Jesus preachingkindnessand humility."

Are we modemstoo jaded for this? Ah, well, whetherwe acceptthis transpersonalaspectof the interpretation,we can easilyacceptthe rest of the account-s-the miningaccident,nursingthe man,andso on-as providingsomeverycrucialcontextswhichconfervariousaddedmeaningsto the artworkholonitself(sincemeaning,as always,is context-bound).

Thus,the various artwork approaches (whichare true butpartial)suffer by overlook­ing the primal holon(themaker's intentinall its levels and dimensions). But theyalsoattempt to ignorethe viewer's response.These theoriesconsequently cannotaccountat all for the role that interpretation itself plays in helpingto constitute the overallnatureof the art.

The artist did notparachuteto earth,antisepticand isolated and hermetically sealed.Both art and artist exist only in a streamof history,and thus the primalholon itselfnever arrives in a tabula rasa, a clear and blank slate fanned only by the artist'sisolatedintention.Rather,the primalholon itself is shaped,even as it is forming, bya cultural background. And this cultural background is historical through andthrough---it is itself unfoldingin history.

Thus,withoutin anyway denying anyof the other meanings of the artwork,from theprimal intentionof the makerto the formalelementsof the artworkitself,nonethe­lessthe fact remains:whenI viewtheartwork,it has meaning/or me.Eachandeverytime a viewer sees a work and attemptsto understandit, there is what Gadamersounerringly called a "fusion of horizons"-as I would also put it, a new holonemerges, which itself is a new contextand thus carriesnew meaning.

Obviously,the meaning of anartwork does not reside solely inmyparticular responseto it. Otherpeople mighthave different responses.But the general point is that themeaningof an artworkcannot be divorced fromthe overallimpact it has on viewers.And in a stronger version,"theviewer"simply meanstheentire cultural background,without which meaningwould not and could not exist in the first place. This greatintersubjective background,this cultural background, provides the oceanof contextsin which art, artist, and vieweralikenecessarily float.

Even when the artist is first startingto work on a piece, he has somebodyin mind;some sort of viewer looms in his awareness, however briefly or fleetingly; theintersubjectivebackgroundis alreadya context within which his subjective inten­tions arise. The viewer response is thus alreadyat work in shaping the art. Thecultural backgroundof interpretationsis already a part of the very makeup of theartwork.And as the artworkgoespublic, it will enter a streamof furtherhistoricalinterpretations,each of which will form yet another layer in that temporal andhistorical pearl. And each new, emerging, historical context will confer a newmeaningon the pearl, a new layer to the pearl whichwill in fact be an intrinsicpartof the pearl itself, a whole that becomespart of yet otherwholes and is changedinthe process itself.

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To give a crude example, think of the controversy today surrounding Columbus'svoyage of 1492. If, as an example, we pretend that his voyage is an artwork, then whatis the meaning of that art? Even a few decades ago, the meaning was something likethis: Columbus was a rather brave fellow who, against some very difficult odds, madea perilous voyage that discovered the Americas--the New World-and thus broughtculture and civilization to a fairly primitive and backward people.

Today, many people would give the meaning more like this: Columbus was a sexist,imperialist, lying, rather cowardly low-life, who went to the Americas on a voyage ofplunder and pillage, in the process of which he brought syphilis and other scourges tothe peace-loving peoples he everywhere met.

The meaning of the original artwork not only looks different, it is different, based onits subsequent history of reception and response. There is no way to avoid thishistoricity, this constitutive nature of interpretations. Subsequent contexts will confernew meaning on the art, because meaning is always and inevitably context-bound.And the viewer-response theories, in their various forms, focus on this history ofresponse as constitutive of the art.

Thus, these reception and response theories maintain, as one critic explains it, thatartistic meaning "is not a function of its genetic origin in an author's psyche [theprimal holon], nor of purely intrinsic relations between the printed marks on a page[formalist theories], but of its reception in a series of readings constituting its historyof influence, [which] stresses the temporality and historicity of understanding andinterpretation" (Hoy, 1978, p, 9).

