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  • Stanley Cavell-Music Discomposed

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    Stanley Cavell-Music Discomposed

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    432 vizualizări17 pagini

    Stanley Cavell-Music Discomposed

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    Stanley Cavell-Music Discomposed

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    VIT Music Discomposed Iisa widespread opinion that aesthetics, 28 we think of it, became a subject, and acquired its mame, just over two hundred years ago: hich would make it the youngest of the principal branche of phi- losophy. Nothing further seems to be agreed about it, not even whether itis one subject, nor if 50, what it should indude, nor whether it has the right name, nor what the mame should be taken to mean, nor whether given its problems, philotophers are partic: larly suited to venture them. Various eason for these doubus suggest ‘themselves 1) The problems of composers, painters, poets, novelist, sculptors architects... are internal tothe procedures of each, and nothing general enough to apply to all could be of interest to any. ‘One cannot, Think, or ought not, miss the truth ofthat claim, even hile one feels that its cruth needs correct placement. There are people recognizable as artists, and all produce works which we acknowledge, in some sense, to cll for and warrant certain kinds of ‘experience. (x) There isan established activity and a recognizable las of persons whose established task i i to discus the ats, namely the criticism and the critica of literature, painting, music.» ». T? fact faces two ways: One way, it suggests that there & something Importantly common to the arts, namely, that they all require, or tole ‘erate, such an activity; and that itself may incite philosophical reflec tion. Another way, it suggests that oly someone competent as critic fof at is competent to speak of arta all, at leat from the point of 180 aeuste viscomroseo # 181 view ofthe experience which goes into it oF which i to be found in it, o that an aesthetician incapable of producing crtiim is simply incapable of recognizing and relevantly describing the object of his discourse (9) Tis not lear what the data ofthe subject shall be. The enterprise of epistemologists, however paradoxical its conclusions have been, begins and continues wth examples and procedures com: ‘mon to all men; and moral philosophers of every taste agree in ap- pealing to the experience, the concepes, and the confit all men share, But upon what, or whom, does the aesthetician focus? On the artist? On the work he produce?’ On what the artist says about hi ‘work? On wha eis say about i? On the audience it acquires? One familiar resolution ofthese question has been to commend the artis's remarks, and his audience's responses, to the attention of paychologists or sociologists, confining philosophy’ attention to “the object iself" The plausibility of thie resolution fas strong. sources. There is the distinction established in the philosophy of Science according to which the philoopher's concer is confined t0 the “context of justification” of theory, ite “context of discovery” yielding, at best, to history and psychology. There is the decisive accomplishment, in literary criticism, of the New Cities, whose formalise program called for, and depended upon, minute attention concentrated on the poem itself. There is, finaly, the realization on the part of anyone who knows what artis that many ofthe responses direced to works of art are irrelevant to them as art and that the arts’ intention is always irrelevant-—it no more counts toward the succes or failure ofa work of art that the artist intended something ‘ther than is there, than i counts, when the referee is counting over a boxer, chat the boxer had intended to duck. {cannot accept such a resolution, for three main srt of reatons: (0) The fact that the erticim of rt may, and even most, be formal (in the sense suggested) implies nothing whatever about what the content of aesthetics may or must be. Kant’s aesthetics is, Ttake it, ‘supposed tobe formal, but that doesnot deter Kant from introducing intention (anyway, “purposivenes”) and a certain kind of response (disinterested pleasure”) in determining the grounds on which any- thing isto count as art. And such books as The Birth of Tragedy and What ls Ar rely fundamentally on characterising the experience of the artist and of his audience, and Tam more sure that Nietiche (lor all his veputedly unsound philology) and Tolstoy (forall his late Mie aust we steaN witar we sav? ‘ratnes) know what artis than 1 know