ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the analytical focus shifts to consider the distinctive human practice of art – the skilled practice of giving shareable form to our aesthetic experience. The spotlight falls on the “betweenness” of aesthetic experience, and William Desmond’s concept of the metaxological (from the Latin metaxu, meaning “between”). Art is not something to be merely understood, thought or known (the space of “perplexity”); rather, it unfolds between knowing and not knowing, and through experiences of lack, excess, and emergence (the space of “astonishment”). Addressing the metaxological practices required for art I theorise imaginative play as our lived experience of bringing “the not” into (constellational) relation with that which “is”. A pivotal connection is also made with Donald Winnicott’s object relations theory. The chapter highlights the co-existence, but also the tension that exists between, astonishment and perplexity – a tension that strongly characterises aesthetics and the philosophy of art.