The partial truths of viewer response arc surely part of any holonic theory of art andits interpretation. And yet, as with every other approach we have seen, the true butpartial notions of viewer response, when they pretend to be the whole story, becomenot only distorting but outright comical.

And it is the viewer-response theories, coupled with the symptomatic theories, thathave almost totally dominated the postmodem art scene-in theory and in practice­thus leading, as we earlier suggested, into increasingly narcissistic and nihilistic views.

Start with viewer response.

THE WONDER OF BEING ME

Art critics have always been in a slightly awkward situation: the unkind word is"parasitic." Flaubert's view was typical: "Criticism occupies the lowest place in theliterary hierarchy: as regards form, almost always; and as regards 'moral value'incontestably. It comes after rhyming games and acrostics which at least require acertain inventiveness" (Passmore, 1991, p. 27).

Couple this parasitism with another awkward fact: more than one social commentatorhas seen the baby boomer generation defined by a rampant narcissism, and if one itemmarks narcissism, it is a refusal to take a back seat to anybody.

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From whichit follows,art and literarytheory in the hands of the boomerswas goingto be a wild affair. As parasitic collided with grandiosity,somethingwould have togive. The critic needed desperatelyto get out of the back seat and into the driver'sseat.

The means for this glorious promotion were provided, as I suggested earlier, byviewer-responsetheories coupledwith symptomatic theories, togetherparading un­der the broad banner of post structural post modernism,If the nature and meaningofart lies solelyin the viewer-"the interpreter,not the artist,createsthe work"-and ifonly knowinginterpretationis valid, then voila:the critic alone creates all art.

And so it cameabout that the viewerresponse--that is to say, me-became the alphaandomegaof art,whichplacedthe critic-that is to say,me-in the verycenterof thecreativeact,not to mentionat the very heartof the artworld.Thus CatherineBelseyinher CriticalPractice:''No longerparasiticon an alreadygiven literarytext, criticismconstructs its object,producesthe work" (Passmore, 1991,p. 27).

Which,of course,comesas newsto mostartists.Thepartial truthsof viewerresponsebecame a platform from which the critic as sole creator gained (and still has)enormouscurrency.The embarrassingdilemma for this brand of postmodernismisthat it completely erases the artworkitself,andthus it endsup with a viewer-responsetheory that has nothingto actuallyrespond to.

If the artworkis not thereto respondto, youregoaloneremains.All of this hasplayedprecisely into the two trends, barely concealed, of extremist postmodemism­namely, nihilism and its hidden core of narcissism-as the more observant criticshave recently begun to note. David Couzens Hoy points out that "freeing criticismfrom its object"-that is, erasing the artwork by emphasizing viewer response­"may open it up to all the possibilitiesof rich imaginations;yet if. . . there is now notruth of the matter, then nothing keeps it from succumbing to the sickness of themodem imagination's obsessive self-consciousness."Criticismthus becomes "onlythe critic>s own ego-gratification."The culture of narcissism."Then a sheer strugglefor power ensues, and criticismbecomes not latent but blatant aggression,"part of"the emergentnihilism ef'recenr times" (Hoy, 1978,pp, 164-165).

These viewer-responsetheories, as I said, were particularlycoupledwith symptom­atic theories-the most influential being Marxist, feminist, racist, and imperialist(post-colonialstudies).The idea being, recall, that the meaningof art is found in thebackground social and economic contexts, contexts that are often masqueradesforpower and ideology, and contexts that therefore confer a specific meaning on artproduced in those contexts, meanings that the knowing critic can pull out by high­lighting and elucidatingthe particularbackgroundstructures.

