the historical genesis of a pure aesthetic

7/28/2019 The Historical Genesis of a Pure Aesthetic

1/11

The Historical Genesis of a Pure Aesthetic

Author(s): Pierre BourdieuSource: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 46, Analytic Aesthetics (1987), pp.201-210Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for AestheticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/431276 .

Accessed: 31/05/2013 06:27

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Wiley and The American Society for Aesthetics are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend

access to The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 140.123.42.240 on Fri, 31 May 2013 06:27:56 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=blackhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=tasfahttp://www.jstor.org/stable/431276?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/431276?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=tasfahttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black


2/11

PIERRE BOURDIEU

T h e Historical G e n e s i so f a P u r e Aesthetic

LET US BEGINwith a paradox.It has occurredtosome philosophers to ponder the question ofwhat enables one to distinguishbetweenworksof art and simple, ordinarythings (I have inmind ArthurDanto), and to suggest with un-flinching sociologistic daring (which theywould never accept in a sociologist) that theprincipleof this ontological differencemust besought in an institution. The art object, theysay, is an artifactwhose foundationcan only befound in an artworld, that is, in a socialuniverse that confers upon it the status of acandidate or aestheticappreciation.'Whathasnot yet occurred (although one of our post-modernists will surely come to it sooner orlater)is for a philosopher-one perfectly"wor-thyof the name" to treatthe questionof whatallows us to distinguish a philosophical dis-course from an ordinaryone. Such a questionbecomes particularlypertinentwhen, as in thecase here, the philosopher,designatedandrec-ognized as such by a certain philosophicalworld, grants himself a discourse which hewould deny (underthe label of 'sociologism")to anyonelike the sociologist, who is not a partof the philosophicalinstitution.2The radical dissymmetrywhich philosophythus establishes in its relationships with thehumansciences furnishesit with, among otherthings, unfailing means for masking what itborrowsfromthem. In fact, it seems to me thatthe philosophy labeled postmodern(by one ofthose labeling devices until now reserved forthe artworld),merelyreadopts n a denied form(i.e., in the sense of Freud's Verneinung),notonly certain of the findings of the social sci-ences but also of historicistphilosophy whichis, implicitly or explicitly, inscribed in thePIERRE BOURDIEUs professor of sociology at theCollege de France, Paris.

practiceof these sciences. This maskedappro-priation, which is legitimized by the denial ofborrowing,is one of the most powerful strate-gies yet to be employed by philosophy againstthe social sciences and against the threat ofrelativization hat these sciences have held overit. Heidegger's ontologizationof historicity is,indisputably, he model for this operation.3It isa strategyanalogousto the "doublejeu" whichallows Derrida to take from social science(against which he is poised) some of its mostcharacteristicnstrumentsof "deconstruction."While opposing to structuralism nd its notionof "static" structurea "postmodernized" vari-ant of the Bergsonian critiqueof the reductiveeffects of scientific knowledge, Derrida cangive himself the airof radicalism. He does thisby using, against traditional iterarycriticism, acritiqueof binary oppositions, which, by wayof Levi-Strauss,goes back to the most classicalanalysisof "forms of classifications"so deartoDurkheimand Mauss.4But one can not win at all the tables, and thesociology of the artistic institution which the"de-constructor" can carry out only in themode of Verneinung is never brought to itslogical conclusion: its implied critique of theinstitutionremains half-baked, although well-done enough to arouse delicious shudders of abogus revolution.5 Moreover, by claiming aradical break with the ambitionof uncoveringahistoricaland ontologically foundedessences,this critique is likely to discourage the searchfor the foundationof the aesthetic attitude andof the work of art where it is truly located,namely, in the history of the artistic nstitution.I. The Analysis of Essence and the Illusion ofthe Absolute

What is striking about the diversity of? 1987 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

This content downloaded from 140.123.42.240 on Fri, 31 May 2013 06:27:56 AMAll use subject toJSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/11

