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Special Section: Rethinking Visual Pleasure

Aesthetics and Affect

University of New South Wales, s.best{at}unsw.edu.au

My concern in this article is with how Silvan Tomkins' theory of affects might help us to think about the affective response to art. For my purposes, there are two aspects of his account of affects that are particularly useful. First, Tomkins does not presume that there is a proper object of affect; hence the love of art is not automatically or necessarily about the diversion of libido or the investment of libidinal energy. The second significant factor in Tomkins' account of affects is the way in which he separates and yet entwines the drives, affects and cognition. It is this model of the embodied, feeling, thinking subject which promises to reach what most people seek or expect from the experience of art.

Key Words: aesthetics • art theory • interest and excitement • Tomkins

Theory & Psychology, Vol. 17, No. 4, 505-514 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0959354307079295


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