A SET OF IDEAS IN TWELVE POINTS
ON THE APPRECIATION OF ART
TO HELP US DIFFERENTIATE IT FROM THAT WHICH IS 
MORE CRAFTED IN ITS ORIENTATION
AND THEREIN TO ASSIST US IN OUR OBJECTIVE RECOGNITION
AS TO WHAT IS AESTHETIC
BOTH IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

1.	Treat a potential work of art, or object-state, that is to be subjected to an act of aesthetic reflection as a field of experience and re-perceive the same in a certain spatio-temporal mode of cognitive awareness that is orientated towards either a realistic, literal or metaphorical interpretation.

E.g., a landscape painting with some form of spatial-like depth perceived and re-constructed in the imagination in and through a sequence of eye-movements.
E.g., a novel that temporally unfolds itself event by event, page by page.
E.g., a piece of music sequentially received and interpreted, consciously or unconsciously, with a spatiality that suggests an up or down, a sense of fastness or slowness, etc., and therein a basis for the induction of a sentically analogued emotionality.

2.	Treat the common or general nature, or the pre-resolutional flavour, of this field of experience as an overall background with the introduction of those prominent features contrasted therein being treated instead as relatively dissonant in their initial mode of superficial non-conformity.

*
:
:
:
...................
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* = relevant dissonant area of projected focalization in the field of experience under review.
& = relative consonant background.

3.	Treat the relationship between the background consonance and the foreground dissonance as in a  state of ongoing resolution equal to the aesthetic impact of the object-state being reviewed in the act of aesthetic reflection.

4.	Assume that others, as an audience, are led by the artist's expert crafting and richness of aesthetic ideas to perceive this field of experience in a fundamentally  similar fashion through harmonic provocation and resolution, and, that therefore they too can go through the same form of careful inspection; witness the same gut intuition in the reception and discovery of its aesthetic merit.

5.	Hence the artist must clearly and essentially establish...

		i.	a relative background of consonance,
		ii.	that which is relatively dissonant to i),
		iii.	establish an ongoing and successful 					resolution between i) and ii).

6.	Hence the artist must establish these structures and functions, thence the need for the adequate presentation of essential aesthetic material.

E.g., in drawing a face a certain shape is established but not its every blemish or pimple, etc.
E.g., in drawing a tree it is not necessary to indicate its every leaf.

7.	Realize that artistic merit is a state of judgment which implies...

		i.	adequate preparation in order to comprehend 				the form of the artwork, i.e., our seeing and 			thinking about it first,
		ii.	the spontaneity of the judgmental act demands 			that we must also detach ourselves from mere 				seeing and thinking about it,
		iii.	realize that judgment transcends a balance of 			seeing and thinking, and, as a result imparts 			a feeling of impact or otherwise, which we 				can ascribe to the work of art as intrinsic 				to it when we aesthetically reflect upon it.

8.	Realize that as judgment transcends seeing and thinking (and their balance) it must be given its own transcendental-relational language as distinct from that which follows states of seeing and conceptual thinking - hence such terms, e.g., as impact, power, influence, dynamic balance, equilibrium, integration, dissonance, consonance, resolution, harmony, freshness, originality, richness, influence, etc.

9.	Realize that...

		i.	too much consonance is static and boring and 				leads to a lose of interest,
		ii.	too much dissonance psychically tears the 				artwork to pieces, disrupts our 						concentration and as a consequence is more 				difficult to entertain,
		iii.	that too little resolution places us back 				with either i) or ii).
		iv.	hence the need for an ongoing balance 					between i) and  ii) in order to establish a 				successful degree of harmony.

10.	Realize that art is an illusion through simulation (whether its content is representative or metaphorical in orientation) with, on one hand, an illusion of reality (whether representative and/or metaphorical) and, on the other hand, the presentation of the reality of that illusion; that successful art establishes a balance between these two aspects (of the cognitive-phenomenal and the judgmental-transcendental) forcing us to transcendentally experience the artfulness of that work of art when it possesses aesthetic merit.

E.g., people in an audience to a play that simulates very skillfully acts of murder, etc., as a rule are not found either hiding under their seats, or leaving the theatre, or attempting to stop the same by placing themselves on the stage in such a manner as to prevent the execution of such behaviour, etc. On the other hand the experience of the illusion of the reality of the drama as it unfolds can exert a physiological alteration in bodily self-perception as if the enacted phenomena were being treated at face value. This tension between the reality of the illusion and the illusion of reality being also enjoyed from a transcendental perspective. Hence, e.g., people's paradoxical enjoyment, in part, of tragedy, horror movies, etc.

11.	Realize that reflection as an act involves a change in consciousness both in kind and in degree, and, that good art returns a dividend above and beyond the psychic energy invested in it in the first place; producing a chain-like reaction that more easily absorbs and fixes our attention (in its healthy re-integration of the psyche).

12.	Realize that art indicates its status, more often than not, by its inclusion in some complex form of spatio-temporal frame or aura. 

E.g., a picture frame, a statue's pedestal, a moment of silence before the performance of a piece of music, the title of a poem, etc. However, note that the aesthetic merit of the artwork is dependent upon its aesthetic content, i.e., the resolution and integration of cognitive and/or non-cognitive dissonance with its associated cognitive/non-cognitive consonant background.