202 B O U R D I E U

responses which philosophershave given to thequestionof the specificity of the work of art isnot so much the fact that these divergent an-swers often concur in emphasizingthe absenceof function,the impartiality, he gratuitousness,etc.6 of the workof art, but rather hat they all(with the possible exception of Wittgenstein)share the ambition of capturinga transhistoricor an ahistoric essence. The pure thinker, bytaking as the subject of his reflectionhis ownexperience-the experience of a culturedper-son from a certain social milieu-but withoutfocusing on the historicityof his reflectionandthe historicityof the object to which it is applied(and by consideringit a pure experienceof thework of art), unwittinglyestablishesthis singu-lar experience as a transhistorical norm forevery aesthetic perception. Now this experi-ence, with all the aspects of singularitythat itappearsto possess (and the feeling of unique-ness probablycontributesgreatlyto its worth),is itself an institution which is the product ofhistorical nvention and whose raisond'etrecanbe reassessedonly throughan analysiswhich isitself properlyhistorical.Suchan analysisis theonly one capableof accounting simultaneouslyfor the nature of the experience and for theappearance f universalitywhich it procures orthose who live it, naively, beginning with thephilosopherswho subject it to their reflectionsunawareof its social conditionsof possibility.The comprehensionof this particularormofrelationshipwith the work of art, which is animmediate comprehension, presupposes theanalyst's understandingof himself-an under-standing which can be submitted neither tosimple phenomenologicalanalysis of the livedexperience (inasmuchas this experience restson the active forgettingof the historyof whichit is a product), nor to the analysis of thelanguage ordinarilyused to express this expe-rience (inasmuch as it too is the historicalproductof a processof dehistorization). nsteadof Durkheim's saying "the unconscious ishistory," one could write "the a priori ishistory." Only if one were to mobilize all theresourcesof the social sciences would one beable to accomplishthis kind of historicistactu-alization of the transcendentalproject whichconsists of reappropriating,hroughhistoricalanamnesis, the productof the entire historicaloperation of which consciousness too is (at

every moment) the product. In the individualcase this would include reappropriating hedispositions and classificationalschemes whichare a necessary part of the aesthetic experienceas it is described, naively, by the analysis ofessence.What is forgotten n self-reflective analysisisthe fact that althoughappearing o be a gift fromnature, the eye of the twentieth-centuryartlover is really a productof history. From theangle of phylogenesis, thepuregaze, capableofapprehendinghe work of artas it demands tobe apprehended i.e., in itself andfor itself, asform and not as function) is inseparablefromthe appearance f producersof artmotivatedbya pureartisticintention,which is itself insepa-rable from the emergence of an autonomousartisticfield capableof formulatingand impos-ing its own ends against external demands.From the side of ontogenesis the pure gaze isassociated with very specific conditions of ac-quisition, such as the early frequentingof mu-seums andthe prolongedexposureto schoolingand to the skhole that it implies. All of thismeans that the analysisof essence which over-looks these conditions (thus universalizing thespecific case), implicitly establishes as univer-sal to all aestheticpractices he ratherparticularpropertiesof an experience which is the productof privilege, that is, of exceptional conditionsof acquisition.What the ahistorical analysis of the work ofart and of the aestheticexperience capturesinreality is an institutionwhich, as such, enjoys akind of twofold existence, in things and inminds. In things it exists in the form of anartistic field, a relatively autonomous socialuniversewhich is the productof a slow processof constitution.Inminds, it exists in the form ofdispositions which were invented by the samemovement through which the field, to whichthey immediately adjusted hemselves, was in-vented. When things and minds (or conscious-ness) are immediately in accord-in otherwords, when the eye is the productof the fieldto which it relates-then the field, with all theproductsthat it offers, appearsto the eye asimmediatelyendowed withmeaningandworth.This is so clearly the case that if the extraordi-nary question of the source of the artwork'svalue, normallytakenfor granted,were to ariseat all, a special experience would be required,



