why at all?

Why do I respond at all? 

I sit here in my studio looking over at the Makita drill case. It is blue. It has form. It has lines. But I am not inspired. I am not aroused. The small statues in the Opera Bastille by  the artist Yves Cline, they too, are blue. They have form. They have lines. But they are exalting. What is it that separates the one blue form from the other? Why do I respond intensely to one but not to the other?

These are questions put before us by theorists and philosophers and artists. For Kant, it was a matter of knowledge, feeling and desire. 

In the article by Vischer, a post-Kantian, brings in the sensual with the formal aesthetics. He brings the drive for unity of idea and and emotion. He brings into thought the combination of "immediate feeling" and a kinesthetic 'responsive feeling'...between a sensory and kinesthetic empathy." Vischer expounds on these ideas in how we feel about what we see. The physical use of our eyes, scanning the images, caressing the images with our retinas as we would with our hands. The perception of what we are looking at is taken in both mentally and physically. The sensation is both immediate and responsive. The kinesthetic stimulus always leads to the idea. These ideas can be brought about by dreams as well as the imagination. We respond with an empathetic sensation.

Drill case or Yves Kline statues? I will see to satisfy my need for pleasure and go with Kline's cobalt blue goddesses.

ns