A Gentle Counterpoint Between the Books: *What Art Does: An Unfinished Theory* and *Undressing the Arts* 

Part Two

The authors Brian Eno and Bette A. say in their book titled *What Art Does: An Unfinished Theory* that what happens in your mind when you see a piece of art has to do with your experiences and with the culture in which you live. Without a doubt, art happens depending on knowledge, life experiences, and what we call judgment, which is affected by the two factors mentioned above.

The meanings of art, they say, do not remain fixed: they are fluid, not eternal, and vary across time and space. Yes, that is so, for the reasons just mentioned; except that, sometimes, the piece categorized as art is so extraordinary, so far outside the norm, that centuries pass and all human beings—or almost all of us—remain perplexed when looking at, listening to, or contemplating the work. Examples of this include the pyramids of Egypt, Michelangelo’s *David*, Johann Sebastian Bach’s *Partita for Solo Violin No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004*, or *The Odyssey*. There are arts that are art only for a particular group, such as the tea ceremony in Japan; there are arts that last a day, such as mandalas made with colored sands, and arts that last for centuries, such as the bisons in the Altamira Cave. Living beings are like art: there are insects that live for only a few hours, animals such as tortoises that live for 200 years, and trees that last 3,000 years or more.

At no point do they claim that, because of this, one can conclude that art has no essence. There is no such thing. Art is a category that arises from the judgment we human beings make and that varies over time and across cultures; what it has of permanence depends on the structure of our brains and on the fact that there are objects that have reached such a high level of perfection that they are difficult to surpass.

Where does art begin? They believe it begins in play. Children play, and in their minds reality and fiction intermingle. All young animals play, and human beings are the ones who play most of all animals. To play is to make an imaginary world part of one’s own reality; for a while, it allows us to devise a plan, such as embodying others: being villains or charitable people, kings or slaves. For Eno and Bette A., art is the continuation of play, but in adult life.

I disagree with them. Although there is an aspect of play in all creation and it is impossible to define precisely where one begins and the other ends, it is not because we play that we arrive at works of art. In my book, I explain it this way: “The human brain is equipped with adaptations for understanding, learning, carrying out actions of various kinds, optimizing what has been learned, and making judgments. When we have optimized an object or a behavior, and in judging it we realize that we have achieved something above the norm, the category of art emerges. When this happens, we experience a visceral sensation of wonder, perplexity, attachment, aesthetic emotion, joy, passion, certainty—a great variety of positive emotions that we correlate with everything we call artistic.”

On the other hand, they propose that the reader engage in an exercise of introspection and “catch themselves feeling,” in order to discover what moves them, what surprises them, or what overwhelms them in a piece of music, or what unsettles them in a novel. One should stop and think about why sometimes one does not want to leave the world existing in a novel or a film; ask oneself what causes that moment when one feels that a flame burns or ignites inside. Through the different art forms, one can investigate the emotions we like and how to produce them in ourselves. That is not art, but it is useful.

Art is like a cloud, they say: a reservoir of shared experiences that offers us ways to transmit complex sensations and ideas to one another; it is the blood, the life, the lubricant of the community’s circulatory system. Civilization is shared imagination. Art allows us to open ourselves to others and feel in unison. Art builds communities.

I maintain that music at concerts, theater, cinema, popular television series, sports such as soccer, or religions may or may not be art, but, in the same way, every shared activity serves to build community, and art becomes important if the community endorses it.

Ultimately, they propose playing and feeling in order to realize that what we need is within us, and that by using the arts we open paths to discover it. I do not dispute it: it is also a beautiful possibility!

Eno, Brian, and Bette A. *What Art Does: An Unfinished Theory*. Faber. March 2025. 

Velez Caicedo, Ana Cristina. *Undressing the Arts*. Amazon 2005.