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Art As Person: Correlative Personhood In Aesthetic Representation, Michael Dufresne

UNF Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this paper, I argue that the metaphor of art as person should be implemented as a way to understand artistic interaction, such that the relationship between artworks and spectators should be understood as one between persons. I begin this argument by first juxtaposing Hans-Georg Gadamer’s notion of aesthetic representation with the values that constitute correlative person in Confucianism. This juxtaposition draws similarities between artworks and persons that make the metaphor of art as person a plausible means for understanding artistic interaction. I then appeal to Michel Foucault for two significant reasons: his subjectfication of the self solidifies the comparisons …