All true enough; and all partial, lopsided, and distorted when taken in and bythemselves. These views have promoted the notion, given currency by Foucault'searlywork,that truth itself is culturallyrelativeandarbitrary,groundedin nothingbutshiftinghistoricaltastes, orpower andprejudiceand ideology.Sincetruth is context­dependent.the argumentgoes, then it is completelyrelativeto changingcontexts.Alltruth is therefore culturally constructed-thesocialconstruction of gender, the social

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construction of the body, the social construction of pretty much everything-andbecause all truth is culturally constructed, there are and can be no universal truths.

Unfortunately, that view itself is claiming to be universally true. It is making a seriesof strong claims that it insists are true for all cultures (the relative nature of truth, thecontextuality of claims, the social construction of all categories, and so on). This viewthus claims that there is no universal truth at all-except for its own, which isuniversal and superior in a world where nothing is supposed to be universal orsuperior at all. It' 8 not simply that this stance is hypocritical to the core, concealing itsown structures of power and domination; as an added bonus, the sheer narcissism ofthe stance once again rears its wonderful horrible head.

Butcontextualism, on which these symptomatic theories are all based, means neitherarbitrary nor relativistic. It means determined by contexts that constrain the mean­ing. In other words, "context" means "constraints," not chaos. These contexts areneither arbitrary, subjective, idiosyncratic, merely constructed, or radically relative,contrary to the abuse to which these theories have been subjected by extremepostmodemists.

Thus, even Foucault abandoned this "merely constructivist" approach to knowledge;he called it "arrogant." And even a foremost interpreter of Gadamer's very strongversion of the historicity of truth could explain that "since no context is absolute,different lines of interpretation are possible. But this is not radical relativism, sincenot all contexts are equally appropriate or justifiable.;; Contextualism demandsjustifying reasons for interpretations, and these reasons can be assumed to be asfactual or 'objective' as any objectivist could produce. [Therefore] the choice ofcontext or framework is far from arbitrary" (Hoy, 1978, p, 69).

Thus, meaning is indeed context-dependent (there are only holonsl), but this meansneither arbitrary nor relative, but firmly anchored in various contexts that constrainthe meaning. And, of course, these contexts-whether in artist, artwork, viewer, orworld at large-must themselves be real contexts, actually existing contexts. We arenot allowed to arbitrarily dream up contexts; any old context will not do. Rather, thecontext that is being used for interpretation must itself be justified according to thetotal web of available evidence.

And this puts many symptomatic theories at a great disadvantage, because too manyof these approaches take a rather specific and often quite narrow context and make itthe sole, dominating, hegemonic context within which all interpretations must beregistered, whether imperialist, racist, capitalist, ecologist, feminist.

The results, as I said, have become often quite comical, as minor truths are blown upto cosmic proportions. Alfred Kazin, recently called "the greatest literary critic inAmerica" in The New Republic, reports on a typical scene, a session on EmilyDickinson at the Modem Language Association in 1989. The session was entitled"The Muse of Masturbation," and, says Kazin, "it was thronged," the point being"that the hidden strategy of Emily Dickinson's poetry is in her use of 'encodedimages of clitoral masturbation to transcend sex-role limitations imposed by thenineteenth-century patriarehy.?' Kazin: "The basic idea was that Dickinson loaded

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her work with references to peas, crumbs, and flower buds in order to broadcast secretmessages of forbidden onanistic delights to other female illuminati" (Benfey, 1995).

It is one thing to expose a context; quite another to impose one. And too much ofsymptomatic theory is, alas, the imposition of the critic's particular context andideology, bereft of confirming truth or evidence or justification (since, after all, thereis no truth, only social constructions, why bother with evidence in the first placer).