what philosophy or psy- ‘chology ate, oF ought to be. (2) The denil ofthe relevance of the arts intention is likely not to record the simple, fundamental fact that what an artist meant cannot alter what he has or has not accom plished, but to imply a philosophical theory according to which the Artists intention is something in his mind while the work of at i something out of his mind, and so the closest connection there could be between them is one of caustion, about which, to be eure, only psychologist or biographer could cre, But !am far less sue that any such philosophical theory i correct than Iam that when T experience a work of ar I feel that I am meant to notice one thing and not nother, that the placement of a note or thyme or ine has afurpose, and that certain works are perfecy realized, or contrived, or mereti- ious... . (3) Nothing could be commoner among eis of at than toask why the thing ia it ie, and charactritcallyto put thie quet tion, for example, inthe form “Why does Shakespeare fellow the murder of Dunem with a scene which begins with the sound of Snocking?", or "Why does Beethoven putin a bar of rest in the last Tine of the fourth Bagatelle (Op. 126)?" The best critic isthe one ‘who knows best where to ask this question, and how to get an answer: Dut surely he doesn't feel it necessary, or desirable even were it pos- sible, 0 get in touch withthe artist find out the answer. The phi- loopher may, because of his theory, expan that such questions are misleadingly pheased, and that they reilly refer to the object isle, not to Shakespeare or Beethoven. But who is misled, and about what ‘An alternative procedure, and I think sounder, would be to accept the critic's question as perfectly appropriate—as, sto speak, a philo- Sophical datum—and then to look for a philosophical explanation ‘which can accommodate that fat, OF cote, not just any critic's response can be so taken. And this suggests further methodological principle in philosophising about are. I seems obvious enough that {mn sctting ot to speak abot che ars one begins witha rough canon ofthe objects to be spoken about. It seems to me equally necesry, in appealing to the criticism of are for philosophical dat, that one begin with a rough canon of criticism which is not then repudiated inthe philosophy to follow. ‘Confusion prescribes caution, even if the confusion is private and of one's own making. Accordingly, 1 restrict my discussion here primarily to one art, music; and within that art primarily to one ste piscomrosen + 183 period, since the second World Wat; and within that period to some ‘characteristic remarks made by theoriss of music about the evant {gorde composers who regard themselves a8 the natural succesors (0 the work of Schoenberg gretex pupil, Anton Webern. ‘Though narrow in resource, however, ay motives will cem extremely preten- tious, because Tam going to rate a number of large questions about and philosophy and ways they bear on one another. Let me there- fore say plainly that I do not suppose myself wo have shou anything call; chat what I et down T mean merely as suggestions; and that I am often not sure that they are philosophically relevant. They are the result, at best, ofa lash between what I fet missing in the pilosophi- ca procedures Ihave some confidence in, and what I feel present and sigaiicant in some recent ar, a Telieve itis true to say that modernist art—roughly, the att of ‘one’s own generation—has not become 2 problem for the philosophy contemporary with it (in England and America anyway); and pet Inaps that is typical ofthe aesthetics of any period. 1 do not wish to insist upon a particular significance in that fat, but Lam inclined to believe that chere is decisive significance init For example, it mars the picture according to which aewtetiee stands to art or t etc asthe philosophy of, sa, physics stands to physicr for no one, I take it, could claim competence a the pilowopry of phyies who was not ‘immediately concerned with the physis curren in his time, One may reply that this is merely a function ofthe diflerences between science and art—the one progressing, outmoding, or summarizing its pat, the ether not. T would not find that reply very satisfactory, for tw related reaons: (1) It obscures more than it reveal. Iti not clear hat itis about science which allows itt "progres" of, put another sway, what its which is called "progres in science (for example i doesnot progress evenly)" moreover, the succesion ofsyles of ar, though doubtless it will noe simply constitute progress, neverthelest, seem not to be mere sucesion either. Art rile and historians (not to mention artis) will often say that the