Sean Murphy, Southern Utah University :: On Being Understood by Art
Friday April 11, 2025

Abstract: We know this can happen. We encounter a painting, hear a song, read (and re-read) a passage, and in each case what we have encountered, what we have made contact with, seems as if it were made for us and us alone. This is about me. Yet no sooner are we giving in to this thought than are we pulling back from it. With Carly Simon echoing in our ears, we wonder: isn’t it vain to think this is about me? Say she’s right. Who cares? Is it really so bad to be a little vain in one’s aesthetic life? This paper illuminates and defends an acceptable form of aesthetic vanity, or the experience of thinking an artwork is about you. To do so, I attend to what I call the individualizing power of artworks, which I argue is their capacity to facilitate the exploration and discovery of our individuality. Set against this backdrop, aesthetic vanity becomes an important aspect of an expressionist view of aesthetic flourishing according to which aesthetic engagement helps a life go well by serving as a unique vehicle of self-clarification and self-understanding.