4/11

TheHistorical Genesis of a Pure Aesthetic 203one which would be quite exceptional for aculturedperson, even though it would be, onthe contrary, quite ordinaryfor all those whohave not had the opportunityto acquire thedispositions which are objectively requiredbythe workof art.This is demonstratedby empir-ical researchand is also suggestedby Danto, forexample.7 Following a visit to an exhibit ofWarhol's Brillo Boxes at the Stable Gallery,Danto discovered the arbitrary character, exinstituto as Leibniz would have said, of theimposition of the value created by the fieldthrough an exhibit in a place which is bothconsecratedand consecrating.The experience of the work of art as beingimmediatelyendowed with meaningand valueis a result of the accord between the twomutuallyfoundedaspectsof the same historicalinstitution: he culturedhabitus8andthe artisticfield. Given that the workof art exists as such,(namely as a symbolic object endowed withmeaningandvalue) only if it is apprehendedbyspectators possessing the disposition and theaesthetic competence which are tacitly re-quired, one could then say that it is theaesthete'seye which constitutesthe workof artas a work of art. But, one must also rememberimmediately that this is possible only to theextent thatthe aesthetehimself is theproductofa long exposureto artworks.9Thiscircle, whichis one of belief and of the sacred, is shared byevery institutionwhich can function only if it isinstituted simultaneouslywithin the objectivityof a social game and within the dispositionswhich induce interest and participation n thegame. Museums could bear the inscription:Entryfor artloversonly. But thereclearlyis noneed for such a sign, it all goes withoutsaying.The game makes the illusio, sustaining itselfthrough he informedplayer'sinvestment n thegame. The player,mindfulof thegame's mean-ing and having been created for the gamebecause he was createdby it, plays the gameand by playing it assures its existence. Theartistic ield, by its very functioning,creates theaestheticdispositionwithout which it could notfunction. Specifically, it is throughthe compe-tition amongthe agentswith vested interests nthe game thatthe field reproducesendlessly theinterest n the game andthe faith in the value ofthe stakes. In orderto illustrate he operationofthis collective endeavorand give an idea of the

numerousacts of delegation of symbolic powerand of voluntaryor forced recognitionthroughwhich this reservoirof credit (upon which thecreatorsof fetishes draw) is engendered, it willsuffice to recall the relationship among thevarious avant-gardecritics who anoint them-selves critics by consecrating works whosesacredvalue is barelyperceivedby culturedartlovers or even by the critic's most advancedrivals. Inshort, thequestionof the meaningandthe value of the work of art, like the questionof the specificity of aestheticjudgment, alongwith all the great problems of philosophicalaesthetics,can be resolved only within a socialhistory of the field, a historywhich is linked toa sociology of the conditions of the establish-ment of the specific aesthetic disposition (orattitude) hat the field calls for in each one of itsstates.II. The Genesis of the Artistic Field and theInvention of the Pure Gaze

What makesthe workof arta work of art andnot a mundanething or a simple utensil? Whatmakes an artist an artistand not a craftsmanora Sunday painter? What makes a urinal or awine rackthat is exhibited in a museum a workof art? Is it the fact that they are signed byDuchamp, a recognized artist(recognizedfirstand foremost as an artist) and not by a winemerchant or a plumber?If the answer is yes,then isn't this simply a matterof replacing thework-of-art-as-fetish with the "fetish of thename of the master"? Who, in other words,created the "creator" as a recognized andknownproducerof fetishes? And what confersits magical or, if one prefers, its ontologicaleffectiveness upon his name, a name whosevery celebrity is the measure of his claim toexist as anartistandwhich, like the signatureofthe fashiondesigner, increases the value of theobject upon which it is affixed? That is, whatconstitutes the stakes in quarrelsof attributionandthe authorityof the expert?Where is one tolocate the ultimate principle of the effect oflabeling, or of naming,or of theory'?Theoryisa particularlyapt word because we are dealingwith seeing-theorein-and of making otherssee.) Wheredoes this ultimateprinciple,whichproducesthe sacredby introducingdifference,



5/11


6/11

The Historical Genesis of a Pure Aesthetic 205(gold or ultramarine),the artist-painters notradicallydifferentfrom a house painter.Thatiswhy, among all the inventions which accom-pany the emergenceof the field of production,one of the most significant is probably theelaboration of an artistic language. This in-volves first establishing a way of naming thepainter, of speaking about him and about thenature of his work as well of the mode ofremuneration or his work, through which isestablishedan autonomous definition of prop-erly artistic value irreducible to the strictlyeconomical value and also a way of speakingabout painting itself, of pictorial techniques,using appropriatewords (often pairs of adjec-tives) which enable one to speakof pictorialart,the manifattura, that is, the individual style ofthe painterwhose existence it socially consti-tutes by naming it. By the same logic, thediscourseof celebration,notablythebiography,also plays a determiningrole. This is probablydue less to whatit says about the painterand hiswork thanto the fact that the biography estab-lishes the artist as a memorable character,worthyof historical account, much like states-men and poets. (It is known that ennoblingcomparisons-ut pictura poesis-contribute tothe affirmationof the irreducibilityof pictorialart, at least for a time and until they become ahindranceto this.) A genetic sociology shouldalso include in its model the action of theproducers themselves and their claim to theright to be the sole judges of pictorialproduc-tion, to produce, themselves, the criteria ofperceptionand appreciation or theirproducts.Such a sociology shouldalso take into accountthe way in which the artists' image of them-selves and the image that they have of theirproductionand throughthis also their produc-tion itself, which is affected by the image ofthemselves and their production that comesback to them throughthe eyes of other agentsengaged in the field--other artists, but alsocritics, clients, collectors. (Onecan assume, forexample, that the interestin sketches and car-toons shown by certain collectors since thequattrocento asonly helpedto contribute o theartist's exalted view of his own worth.)Thus, as the field is constituted as such, itbecomesclear that the "subject" of the produc-tion of the artwork-of its value but also of itsmeaning-is not the producer who actually