And thus, from the uncontested fact that all truth is context-dependent, and thatcontexts are boundless, we have finally arrived, slipping and sliding, at the dizzynotion that all truths are merely subjective and relative, arbitrary and constructed.Truth is whatever you want, which leaves us nothing at all, except that shell ofnihilism filled with the thickest of narcissism, a postmodern pastry from hell

CONCLUSION

Let us realign the postmodern scene more adequately: Contexts are boundless means,not nested lies and arbitrary constructions governed by egoic whim, but nested truthsanchored in wider and deeper realities. The nihilistic and narcissistic spin is dis­mantled right at the beginning, and a relativism without meaning gives way to richlytextured contexts of value and meaning that ground sound interpretations. That allthings are holons means that all things are contexts within contexts forever, and eachcontext confers a new and genuine meaning upon the original halon itself.

Thus, to locate art is to situate it in its various contexts. Art includes in itsdevelopment that is envelopment:

-the primal holon or original intent of the maker, which may involve numerouslevels of the psyche, both conscious and unconscious, reaching from the individualself to the transpersonal and spiritual dimensions (the spectrum of consciousness).

-the artwork holon itself, the public work materialized, in both its form and content

-the history of reception and response-the numerous viewer holons-that inimportant ways are constitutive of the overall work.

-the wider contexts in the world at large, economic and technical and linguistic andcultural contexts, without which specific meanings could not be generated in the firstplace.

Each of those are wholes that arc parts of other wholes, and the whole confersmeaning on the parts which the parts themselves do not possess. Each wider whole,each broader context, brings with it a new meaning, a new light in which to see thework, and thus constitute it anew.

Thus, any particular meaning of an artwork is simply the highlighting of a particularcontext. The interpretation of an artwork is the evoking and elucidating of that

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highlightedcontext.Justifiable interpretation means verifyingthat a particular con­text is indeed real and significant, a justification procedure that, like any other,involvesa careful look at the total web of evidence.

And the understandingof an artwork means to hermeneutically enter, to actuallyenter as far as possible,the contextsdeterminingthe art, a "fusionofhorizons"-theemergenceof a new holon-in which the understandingof a work of art is simulta­neously a process of self-understanding,liberatingin its final effect. To understandthe art I must to somedegree enter its horizon,stretchmy own boundaries,and thusgrow in the process: the fusion of horizonsis a broadeningof self.

Thus,the validitycriteriafor justifiable interpretations of artand literature rest, in thelast analysis, on what the critic thinks is the nature and locus of meaning in anartwork,And I am saying, it is holonic,There is no single correct interpretationbecause no holon has only one context.There are as many legitimatemeaningsasthere are legitimatecontexts,which docs not lead to nihilismbut cornucopia.This isfar from arbitral)'and relative,becausewhilethereis no oneright interpretation,thereare plenty of wrong ones (the necessary and important fallibilist criterion is mostdefinitelypart of artistic interpretation).

"Interpretationis dependentuponthe circumstancesin whichit occurs.... A strategyfor findinga contextmay be essentialto all interpretationas a conditionfor the verypossibilityof interpretation," pointsoutHoy(1978,pp, 69,76).Indeedso,but notjustas a conditionfor the possibilityof interpretation,but ratherof existenceitself: thereare only holons.

A comprehensivetheory and practice of art and literary interpretation is thus themultidimensionalanalysis of the various contexts in which-and by which-artexists and speaksto us: in the artist, the artwork,the viewer,and the world at large.Privileging no single context, it invites us to be unendingly open to ever-newhorizons, which broaden our own horizons in the process, liberating us from thenarrow straitsof our favoriteideologyand the prison of our isolatedselves.

CONTEMPLA TING ART

Let me return to what art is finally all about. When I directlyview, say, a great vanGogh,I am remindedwhatall superiorart has in common:the capacityto simplytakeyour breath away. To literally, actually, make you inwardly gasp, at least for thatsecondor two when the art firsthits you, or more accurately,first enters your being:you swoona little bit, you are slightlystunned,you are opento perceptionsthat youhadnot seenbefore.Sometimes,of course,it is muchquieterthanthat: the work seepsintoyour pores gently,and yet you are changedsomehow,maybejust a little,maybea.lot; but you are changed.

No wonder that for the East and West alike, until just recent times, art was oftenassociated with profound spiritual transformation. And I don't mean merely "reli­gious" or "iconographic"art.

