If formality in serious art is a metaphor, then what it does
it represent; what is it a metaphor for? There are no easy answers to this
question; aesthetes may say that Beauty should signify only Beauty, and end in
itself; but there is a deeper truth and mystery hidden in serious artistic
formality. What the most rigorous forms in serious art represent, or are a
metaphor for, is a sense of reciprocity between the highest and lowest levels
of our mind; in Kantian terms, Sensibility and Reason (skipping, in this
context, Understanding). For Sensibility and Reason to achieve some semblance
of harmonious integration, what is tactile must be expressive of empirically
provable principles. Thus, the John Keats Ricochet Effect we have discussed
demonstrates that when language is carried through to its ultimate sense of
musicality, a sense of shuddering resonance inheres for some readers which
produces not only visceral pleasure but extreme intellectual engagement; again,
the harmonious integration of Sensibility and Reason. Understanding or logic,
which mediates the middle turf, helps us categorize the serious formality of
Keats’ language from effect to effect, passage to passage, line to line. The
effect of sublimity, created by Keats’ Ricochet Effect, situates consciousness
as part of a larger whole, harmoniously integrated into other universes,
including language universes. We see, also, in a chiasmus, how Reason can be
situated within Sensibility and Sensibility within Reason; that integration and
interpenetration of separate cognitive spheres can be activated by serious
formality in art. These resonances, when created the right way, are the loudest
noise that human artistic productions are capable of, and why the overall
effect of twentieth century art, which was comparatively formless, is a School of Quietude.
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