ABSTRACT
Artistic activity has always been a major part of human society. Yet since its beginnings in classical Greece, the theory of the arts has not always reflected that activity nor has it responded easily to changes in the objects and functions that constitute the realm of the arts. Theory properly comes after the fact, yet the history of aesthetics2 has displayed an unfitting hubris at times, with theorists attempting to legislate to the artist the acceptable forms, style, and materials of art and to prescribe to the appreciator the proper ways of experiencing it. Thus aesthetics has often straggled far behind the living edge of artistic activity and experience and talked of it in a language of archaisms.