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Some of the great modem philosophers,Schellingto Schillerto Schopenhauer,haveall pinpointeda major reason for greatart's power to transcend.Whenwe look at anybeautifUlobject(naturalor artistic),we suspendall other activity,and we are simplyaware, we only want to contemplate the object. While we are in this contemplativestate, we do not want anything from the object; we just want to contemplateit; wewant it to never end. We don't want to eat it, or own it, or run from it, or alter it: weonly want to look, we want to contemplate,we never want it to end.

In that contemplativeawareness,om own egoic graspingin time comesmomentarilyto rest. We relax into our basic awareness.We rest with the world as it is, not as wewish it to be. We are face to facewith the calm, the eye in the centerof the storm,Wearenot agitatingto changethings;we contemplatethe objectas it is. Greatart has thispower, this power to grab your attention and suspend it: we stare, sometimesawestruck, sometimes silent, but we cease the restless movement that otherwisecharacterizesour every waking moment.

It doesn't matterwhat the actualcontentof the art is; not for this. Greatart grabs you,against your will, and then suspendsyour will. You are ushered into a quiet clearing,free of desire, free of grasping,free of ego, free of the self-contraction.And throughthat opening or clearing in your own awareness may come flashing higher truths,subtler revelations, profound connections. For a moment you might even toucheternity; who can say otherwise, when time itself is suspended in the clearing thatgreat art creates in your awareness?

You just want to contemplate;you want it never to end; you forget past and future;you forget self and same. The noble Emerson:"These roses under my windowmakeno reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they existwith God today. There is no time for them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect inevery moment of its existence.But man postponesor remembers;he does not live inthe present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or heedless of the riches thatsurroundhim, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and stronguntil he too Jiveswith nature in the present, above time" (Emerson, 1969).

Great art suspendsthe revertedeye, the lamentedpast, the anticipatedfuture:we enterwith it into the timeless present; we are with God today, perfect in our manner andmode, open to the riches and the glories of a realm that time forgot,but that great artremindsus of: not by its content,but by what it does in us: suspendsthe desire to beelsewhere.And thus it undoes the agitatedgrasping in the heart of the sufferingself,and releases us-maybe for a second,maybe for a minute, maybe for all eternity­releases us from the coil of ourselves.

That is exactly the state that great art pulls us into, no matterwhat the actual contentof the art itself~bugs or Buddhas,landscapesor abstractions,it doesn't matter in theleast. In this particularregard-s-fromthis particularcontext-great art is judged by itscapacityto take your breath away, take your self away, take time away, all at once.

And whatever we mean by the word "spirit"-let us just say, with Tillich, that itinvolves for each of us our ultimateconcern-it is in that simpleawestruckmoment,

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whengreatartentersyouand changesyou,that spiritshinesin thisworldjust a littlemore brightlythan it didthe momentbefore.

NOTE

'Quoted in chapters5 and 6. Schapirodealswith the question:to whichof the severalpaintingsof shoesHeideggerandGauguinare referring.SinceHeideggersayshis pointcan be made withanyof the variouspaintings,my generalceeclusionis unaffectedby the fmal outcomeof this issue.Gauguinhas giventwoextremelymovingaccountsof'this story;1havecombinedthem for fullnessof detail,

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BraziUer.WILBER, K. (l995a). An informal overview of transpersonalstudies. TheJournal of Transper-

sonal Psychology,27(2), 107-129.WILBER, K. (1995b). Sex, ecology,spirituality: The spirit of evolution.Boston: Shambhala,WILBER, K. (1996).A brief history of everything.Boston:Shambhala.WIl.BBR, K. (1997). Theeye of spirit:An integralvisionfor a worldgone slightlymad. Boston:

Shambhala.In press.WIMSATT, W.K. & BEARDSLEY, M. (1966).The intentional fallacy. In The verbal icon. New

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