creates the object in its materiality, but ratherthe entire set of agents engaged in the field.Among these are the producersof works clas-sified as artistic (great or minor, famous orunknown),criticsof all persuasions who them-selves are established within the field), collec-tors, middlemen, curators, etc., in short, allwho have ties with art, who live for art and, tovarying degrees, from it, and who confronteach otherin struggleswhere the impositionofnotonly a worldview but also of a vision of theartworld is at stake, and who, through thesestruggles, participatein the productionof thevalue of the artist and of art.If such is, in fact, the logic of the field, thenone can understandwhy the concepts used toconsider works of art and particularlytheirclassifications, are characterized(as Wittgen-stein has observed) by the most extreme inde-terminacy.That is the case with genres (trag-edy, comedy, drama,or the novel), with forms(ballad, rondeau,sonnet, or sonata), with peri-ods or styles (Gothic, baroque,or classical), orwith movements (impressionist, symbolist, re-alist, naturalist).One can also understandwhyconfusion does not diminish when it comes toconcepts used to characterizethe work of artitself and the terms used to perceive and toappreciateit (such as the pairs of adjectivesbeautiful or ugly, refined or crude, light orheavy, etc.) which structure he expression andthe experience of the work of art. Due to thefact thatthey areinscribed n ordinary anguageand that they are generally used beyond theaestheticsphere, these categoriesof judgmentsof taste which are common to all speakers of asharedlanguagedo allow an apparent orm ofcommunication.Yet, despite that, such termsalways remain marked-even when used byprofessionals-by an extreme vagueness andflexibility which (as has been noted again byWittgenstein),makesthemcompletelyresistantto essentialist definition.'0 This is probablybecausethe use that is made of these termsandthe meaning thatis given to them dependuponthe specific, historicallyand socially situated,points of view of their users-points of viewwhich are quiteoften perfectlyirreconcilable."In short, if one can always argue about taste(and everyone knows that confrontationsre-garding preferencesplay an importantrole indaily conversation) then it is certain that



7/11

206 B O U R D I E Ucomunication n these matterstakes place onlywith a highdegreeof misunderstanding.Thatisprecisely so because the commonplaceswhichmake communication possible are the sameones that make it practicallyineffective. Theusers of these topics each give different, attimes diametricallyopposed, meanings to thetermsthat they oppose. Thus it is possible forindividuals, holding opposing positions withina social space, to be able to give totallyoppos-ing meaningsandvalues to adjectiveswhicharecommonly used to describe works of art ormundaneobjects. The exampleof the adjective"'soigne"comes to mind. It is most frequentlyexcluded from "bourgeois" taste, probablybecause it embodies the taste of the petit-bourgeois.12 Situatedwithinthe historicdimen-sion, one could go on drawingendless lists ofnotions which, beginning with the idea ofbeauty, have takenon different,even radicallyopposed meanings in the course of variousperiodsor as a result of artisticrevolutions.Thenotion of "finite" is one example. Havingcondensed into one the closely linked ethicaland aesthetic ideals of academic painting, thisnotion later found itself banishedfrom art byManet and by the impressionists.Thusthecategorieswhichare usedin order operceive and appreciate the work of art aredoubly bound to the historicalcontext. Linkedto a situated and dated social universe, theybecome the subjectof usages which are them-selves socially markedby the social positionofthe users who exercise the constitutive disposi-tions of their habitus in the aesthetic choicesthese categoriesmake possible.The majority of notions which artists andcritics use to definethemselvesor to definetheiradversariesare indeed weapons and stakes inthe battle, andmanyof the categorieswhich arthistoriansdeploy in order to treattheir subjectare nothing more than skillfully masked ortransfigured indigenous categories, initiallyconceived for the most partas insults or con-demnations. (Our term "categories" stemsfrom the Greekkathegoresthaimeaningto ac-cuse publicly.) These combativeconceptsgrad-ually become technical categorems uponwhich-by grace of the amnesiaof genesis-criticaldissections, dissertations,andacademictheses confer an air of eternity. Of all themethods of entering such struggles-which

