Selected Musical Compositions—Adriaan Daniel Fokker (1948–1972) by Rudolf Rasch (review)

the fundamental importance of visual dynamics.The arrowquality of triangular shapes and configurations enlivens the design. The compositional principle of the three forces (6shaka) combines the vertical forces (heaven) and the horizontal forces (earth) with the diagonal forces (humanity) in a thoroughly dynamicmanner. This example points to the inseparable bond between visible shape and meaning, of which I will give another illustration.There is a traditional pairing of two differentlyshaped rocks, the turtle rock, which is flat and round, and the crane rock, which is steep andjagged. At a first approach, the two highly abstract shapes combine to form the dynamic theme of rising from a low base to a peak-a motion in space,which has also a temporal connotation. The flat rock standsfor an ancient, eroded mountain , the peaked rock for a newly formed one, so that together they tell of the eternal flow of time. This metaphoric meaning is brought home to the viewer who knows turtle and crane as symbols of immortality. For the landscape architect of today the connection between the expressive shape of rocks and philosophical concepts like immortalityis all but infeasible;but a principal virtue of Slawson’sbook is that he tries throughout to open the rich tradition and high standard of Asian practice and thought to the makers of their own gardens, For students caught in the routine of technicalities and purely formal instruction I cannot think of a more inspiring antidote than this most readable and beautifully illustrated treatise. ART AND CONCEPT: A PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY by Lucian Krukowski. University of MassachusettsPress, Amherst, MA, U.S.A., 1987. 127pp. $20.00. ISBN: M7023563X. Re0iewi.d bJElmer H. Duncan, DLpartm a t OfPhilosophy,Baylur University, Waco, TX 76798, U.S.A. Lucian Krukowski is an artist, a working painter, who came late to philosophy . As one might expect, he is creative . The reader does not feel that he is simply retelling old tales or rehears ing old theories. This background book is not easy reading; he does not say those things that philosophers usually say in the way they usually say them. B y ‘artand concept’, Krukowski intends artworks and the theories used to explain and evaluate them. Unlike George Dickie, Krukowski refuses to talk about art as ‘value-free’.He is especiallyinterested in the ‘avantgarde ’, because this type of art is so often ‘theory-laden’.It is caught up in questions such as ‘Whatis art?’and ‘Canjust anything become art?’ It is perhaps surprising that Krukowski,a writer interested in modern art, begins his book with a chap ter on Hegel, followedby a chapter on Kant. A reason given is that Hegel also saw art as related to theory, to social concerns and even to the area of the spirit. Prior to Kant, most work on art and what is now called aesthetics was concerned with taste and evaluation , i.e. the role of the aesthetic consumer . One finds that in Kant, too, but when Kant wrote about the sub lime and about genius there was a sub tle shift to the discussion of the creative process. Krukowski devotesa later chapter to an involved discussion of Adorno’s music theory. Adorno saw music as concerned with criticism. But how could music do that? Or could it? In the last third ofthe book, the author turns to subjectsthat philosophers -especially readers of Dickie, Danto and Margolis-will find more familiar,e.g. ‘Whatis art’ and ‘How does something become art?’But, again, Krukowski is not content simply to rehearse old theories. He asks the unfamiliar question ‘Can something ceaseto be art?’And how would that be possible?He makes a novel suggestion:“I hold that ‘being art’ is not a natural kind of being, like being human; it is rather a conventional kind, like being a citizen” (p. 62). He goes on to say that no matter what inhuman things we may do, we cannot cease to be human. But we can cease to be citizens,o r husbands, o r teachers. How can something cease to be art?The suggestionmade is that art is, after all, related to ethics.A movie, for example, ceases to be simply a subject of aesthetic a...