ar¢ of one generation by “Thoms Kut. The Sain of Seif eaaluos (ia: Uae fous Pe) 184% MUST WE MEAN WHAT WE sa¥? “solved a problem” inherited from is parent generation; and it vers right to sy that chere is progress during cerlain stretches of art and with respect to certain developments within them (sy the develope ‘ments leading up tothe establishment of sonata form, oto the com tol of perspective, oto the novel ofthe nineteenth century). More- over, the succession of art seylesisirevesible, which may be a5 im- portant a component of the concept of progres #8 the component of superiority. And a new style not merely replaces an older one, it may change the significance of any earlier style: I donot think thi is merely a matter of changing tate but a matter also of changing the look, asi were, of pst art, changing the ways it can be dexrbed, ‘outmoding some, bringing some to new light—one may even want to my, ican change what th pasts, however agains the grain that sounds, A generation oso ago, “Debussy” referred to music of a cer- tain ethereal mood, satisfying a aste fr refined sweetness of poign- ance; today it refers to solutions for avoiding tonality: I find T waver DDeeween thinking ofthat ara word altering its mesning and think of it a referring to an altered object. (2) Critics, on whom the pi losopher may rly for his data ae typically concerned with the art oftheir time, and what they Bind it televant to say about the art of any period will be molded by that concern. IFT do not share those ‘eoncems, do T understand what the critic means? Virtually every writer T have read on the subject of non-ional musie will at some point, whether he likes it or not, compare this music explicitly with tonal music; a critic like Georg Lukace will begin a book by com: paring (unfavorably) Bourgeois Modernism withthe Bourgeois Real- fam of the nineteenth century; Clement Greenberg will write, “From Gioto to Courbet, the painter's fst task had been to hollow out an ilusion of three dimensional space ona flat surface... . This spatial illusion or rather the sense of iis what we may miss fin Modernisey) feven more than we do the images that used to fil it" Now, do 1 understand these comparisons if I do not share ther experience of the modern? T do not mean merely chat I shall not then understand ‘what they s3 about modern art; mean that [shall not then under stand what they seein traditional art: I feel Iam missing something about art altogether, something, moreover, which an earlier cvitie ‘could not give me, uste oiscomvosen 4 185 a "The writing 1 have begun studying, and upon which I base my ‘observations occurs largely in two set of profesional periodicals: Die Reihe, whose frst issue appeared in i955; and Perspectives of ‘New Musi, starting in 1962 Both were created in direct response to “the general problems relating to the composition of music in out time," a the pretatory note to Die Reihe’s fist number puts it, Open- ing these periodicals, and allowing time to adapt to the cros gare of new terms, symbols invented for the ocasion, graphs charts, come equations ... several general characterises begin to emerge fairly common to their contents. There is, first, an obsession with nnew-nes ise, every other article taking some postion about whether the novelty ofthe new music i radical, or les than it seems, whether it isaberrant or irreversible, whether ii the end of msc an a ‘ora reconception which will bring it new life, None, that 1 rec raises the isue asa problem to be investigated, but a8 the cause of hhope or despair or fury or elation. I ischaraterinc to find, in one and the same artile, analyses of the most intimidating technicality and arcane apparatus, combined or ended with 3 mild or protracted ‘ough of philosophy (eq, “The new music aspires to Being, not Becoming”). Ifcritcism has a its impalte and excuse the opening of access between the artist and his audience, giving voice tothe legit: rate claims of both, then there is small criticism in these pages— although there is a continuous reference to the fact that artist and audience are out of touch, and a frequent wilingnes to assign blame to one or the other of them. One is reminded that while the history of literary eiticism isa pare of the history of Kteratre, and while ‘the history of visual artis written by theorists and connoiseurs of art for whom an effort at accurate phenomenology can be ak natural at the deciphering of iconography, histories of music contain vir no critic or assessment of their objects, but concentrate on details ofits notation or its instruments ofthe oceasons of its performance ‘The serious attempe to articulate response to a piece of