must be apprehendedas such from the outsidein order o objectivize them-the most temptingand the most irreproachables undoubtedly hatof presentingoneself as a judge or referee.Sucha method involves settling conflicts which inreality are not settled, and giving oneself thesatisfactionof pronouncingverdicts-of declar-ing, for instance, what realism really is, oreven, quite simply, of decreeing (throughdeci-sions as innocentin appearance s the inclusionor exclusion of so-and-so froma corpusor listof producers)who is an artistand who is not.This last decision, for all its apparentpositivis-tic innocence, is, in fact, all the more crucial,becauseone of the major stakes in these artisticstruggles, always andeverywhere, is the ques-tionof the legitimatebelongingto a field (whichis the questionof the limits of the world of art)andalso becausethevalidityof the conclusions,notably statistical ones, which one is able toestablish apropos a universe depends on thevalidityof the category aproposof which theseconclusions were drawn.If thereis a truth,it is thattruth s a stake inthe struggle. And although the divergent orantagonisticclassificationsor judgmentsmadeby the agents engaged in the artistic field arecertainly determined or directed by specificdispositions and interests linked to a givenposition in the field, they nevertheless areformulated n the nameof a claim to universal-ity-to absolute judgment-which is the verynegation of the relativity of points of view.'3"Essentialist thought" is at work in everysocial universe and especially in the field ofcultural production-the religious, scientific,and legal fields, etc.-where games in whichthe universal is at stake are being played out.But in that case it is quite evident that"essences" are norms. That is precisely whatAustin was recalling when he analyzed theimplicationsof the adjective "real" in expres-sions such as a "real" man, "real" courage or,as is the case here, a "real" artistor a "real"masterpiece.In all of these examples, the word"real" implicitlycontraststhe case undercon-siderationto all other cases in the same cate-gory, to which other speakersassign, althoughunduly so (that is, in a mannernot "really"justified)this samepredicate,a predicatewhichlike all claims to universalityis symbolicallyvery powerful.



8/11

The Historical Genesis of a Pure Aesthetic 207Science can do nothingbut attempt o estab-lish the truthof these struggles over the truthand while tryingto capturethe objective logicaccordingto which the stakes, the camps, thestrategies, and the victories are determined.Science can attempt to bring representationsand instrumentsof thought-all of which layclaim to universalitywith unequal chances atsuccess-back to the social conditionsof theirproductionand of their use, in other words,back to the historical structureof the field inwhich they are engenderedand within whichthey operate. Accordingto the methodologicalpostulate(which is constantlyvalidated by em-pirical analysis) of the homology between the

space of the positions taken (literaryor artisticforms, concepts and instrumentsof analysis,etc.), andthe space of the positionsheld in thefield, one is led to historicize these culturalproducts,all of which claim universality. But,historicizing them not only means, as one maythink, relativizingthem by recalling that theyhave meaning solely through reference to adeterminedstate of the field of battle; it alsomeans restoring to them their necessity byremoving them from indeterminancy (whichstems from a false eternalization)in order tobring themback to the social conditionsof theirgenesis, a truly generative definition. 4 Farfrom leading to a historical relativism, thehistorizationof the forms of thoughtwhich weapplyto the historicalobject, andwhich may bethe productof that object, offers the only realchance of escaping history, if ever so little.Just as the oppositions which structureaes-theticperceptionare not given a priori,but arehistorically producedand reproduced,andjustas they are inseparable from the historicalconditions which set them in motion, so it iswith the aesthetic attitude. The aesthetic atti-tude, which establishesas works of artobjectssocially designatedfor its use and application(simultaneouslyextending its activity to aes-thetic competence, with its categories, con-cepts, and taxonomies), is a product of theentirehistoryof the field, a productwhichmustbe reproduced,by each potential consumer ofthe work of art, througha specific apprentice-ship. It suffices either to observe the aestheticattitude'sdistribution hroughouthistory (withthosecriticswho, untilthe end of the nineteenthcentury, have defended an art subordinated o

