Personal experience and aesthetic value of artwork

Estetikos problemų samprata, aiškinimo būdai priklauso nuo vieno ar kito laikotarpio teorinėje kultūroje įsitvirtinusių mąstymo principų, filosofinėje mintyje vyraujančių tikrovės supratimo paradigmų. Atsižvelgiant į šią aplinkybę, straipsnyje siekiama parodyti, kaip estetinę meno kūrinių vertę linkstama aiškinti remiantis tradicine mąstysena, kurią postmoderni sąmonė nedvejodama priskiria metafizinės galvosenos sričiai, ir kaip ši problema sprendžiama laikantis interpretacinio požiūrio į tikrovę, pabrėžiančio semantinės asmens patirties reikšmę tikrovei suprasti.Traditional Western theoretic culture conceives the results of a manifestation of the world in a human experience as an outcome determined mainly by the apprehended phenomena themselves and their objective properties. Such one-sided approach to reality was properly subjected to criticism by phenomenology, philosophy of language, hermeneutics, and postmodern thought. The above-indicated currents of philosophical thought stress the interpretive nature of the world and its understanding as well as the role semantic experience of a person plays in a process of interpretation. The article has the purpose to show, how both aforenamed approaches to reality – traditional and interpretive – determine the conception of an artwork and its aesthetic value. Traditional mode of thought prompts the investigators to see an artwork as an objective thing or artifact. This approach naturalizes a work of art, neglects its semantic and communicative dimension, remains in the background the meaning of an artwork and its relation to experience of a person involved in the process of its interpretation. Interpretive or semantic approach opens the possibility to elaborate a conception of aesthetic value of artwork based on the following semantic tenets: 1) aesthetic value can be directly ascribed only to aesthetic experience which manifests itself in the process of interpretation of an artwork. The process is, in its nature, interpretive par excellence; 2) manifestation of meanings, which form a semantic content of aesthetic experience, presupposes an active participation of generalized experience of a person taking part in the process of interpretation of artwork; 3) substantial part of personal experience, involved in the process of manifestation of aesthetic values of an artwork, consists of meanings related to value-system of a person; 4) an axiological dimension of aesthetic value of an artwork is related to two conjoint factors: a) emotional response to the meaning, conceived in the process of aesthetic interpretation of artwork; b) the changes in semantic experience (generalized) of a person, especially in his value-experience. The article comprises a more detailed characterization of the principles lying at the ground of traditional and semantic approaches to the problem of aesthetic value of artwork