music ‘where more than reverie, has charactristcally stimulated mathe- ‘Univeral Eton: Pepectnes of New Susi, Princan Univers Bree ” 186 atusr WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY? ‘matics or metaphysics—asthougl music has never quite become one of the fats of life, but shunts between an overwhelming direcnest and an overweening mystery Is this because musi, a8 we kno i, is the newest of the great ars and just hat not had the time to lear hhow to rite itsltso becaue it inherently resins verbal transrip- tions? (Both have been sid as bth are sid in accounting forthe Ick of a canon of eitcism about the cinema.) Whatever the cause, the absence of humane mae criticism (of couree there ae isolated in- ances) seeme particularly striking aguinst the fact that music bas among the arts, the most, perhaps the only, systematic and precise vocabulary for the description and analysis of its objects, Somehow that posession must itself be a liability; as though one now under- took to criticize a poem oF novel armed with complete control of ‘medieval rhetoric but ignorant of the modes of criticism developed in the past wo centuries, ‘A final general fact about the writing in these periodicals sits concentration on the composer and his problem: great many of the articles are produced by composers themselves, sometimes directly Indirealy, thelr own music. Profesor Paul Oskar in his review of the writing about the arte produced from Pilato to Kant, notices in his final rellections that such writing has typically proceeded, and ite categories and syle thereby formed, frm the spectato’s or amateur’s point of view Does the presence ofthese new journals of musi indicate that the artist i, some place, finally geting the attention he deserves? But one can scarcely imagine 2 serious journal contributed to by major poets, novelists, or painters evoted to the problems of the making of poems and novels and printing, nor that any such aie would find ie wseful if somehow ic appeare. It might even be regarded by them a5 unseemly to wash these problems in public, and at best it distracts from the job of setting on with real work. Magazines are for interviews or for pubs lishing one's work and having others write about it. Why is it not regarded as unseemly or distracting by composer? Perhaps iti, Then ‘what necesity overrides a more uns artisic reticence? Perhaps it isan awareness that the problems composers face now are no longer rerely private but are the problems of their art in general, “the {general problems relating tothe composition of music in our time.” {27h Modem Sytem ote Armpit In Renee That 1 Sew vot stusie piscomvose # 187 (This is tkely to seem at once unmentionably obvious to compote and unintelligible to spectators, which ie itself perhaps a measire of the problems of composition in our time) This futher suggests as in the cae of ordinary learned journals, the emergence of 3 new universal spe or mode of procedure, implying an unparalleled dis Pers of those who must inescapably be afected by one another's ‘work, Painting still grows, asi always has, in particular cities ap- prentieship and imitation are stil parts of ts daily life. Writers do ‘not share the severe burden of modernism which serious musicians and painters and sculptors have recognized for generations: a writer ‘an sill work withthe words we all share, more or less and have to shave; he sill, therefore, hasan audience with the chance of respond- ing to the way he can share the words more than more or les. My ‘impression is that serious composers have and fee they have, all but lost their audience, and thatthe esendal reason for thie apart, for ‘example, from the economics and politic of getting performances) hha to do with cries in the intemal, and apparently irreversible, de- velopments within thelr own atistc procedure. This is what I meant by “the burden of modernism”: the procedures and problems it now seems necessity to composers to employ and confront to make a work fof art at all themselves insure that their work will not be compre- hhensble to an audience. ‘This comes closer to registering the dissonant and unresolved ‘motion inthe pages to which I refer. They are prompted by efforts to communicate with an audience lot, and to compose an artistic ‘community in disarray—efforts which only the art ielf ean accom plish. So the very exitence of such periodicals suggests that they cannot svcceed. But here a diference of animus in these two periodicals becomes ‘essential, Die Reihe began fst, with an iste on electronic music, and its general tone is one of self congratulation and eagernes forthe future, whether it contains at and composers and