moral values and didacticfunctions), or insteadobserve it within society today, in order to beconvinced that nothing is less naturalthan thedisposition to adopt toward an artwork, andmore so, toward any object, the sort of pureaesthetic posture described by essentialistanalysis.The inventionof the pure gaze is realized inthe very movement of the field towardauton-omy. In fact, withoutrecalling here the entiredemonstration, one could maintain that affir-mation of the autonomy of the principles ofproduction and evaluation of the artwork isinseparablefrom the affirmation of the auton-omy of the producer, that is, the field ofproduction. Like pure paintingwhich, as Zolawrote aproposManet, is meantto be beheld initself and for itself as a painting-as a play offorms, values, and colors-and not as a dis-course, in other words, independently rom allreferences to transcendentmeanings, the puregaze (a necessary correlateof purepainting)isa result of a process of purification, a trueanalysisof essence carriedoutby history, in thecourseof successive revolutionswhich, as theydo in the religious field, always lead the newavant-garde to challenge orthodoxy-in thename of a returnto the rigor of beginnings-with a purerdefinition of the genre. One hasthus observed poetry purify itself of all itsaccessory properties: forms to be destroyed(sonnet, Alexandrine),rhetoricalfigures to bedemolished (simile, metaphor), contents andsentiments to be banished (lyricism, effusion,andpsychology), and all that, in order o reduceitself little by little, following a kind of histor-ical analysis, to the most specifically poeticeffects, like the break with phonosemanticparallelism.In more general terms, the evolution of thedifferentfields of culturalproductiontoward agreaterautonomyis accompanied by a sort ofreflective and critical returnby the producersupontheir own production,a returnwhichleadsthem to draw from it the field's own properprincipleand specific presuppositions. This isfirstly because the artist, now in a position torebuff every externalconstraintor demand, isable to affirm his mastery over that whichdefineshim and whichproperlybelongs to him,thatis, the form, the technique, in a word, theart, thus instituted as the exclusive aim of art.



9/11

208 B O U R D I E U

Flaubert n the domainof writing andManet inpaintingare probably hefirst to have attemptedto impose, at the cost of real subjective andobjectivedifficulties, the conscious andradicalaffirmationof the almightinessof the creativegaze, capable of being applied not only(throughsimple inversion)to lowly and vulgarobjects as was the aim of Champfleury'sandCourbet's realism, but also to insignificantobjects before which the "creator" is able toassert his quasi-divine power of transmutation."Ecrire bien le mediocre." This Flaubertianformula,which also holds forManet, lays downthe autonomy of form in relation to subjectmatter,simultaneouslyassigningits fundamen-tal norm to cultured perception.Attributionofartisticstatusis, among philosophers,the mostgenerallyaccepteddefinition of aesthetic judg-ment, and, as could be proven empirically,there s no culturedperson today(which means,by scholastic canons, no one possessing ad-vanced academicdegrees) who does not knowthatany reality, a rope, a pebble, a rag peddler,can be the subjectof a work of art. 5 Who doesnotknow, at the very least, that it is wise to saythat such is the case, as an avant-gardepainter,an expert in the art of confounding the newaesthetic doxa, made me observe. In fact, inorderto awaken today's aesthetewhose artisticgood will knows no limit, and to re-evoke inhim artisticand even philosophicalwonder,onemust apply a shock treatment to him a laDuchampor a la Warhol, who, by exhibitingthe ordinaryobject as it is, manage to prod insome way the creative almightiness that thepure aesthetic disposition (without much con-sideration)confersuponthe artistas he has beendefined since Manet.

