Do works of art exist?

This week, we are talking about the Constitution View, the idea that a thing such as a famous statue can be constituted by, but not identical to, the material that makes it up. Those are fancy words for saying the statue and its stuff are two different things existing at the same place at the same time. That sounds crazy, but it is the result of some very common sense views. My take-away from this is that these common sense views should be revised.

Consider a famous painting, Whistler’s “Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Cremorne Lights.”

Imagine the moment before he begins to work on it. Whistler stands there with his materials. What of the painting exists at this moment? Surely just the canvas and the oils. Now the artist applies the first stroke. We don’t have a painting yet. But, do we even have a new thing that has come into existence? Plausibly, we have the same stuff, only some of the oil has been spread onto the canvas. Nothing new exists, but some stuff has been moved around.

Now imagine the artist continue to work. A second stroke does no more than the first. Nor does a third. The only thing that happens is that more oil is spread over the canvas. Continue to imagine him work until he is nearly finished. One stroke left. Each stroke has done the exact same thing (if you are familiar with the philosophical problem of vagueness, this argument is distinct in that I’m not concerned with the quantity of strokes that make a painting). What happens with the next stroke? Does it bring some new thing into existence? It certainly seems like it has done no more than the former strokes. There is no magical life-giving power in it. To my mind, I can’t see that it would do any more than the former strokes: spread oil over canvas.

Notice, however, there is something repugnant about what I have said. If the only thing that exists is oil and canvas, then I could have spread the oil over that canvas instead of Whistler and it would have been identical. However, we love Whistler’s work and no one would love my work except my mom. Further, we think anyone who comes afterWhistler and puts oil on canvas in the same way has violated his intellectual property. Finally, we don’t think there’s anything special about that specific oil and that specific canvas. Were Whistler to have done the same using different oils and canvas, we might say it would be the same painting.

Unfortunately, it’s not just paintings and statues that share this problem. Songs, dances, plays, books, and movies seem to be even more difficult to explain. Rarely do we care about original copies of these, and in the case of dances we rarely have access to original copies. How do we make sense of this? Do we have to give up belief in all things we hold dear? Next week, I’d like to explore this a little more, but what do you think?