performers or not. Perspectives began publication seven Yeats later (and lean years o fat, seven years in our period may contain an artistic generation): and for a variety of reaons its tone is different, It is commited to ‘much of the same music, shares some of the same writers, but the American publication is quite old world in itr frequent concern With tradition and the artist and the performer, and in its absence of elit that progress is assured by having more sounds and rhythm 188. aeusr We ateAN wutar WE saY? tc, available for exploitation, Whatever the exact pattern of rancors nd rites in these pages, the sense of confit is unmistakable, andthe alr is of men fighting for their artistic lives. Perhaps, then, their theo- ties and analyses are not addrested to an audience of spectators, but ac has been suggested about their mosicitelf to one another. The ‘communications often include artistic manifests, with declarations of freedom and promise forthe fore. But unlike other manifesto, they are not meant to be personal they do not tke a position against an exablshment, for they represent the establishment; a young com poser, therefore, sems confronted nat by one or another group of ants but by one or another oficial philosophy, and his artistic future may therefore seem to depend not on finding his own eonvic: tion but on chooting the right doctrine. Sometimes they soured Tike the dispassionate aalyees and reports assembled in professional scen- tif and academic journals, But unlike those journals they are not fongans of profesional societies with fairly clear requirements for ‘membership and universally shared criteria for establish petence, even eminence, thin them. One comes to realize that these profesional themeelves do not quite know who is and who is not rightly included among their pees, whose work counts and whose ‘doesnot. No wonder then, that we outsiders do not know. And one rene clearly communicated by these periodicals is that there is no ‘obvious way to find ou. ‘What they rigges is tha the posbility of fraudulence, and the ‘experince of fraudulence, is endemic in the experience of eonem> porary music; that ite full impact, even its immediate relevance, depends upon 4 willingness to. trust the object, knowing that the time spent with it difficulties may be bewrayed. T do not see how anyone who has experienced moder art can have avoided such ‘experiences, and not just in the case of musi, Is Pop Art art Are Canvases with a few stipes or chevrons on them art? Are the novels fof Raymond Roussel or Alnin RobbeGrilled Are art movies familiar answer is chat time will tll, But my question is: What wil time tll? That certain departures in alike pursuits have become cestablihed (among certain audiences, in textbooks, on wall allege courses): that someone is treating them withthe respect due, wwe feel, to ar; that one no Tonger has the eat? But in waiting for time to ell that, we miss what the present telle—that the dangers of feaudulence, and of trust, are esential Music oiscomroses # 18g to the experience of art. If anything inthis paper should count a8 2 thesis that is my thesis. And it i meant quite generally. Contem- porary musi is only the clearest ase of something common to mod- ‘emis as a whole, and modernism only makes explicit and bare ‘what has always been true of art. (That is almort 2 deBinition of ‘modernism, not to sy its purpose) Aesthetics has so far been the aesthetics of the asics, which is a8 If we investigated the problem ‘of other minds by using ar examples our experience of great men or lead men. In emphasizing the experiences of raudulence and teust ‘as exsential to the experience of ar, Lam in effect claiming tha the answer to the question “What is art?" will in part be an answer which explains why itis we treat certain objects, or how we cen treat certain objects, in ways normally reserved for weating person. Both Tolstoy's What 1s Art) and Nietche's Birth of Tragedy Degin from an experience of the fraudulence of the at of their time However obscure Nieusche's invocation of Apolo and and however simplistic Toltoy’s appeal tothe arti’ since the audience's “infection,” their use ofthese concepts is to specify the genuine in art in opposition to specific modes of fraudulence, and their meaning is 2 function of that opposition. Moreover, they agree closely on what those modes of fraudlence are: in particular, a debased Naturalism's heaping up of random realistic etal, and Aebased Romanticisn’s substitution ofthe simulation and exacerba- tion of feeling in place ofits artistic control and release; and in both, the constant search for “elfects” Ww How can fraudulent art be exposed? Not, as