ABSTRACT
The fact that art was and is still linked to a moral idea consolidates the historical belief in its ability to determine (re)actions from the propositions it destinates to the public. Art, especially in the modern and contemporary period, would have a unique strength to affect the viewer according to a mechanism of “enjoyment” (Jauss) which would ensure how, when I see, I would understand in this when I look at a motivation to act in the world to answer to a moral injunction present in the work. To investigate this belief, which concerns, in a first moment, the understanding of the work ofmany artists, Hans-Robert Jauss provides decisive arguments. Giorgio Agamben’s analyses of the function of the ancient “liturgy” are fundamental, too, to identify with more intensity what is at stake in this belief in the possibility that the works have a mobilizing moral effect on those who receive them. However, it is up to Jacques Rancière to question whether the aesthetical “enjoyment”provided by the liturgy truly triggers the spectator a motivation to act.
Keywords:
art; enjoyment; (re)action; Jauss; Rancière; Agamben