The second reason for this introspectiveandcriticalreturnof artuntoitself is the fact that,asthefield closes uponitself, thepracticalmasteryof the specific knowledge-which is inscribedin past works, recorded, codified, and canon-ized by an entirebodyof professionalexpertsinconservationand celebration,along with liter-aryand arthistorians,exegists, and analysts-becomes a partof the conditionsof access intothe field of production. The result is that,contrary o what is taughtby a naiverelativism,the time of arthistoryis really irreversibleandthatit presentsa formof cumulativeness.Noth-ing is more closely linkedto the specific pastof

the field, including subversive intention-itselflinked to a stateof the field-than avant-gardeartists who, at the risk of appearing to be"naive" (in the manner of Rousseau or ofBrisset) must inevitably situate themselves inrelationto all the precedingattemptsat surpass-ing which have occurred in the history of thefield and within the space of possibilities whichit imposes upon the newly arrived.What hap-pens in the field is moreand more linked to thefield's specific history and to it alone. It isthereforemore and more difficult to deduce itfrom the state of the general social worldat thegiven time (as a certain"sociology," unawareof the specific logic of the field, claims to do).Adequate perception of works-which likeWarhol's Brillo Boxes or Klein's monochro-maticpaintings,owe theirformalpropertiesandtheir value only to the structure f the field andthusto its history-is a differential,a diacriticalperception:in other words, it is attentive todeviations from other works, both contempo-raryandpast. The result s that, like production,the consumptionof works which are a productof a long history of breaks with history, withtradition, tends to become historical throughand through, and yet more and more totallydehistoricized. In fact, the history that deci-phering and appreciation practically put intoplay is graduallyreducedto a pure history offorms, completely eclipsing the social historyof the strugglesfor forms which is the life andmovementof the artistic field.This also resolves the apparentlyinsolubleproblemthat formalistaesthetics(which wishesto consideronly form in the receptionas well asthe productionof art) presents as a true chal-lenge to sociological analysis. In effect, theworks that stem from a pure concern for formseem destined to establish theexclusive validityof internal reading which heeds only formalproperties,and to frustrateor discredit all at-tempts at reducing them to a social contextagainst which they were set up. And yet, inorderto reverse the situation,it suffices to notethat the formalist ambition's objection to alltypes of historicizationrestsuponthe unaware-ness of its own social conditions of possibility.The same is true of a philosophical aestheticswhich recordsand ratifies this ambition.Whatis forgotten in both cases is the historicalprocess throughwhich the social conditionsof



10/11

TheHistorical Genesis of a Pure Aesthetic 209freedom from regard to "external determi-nations" get established;that is, the processofestablishingthe relatively autonomousfield ofproduction and with it the realm of pure aes-thetics or pure thought whose existence itmakes possible.

1 A. Danto, "The Artworld," Journal of Philosophy61 (1964): 571-84; G. Dickie, Art and the Aesthetic(CornellUniversity Press, 1974).2 See PierreBourdieu, "The Philosophical Establish-ment," in A. Montefiore, ed., Philosophyin France Today(CambridgeUniversity Press, 1983), pp. 1-8.3 See P. Bourdieu, "L'ontologie politique de MartinHeidegger," Actes de la rechercheen sciences sociales 5-6(November 1975): 183-90 (and Die politische Ontologie

MartinHeideggers [Frankfort,1976]).' One should show, following the same logic, howNietzsche furnishedFoucaultwith "screening" concepts. (Iam thinking, for example, of the notion of genealogyfunctioningas a euphemistic substitute for social history.)These conceptshave allowed Foucault o accept, by way ofdenial, modes of thinkingwhich are typical of a geneticsociology, and to generate acceptance for them. He thusrenouncesthe plebian methods of the social sciences, butwithoutforfeitingthem.5 I have demonstrated lsewhere, aproposan analysisby Derridaof Kant's Critique of Judgment,how and why"deconstruction" goes only halfway. (See P. Bourdieu,"Postscript: Towards a 'Vulgar' Critique of 'PureCritiques'," in Distinction [Harvard University Press,1984], pp. 494-98.)

6 Without calling forth all the definitions which aremerely variants of Kantiananalysis (such as Strawson'sview that the function of the work of art is to have nofunction, see "Aesthetic Appraisaland Works of Art," inFreedomandResentment London,19741, pp. 178-88), onecould simply recall an ideally typical example of theessentialistconstitutionof the aestheticthroughan enumer-ation of the traits which characterize an aesthetic experi-ence, which is nevertheless very clearly situated withinsocial space andhistorical ime. Such an exampleis HaroldOsborne, for whom the aestheticattitude s typified by thefollowing:a concentration f attention it separates-framesapart-the perceived object from its environment), bysuspendingdiscursive andanalyticalactivities(it disregardssociologicaland historicalcontext), impartiality nd detach-ment (it separates past and future preoccupations), andindifference towards the existence of the object. See H.Osborne,TheArtof Appreciation OxfordUniversityPress,1970).