in the cate of a orgery or counterfeit, by comparing it with the genuine article, for there ire genuine article ofthe right kind. Pap i helps to sy IE we call it a matter of comparing something with the genuine antcle, we have to add (1) that what counts as the genuine artic, is not given, but islf requires critical determination; and (@) that what needs to be exposed is not that a work i copy. (That ‘of course may bean issue, and that may be anise of forgery, Show ing fraudulence is more like showing something is imitation—not: ‘an imitation. The emphasis is not on copying a particular object, 38 igo ® MUSE WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY? forgery and counterfeit, bt on producing the eect of the genuine, ‘or having tome ofits properties) Again, unlike the eases of forgery and counterfeit there is no one feature, oF definite set of features, ‘which may be described in technical handbooks, and no specific tests, by which its fraudalence can be detected and exposed, Other frauds and imposters, lie forgers and counterfeiters, admit clear outcomes, ‘conclude in dramatic dicoveries—the imposter is unmasked at the bull, you find the counterfeiters working over their press, the forger is caught signing another man’s name, ot he confess. There are no ‘sich proofs potuble forthe astertion thatthe art accepted by a pubic is fraudulent; che artist himself may not know; and the critic may be shown up, not merely as incompetent, nor unjust in accusing the wrong man, but as taking others in (or out; that i, as an imposter. "The only exporure of fate art lies in recognizing something about the object itself, but something whose recognition requires exactly the sme capacity as recognizing the genuine article. Its a Capacity not insured by understanding the language in which itis compoted, and yet we may not understand what is said; nor insured by the healthy functioning of the senses, though we may be told we 2 not see oF that we fail to hear something: nor insured by the aptness of our logical powers, though what we may have mised was, the objec’ consistency or the way one thing followed from another. ‘We may have mined its tone, or neglected an allusion oF a eros, current, of filed to se its point altogether; or the object may not have established it tone, or buried the allusion too far, or be con- {used in ts point. You often donot know which i on til, the object, for the viewer: modern art did not invent this dilemma, it merely Insists upon it.The critic will have to get us tose, or hear oF realize ‘or notie; help ws w appreciate the tone; convey the current; point to a connection; show how to take the thing in... . What this setting, helping, conveying. and pointing consist in will be shown In the specific ways the critic accomplishes them, oF fils to accom plish them. Sometimes you ean say he is exposing an object to us (in ite fradulence, or genuinenes); sometimes you can say he is exposing ut tothe abject. (The latter i, one should add, not always ‘matter of noticing fine dilerences by exercising tate: sometimes isisa matter of admitting the lowest common emotion ) Accordingly, the critics anger is sometimes directed 3t an object, sometimes a ts audience, often at both. But sometimes, one suppose, iis produced Music pisconnosen # 191 by the frustrations inherent in his profession. He is part detective, part lawyer, pat judge, in a country in which crimes and deeds of ‘glory look alike, and in which the public not only, therefore, com- fuses one with the other, but does not know that one or the other hha been commited; not because the news has not got ont, but Decause what counts asthe one oF the other cannot be defined wnt i happens: and when it has happened there is no sure way he can get the news out; and no way at all without risking something like 8 glory ora crime of his own, One line of investigation here would be to ask: Why does the aserton "You have to hear it” mean sehat i doer? Why i it sense feonveyed with a word which emphasize the function of a sense ‘organ, and in the form of an imperative? The combination i iwelt striking, One cnnot be commanded to hear a sound, though one can bbe commanded to listen tit or fori. Perhaps the quetin i: How does it happen thatthe achievement or result of tsing a sense organ comes to be thought of as the activity of that organ—as though the remthetic experience had the form not merely ofa continuous effort (eq, listening) but ofa continuous achievement (eg, heating) ‘Why—on pain of what—must I hear it; whae consequence befalls me if I don'? One answer might be: Wel, then T wouldn't hhearit—which at least says that there is no point to the hearing