Making sense in art lessons

Meaning in the arts has been explained in terms of the 'linguistic/cognitiv e' metaphor, that is as a product of a framework of conventions, rules and symbols, of shared conceptualisations with a clearly defined 'conceptual sp ace.' Sense in a work of art is dependent upon this framework and only by c onventionalising pupils into it will they be able to communicate meaning. T he problem is that the arts take their audience beyond the framework, beyon d the boundaries of sense. The question then becomes how the arts continue to have meaning, paradoxically, to continue to make sense even though they have exceeded its boundaries. The solution to this problem, it is argued, l ies in the way that the arts appeal directly to out uniquely human ability to reflect on commonly experienced feelings and to consequently transcend p articular frameworks of meaning. Rather than meaning being subject to frame works within which experience and artistic intention are seen to be made po ssible, I argue that experience has an autonomous presence in art, a presen ce that enables meaning to be communicated with spontaneity and immediacy.