7On the disconcertment,even confusion, which thelack of minimal masteryof the instrumentsof perceptionand of appreciation in particularabels and references ikenames of genres, of schools, of periods, artists, etc.) visitsupon the culturally deprived museum-goers, see P.Bourdieu and A. Barbel, L'Amourde tart, Les museesd'art europeenset leur public (Paris, 1966); P. Bourdieu,"Elements d'une theorie sociologique de la perceptionartistique,"Revue internationaledes sciences sociales 20,no. 4 (1968): 640-64. See also Danto, 'The Artworld."

8 The concept of habitus, a dispositional "structuredstructuringstructure" is elaboratedat great length in P.Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (CambridgeUniversityPress, 1977), and in Distinction.9 Sociological analysis allows one to escape thedichotomouschoice betweensubjectivismandobjectivism,and to reject the subjectivism of theories of aestheticconsciousness (aesthetisches Bewusstsein). Such theoriesreducethe aestheticqualityof a natural hingor of a humanwork to a simple correlate of a deliberate attitude ofconsciousness, an attitudewhich, as it confronts the thing,is actuallyneithertheoreticalnorpracticalbutratherpurelycontemplative.Sociological analysis rejects these theorieswithoutfalling, as does the Gadamerof Truthand Method,into an ontology of the work of art.10 See R. Shusterman, 'Wittgenstein and CriticalReasoning," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research47 (1986): 91-1 10." An acute awarenessof the situation in which he ispositioned could lead the analyst to rather nsurmountable"aporia ." Especiallysince even the most neutral anguageappears nevitably-as soon as naivereadingmakes it a partof the social game-as a standwithinthe very debate whichhe is only trying to objectify. Thus, for example, even ifone replaced an indigenous word such as 'province," aword which is too charged with pejorativeconnotations,with a more neutralconcept such as periphery, then theopposition between the center and the periphery which isusedto analyzetheeffects of symbolic dominationbecomesa stake in the struggle within the field that is beinganalyzed. Forexample, on the one hand there is the wish ofthe "centrists" to describethepositionstakenby those whooccupy the peripheral ites as an effect of a delay, and onthe otherhand the resistance of the "peripherists"againsttheirlowered status implied in this classification, and theireffort to convert a peripheralposition into a centralone orat least to make of it a willed gap. The example of Avignonillustrates he fact thatthe artistcannotproducehimself assuch-here as an alternativecapableof effectively compet-ing for the dominantposition-unless he does so in rela-tionship with his clients. (See E. Castelnuovo and C.Ginsburg, "Domination symbolique et geographicartistiquedans I'histoire del'italian art," in Actes de larecherche en sciences sociales 40 [November 1981]:51-73.)12 See Bourdieu,Distinction, p. 194.13 In other words, in proposingan essentialist defini-tion of thejudgmentof taste or in granting he universalityrequiredby a definitionwhich (like Kant'sdefinition)is inaccord with his own ethic-behavioral dispositions, thephilosopherdistances himself less than he imagines fromordinarymodes of thinkingandfrom the propensity owardmakingthe relativeabsolutewhich typifies them.14 Contrary to the dominant representation whichclaims that by relating each manifestationof taste to itssocial conditions of productionsociological analysis re-duces and relativizes the practices and representationsinvolved, one could claim that sociological analysis doesnot in fact reduce and relativizethese practices, but ratherremoves them from arbitrariness nd absolutizes them by

makingthem bothnecessaryanduniqueandthus ustifiedinexisting as they exist. One could in fact posit that twopeople whose habitusare differentand who have not been



11/11

210 B O U R D I E Uexposed to the same conditions and stimulations(becausetheyconstruct hemdifferently)do not hear the same musicand do not see the same paintings and cannot, therefore,arriveat the same judgmentof value.

15 See Bourdieu, Distinction, pp. 34-41.The author and guest editor gratefully acknowledgeChannaNewman's work in translating his text.

the historical genesis of a pure aesthetic

Documents