beyond itself itis worth doing in itself. Another answer might be: ‘Then I wouldn't know i¢ (what tis about, what i is, what's happen ing, what is there). And what that seems tos is that works of art are objets ofthe sore that can only be Anown in sensing. It is not, asin the case of ordinary material objects, that I know because Tsee, ‘or that seeing is ow T know (as opposed, for example, to being told, for figuring it out). I is rather, one may wish to say, that what know is what [see or even: seeing fels ike knowing. ("Seeing the point” conveys this sense, but in ordinary eases of seeing the point, once its sen ies known, or understood; about works of art one may wish to say that they require a continuous seeing of the point) Or one may even say: In Such cases, knowing functions like an organ of sense. (The religious, or mystical, resonance ofthis phrase, while not Aeliberat, is welcome. For religious experience is subject wo distrust, fon the same grounds as aesthetic experience is: by those to whom it is {oreiga, on the ground that its clams must be fle; by thse o whom i i amilia, on the ground hat its quality must be tested) ge Must we MEAN WHAT WE sav? Another way one might try to capture the idea is by saying: Such objects are only Anown by feeling, ot in feeling. ‘This i not ‘he same as saying thatthe object expreses feeling, or thatthe asthe- tic response consist in a feeling of some sort. Thore are, of may be, its ofa theory about the aesthetic experience and its object; whereas ‘what Lam trying to describe, or the descriptions I am trying to hit ‘on, would at best serve as data for a theory. What the expresion “known by feeling” sugges are facts (or experiences) such 36 these: (@) What T know, when I've seen or heard something is, one may ‘wish to say, ota mater of merely knowing it. But what more i it? ‘Wall, ar the words any, it fe matter of seeing it, But one could aso say that iti not a matter of merely seeing i Bot what more i it? Perhaps “merely knowing” should be compared with “not really knowing”: "You don’t really know what is ike 9 be a Negra": “You don’t really know how your remark made her fel"; "You don't sally know what I mean when I sy that Schnabel's low movernents give the impression not of slowness but of infinite length” You aerely say the words. The isue in each case is: What would express this knowledge? Ie is not that my knovledge will be real, of more than mere knowledge, when T acquire a particular feeling, or come to sce something. For the sue can also be said to be: What would express the acquisition ofthat feeling, or show that you have seen, the thing? And the answer might be that T now know something dida’t know before. (8) "Knowing by feeling” isnot like “knowing bby touching" that ii x nota cae of providing the bass for acaion to know, But one could say that feeling functions as a touchstone: the mark left on the stone is out ofthe sight of thers, but the result is one of knowledge, or has the form of knowledge—it is directed toan object, the object har been tested, the result is ane of conviction. “This seems to me to sugges why one is anxious to communicate the experience of such objects. Tis not merely that T want to tll you how it is with me, how I feelin order to find spmpathy or tobe left, alone, or for any other of the reaons for which one reveals one's feelings. e's rather that T want to tell you something T've seen, oF heard, or realied, or come to understand, for the reasons for which such things ave communicated (because its news, about a world we hate, or could), Only I find that I cant tell yous and that maker i All the more ungent to tll you, I want to tell you because the know tee, unshared, iss burden not, perhaps, the way having a secret aausic viscomPoseD # 193 ‘an be a burden, or being misunderstood: Hite more like the way, perhaps, not being believed is a burden, or not being trusted. It matters that others know what I see, in a way it does not matter whether they know my tastes, It matters, there isa burden, because unless I can tell what I know, there i a suggestion (and to myelt 25 well) that Ido not know. But Tdo-what I sce is that (pointing to the objec). But for that to communicate, you have to sce it too Describing one's experience of ar is isl a form of art; the burden of describing it slike the burden of producing it. Artis often praised because it rings men together. Buti also separates them. ‘The list of figures whose art Tolstoy dismiss a8 fraudulent or inrelevant or bad, is of course, unacceprably crazy: most of Beetho- ‘en, all of Brahms and Wagner: Michelangelo, Renoir; the Greek

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