Zeke Gabrielle H.

Rosales
AB – Philosophy III

The Aesthetic Experience of the Audience and the Artist

Aesthetic experience dwells on a certain form of sensory experience, wherein it deals

with certain factors that exhibits certain emotions or feelings towards whenever we witness a
particular form of artwork. The presence of aesthetic experience was mostly sought after within
the experience of the audience, the listener, or simply the spectator of the piece. However, there
is also another perspective that we have to consider, and that would be the aesthetic experience
of the artmaker or the artist.

Having an aesthetic experience is unique since it was the message of the artwork. Various
artforms send certain attitudes or feelings that we could relate to as a human being and the
beauty about aesthetic experience is its accuracy on how to tap int our hearts and flesh the very
feeling we’re familiar of. Whether that feeling or attitude may be of joy, frustration, anger, or
melancholy, an aesthetic experience makes us face those perspectives with unity as if we’re
under the state of hypnosis.
However, the audience and the artist don’t always bear the same aesthetic experience
towards the artwork. Sometimes, the audience would marvel at the masterpiece while the maker
themselves would cringe at such work. Or a simple drawing of an orb would bring the artist into
tears because that quaint sphere reminded them of a certain event or object that affected them
deeply, but in the eyes of the audience, it was just a mere circle. Nothing special to see there. The
problem at these certain situations was regarding the presence of an interrelation between the
maker and the spectators.

Aesthetic experience is a subjective experience. It is far from logic or epistemology

where there are coherent rules that equate to objectivity, but when it comes to achieving aesthetic
experience, there are several factors, either external or internal, that influences one’s view on
beauty. These factors may be environmental, cultural, psychological, or causal/historical in
nature. These factors all affect various individuals differently and they all have the power to
influence the psyche of a person in any way possible that one couldn’t expect.

This is the wall that divides artists and the audience from having a unified form of
aesthetic experience towards an artwork. This only proves the existence of subjectivity in
aesthetics and there weren’t substantial solutions behind it except for one resolve. That would be
the essence of discourse. Discourse in appreciating artforms are essential when it comes to
building aesthetic experience that connects the artist with the audience. Since the artwork can be
sometimes vague or misleading, an interactive discussion regarding the piece of work should
shed light about the art and could draw enlightenment towards the audience.

However, there are certain instances that no form of clarification is being drawn towards
art pieces. In the instance of slice of life genres, a line of genre that exhibits realistic
representations of life through movies, plays, or books, no particular discussion regarding the
works could fully bring the message of those art pieces into light. The conclusion of those plays
or movies would be open-ended and the possibilities regarding the ending would always be
broad. Yet, the aesthetic experience towards the audience left a great impact as the artists smile
mischievously, confusing the masses further about the message the movies or the plays are trying
to portray.

This left me with a certain conclusion that a lot may not agree, but I do stand on my
argument that since art is subjective, our aesthetic experience will also be inevitably
idiosyncratic. Our manner of aesthetic interpretation differs depending on our perception and I
believe that if an audience won’t get the very feelings or attitude that the artist is trying to convey
with his/her artwork, I stand that it won’t matter at all. That piece is special to them due to a
historic memory or an event that led them to invest their attitude on it towards the artwork. If one
would defend that drawing a straight line reminds them of how their father used to draw those
line, provoking them to miss their father, then who am I to judge them about that effect? An
aesthetic experience is a personal experience, and I think we should just let people appreciate
those artworks through whatever means they wish.