[Fis] Art as human practice

[Mark Johnson]

Dear Katherine, Francesco, all,

If the discussion about art turns to the question of emotion, then it must
further turn to the question of emotion and logic.

I would suggest that the artist's intuition which drives the creative
labour to find form and expression is driven by a "logic" which does not
work in the way we conventionally reason.

It's not just that "the heart has its reasons that the reason cannot
perceive" (and don't we on FIS give it a good try!🤣). It is that Hume's
"secret springs of the universe" work in a way which we cannot fit into a
conventional logical scheme but which are coherent, and whose coherence
finds expression if the artist does their job well. But our logical schemes
(from Aristotle to Spencer Brown, Luhmann, etc) are deficient in
apprehending this. There are plenty of artless logical descriptions of art
to demonstrate this. We need instead an existential logic...

We may respond to the coherence of art with feeling, but the feeling is an
epiphenomenon. Scholars like Panksepp and his giggling rats tell us
something about the emotion and cognition. But it mistakes the
epiphenomenon for the mechanism. The giggles are "assenting" to something.
What? Why?

If we could imagine at the moment of our death what art and logic and
emotion are all about, and thought backwards from that moment to the
creative moments of living, we would have a better chance of apprehending
an existential logic. What would we see? It's a pattern of assent - a giant
"yes!". I don't think that's an emotion. It's more like a movement.

Best wishes

Mark


Dr. Mark William Johnson
Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health
University of Manchester

Department of Science Education
University of Copenhagen

Department of Eye and Vision Science (honorary)
University of Liverpool
Phone: 07786 064505
Email: johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com
Blog: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VxO1fzqrt33fEhVguijWuQ6yjcfDURMHwUy3bP5IXhO2kWkQAVjGL_4usEK-oK_p9qPMRHPaoq43xubDEWt_1ks$ 

On Wed, 14 Jan 2026, 11:32 Francesco Rizzo, <13francesco.rizzo at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Caro Mark,
> non v'è niente che non sia causa o effetto di *emo-ra-zionalità*: quindi
> non solo *emozionalità* da sola o *razionalità* da sola.
> Con grande rispetto.
> Francesco
>
> Il giorno mer 14 gen 2026 alle ore 10:06 Mark Johnson <
> johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I wonder if we confuse art artefacts (and the feelings they produce in
>> us) from the practice that produces them. Art is a labour intensive
>> business. Indeed, it may be the epitome of "work" if Arendt's distinction
>> between work and labour holds up.
>>
>> So while I am sympathetic to the relationship between emotion and art
>> (particularly as was beautifully described by Suzanne Langer's view of
>> music as a "picture" of emotion), there remain explanatory problems if we
>> are to distinguish human art from natural processes that produce things
>> which appear beautiful to us.
>>
>> Animals certainly have emotion, but they don't have artistic practice in
>> the way we do. Even the Lascaux pictures had to have been rehearsed and
>> practiced (maybe using primitive technology -
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/atxurra-cave-art-experimental-archaeology__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VxO1fzqrt33fEhVguijWuQ6yjcfDURMHwUy3bP5IXhO2kWkQAVjGL_4usEK-oK_p9qPMRHPaoq43xubDqC0XbT4$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/atxurra-cave-art-experimental-archaeology__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!R_26-avMi9x22ING-WIFmusZlmTP8hzMs-p1hsl-3hIGe9TyyvxLi2fPYuCRg9ohDzF4BD-dNRsJoKK04zr4JRA$>).
>> The skill of execution had to be gained, and that requires focus and
>> determination in learning and intention. While emotion plays a role, as it
>> does in all conscious existence, there is something which drives the
>> acquisition of skill, the construction of form, and the execution of intent
>> which may result in something that evinces an emotion, but whose
>> construction is not as emotional as one might suppose. Indeed emotion can
>> get in the way. It cannot be emotion that drives this acquisition of skill,
>> but insight and foresight into the effects of artistic execution.
>>
>> The prerequisite of such insight and foresight perhaps includes shared
>> physiology and a shared environment. But perhaps Bucky Fuller hit on
>> something when discussion his creative process - "I didn't set out to
>> create a geodesic dome. I set out to discover the operative principles of
>> the universe".
>>
>> When Mozart expresses the view that “The whole, though it be long, stands
>> almost finished and complete in my mind… I do not hear it successively, but
>> all at once.” (a letter to Rochlitz in 1789), I suspect that there is a
>> deep connection between Bucky Fuller's observation and Mozart, who must
>> also have known something about the principles of the universe.
>>
>> And its important to say, such insight is culturally universal, and
>> unites vastly different artistic practices across different cultures. The
>> fundamental challenge to Paul Suni is that all humans inhabit the same
>> universe.
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>> Mark
>>
>>
>> Dr. Mark William Johnson
>> Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health
>> University of Manchester
>>
>> Department of Science Education
>> University of Copenhagen
>>
>> Department of Eye and Vision Science (honorary)
>> University of Liverpool
>> Phone: 07786 064505
>> Email: johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com
>> Blog: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VxO1fzqrt33fEhVguijWuQ6yjcfDURMHwUy3bP5IXhO2kWkQAVjGL_4usEK-oK_p9qPMRHPaoq43xubDEWt_1ks$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!R_26-avMi9x22ING-WIFmusZlmTP8hzMs-p1hsl-3hIGe9TyyvxLi2fPYuCRg9ohDzF4BD-dNRsJoKK0aYQdpIc$>
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