







































Communication, Society and Media 
ISSN 2576-5388 (Print) ISSN 2576-5396 (Online) 

Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018 
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 

160 
 

Original Paper 

CFI: A Working Hypothesis 
Roberto Gigliucci1* 

1 Sapienza University, Department of Studi Greco-latini, Italiani e Scenico-Musicali, Rome, Italy 
* Roberto Gigliucci, Sapienza University, Department of Studi Greco-latini, Italiani e Scenico-Musicali, 

Rome, Italy 

 

Received: November 2, 2018   Accepted: November 14, 2018   Online Published: November 28, 2018 

doi:10.22158/csm.v1n2p160                     URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n2p160 

 
Abstract 
Aim of this research’s draft is to understand the place and meaning of the arts in the human frame and 

society. The main hypothesis is that the role of the arts consists above all in producing objects of 

interpretation. This is not only a “role”; actually, it is an identity and a meaning. Artworks are tools to be 

interpreted, meaningful structures that live only to be understood. The rule of the game is that the 

artwork must be per se significant (even when representing the senselessness of the world). Thus, the 

artwork activates inevitably a Call for Interpretation (CFI), which is the fulfillment of its identity. The 

essay explores the fields of music/poetry and of cave arts, to get a preliminary setting of the scientific 

proposal. 

Keywords 
aesthetics, system of arts, interpretation, music and poetry, cave art 
 
1. Introduction 

Aim of this research’s draft is to understand the place and meaning of the arts in the human frame and 

society. The main hypothesis is that the role of the arts consists above all in producing objects of 

interpretation. This is not only a “role”; actually, it is an identity and a meaning. Artworks are tools to be 

interpreted, meaningful structures that live only to be understood. The rule of the game is that the artwork 

must be per se significant (even when representing the senselessness of the world). Thus the artwork 

activates inevitably a call for interpretation (henceforward CFI), which is the fulfillment of its identity, 

its entelechia. Arts are created by humankind for humankind; they do not anyway transcend the secular 

dimension—even though it might seem like so—and they have a certain function within the community 

life. Their function is to provide meaningful structures in a world that does not guarantee a meaning. 

Consequently, the aesthetic pleasure must be reconsidered as an enthusiasm arising during the process of 

having the sense of the artwork. Grasping a meaning is coexistent with the aesthetic emotion. They are 



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the same thing. How to demonstrate this assumption? 

We want proceed towards two main goals: 

1) Defining the meaning of music 

2) Understanding the function of the prehistoric cave pictures 

Why these two fields? Because: 

1) concerns the birth of the artistic production by humankind (artistic, not merely “aesthetic”), as to say 

the origins of every discussion about the identity of arts; and 2) singles music out because the debate on 

meaning in music (particularly about absolute music) has been crucial through centuries to understand 

the meaning of an artwork tout court. The demarcation of these boundaries we deem suitable for the 

deepening of the matter and the approaching the result of a hypothetical-deductive itinerary. Why 

working hard in such an abstract realm? Because within the human society, the place of the arts is not an 

abstract place, but a terribly concrete field for challenges. 

 

2. Method 

2.1 Preliminaries 

Which is the function of art (arts) in human society? We start from that question. Let us declare 

immediately that we have an answer. The explanation and verification of this answer will be the goal of 

the proposed research. It is evident, therefore, that the development of our inquiry will be formally 

“hypothetical-deductive”. Nevertheless, we shall avoid every preconception (not pre-comprehension) 

and every ad hoc procedure, obviously. 

2.2 What We Want 

The ambition of our inquiry will be gaining a theory of everything in the aesthetic realm. A paradigm that 

may be applicable to any artistic production of any time. 

2.3 Importance of the Proposal 

Before summing up the working hypothesis, few words about the very consequence of this research. 

Theories about the meaning and purpose of art have been following one another through the Centuries. It 

is a contradictory historical frame, never ending until nowadays. Unfortunately, most of these theories 

are not always appropriate to all artistic forms. Furthermore, some classical paradigms—as the mimesis 

theory—blew up during the late modernity. Kinds of conceptual art overturned previous certainties. 

Historical fault lines annihilated or conversely unearthed past models. Not to talk about the idea of beauty: 

exalted, violated and “enlarged” or “enriched” in many ways. Thus, the suspect of the implausibility of 

an aesthetic science arises. Moreover, the brutal suspect of a needlessness of art as well. The latter 

suspect is a real danger. Artistic productions have been realized by humankind since Prehistoric ages. 

That is a sufficient supporting document to erase suspects such as the above mentioned. The artistic 

productions are made by men for men; they are part of the activity of human community. They are not 



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absolute. Therefore, they have a precise relevance for all of us. And consistently they are suitable object 

of scientific inquiry. This said we might deem truly important the search for an overall meaning of the 

Arts. Meaning and function, within the non-absoluteness of our life, are inseparable. Therefore, 

henceforward, when we talk about meaning we involve also function, and vice-versa. 

2.4 First Provisional Conclusion 

Finding the meaning of Art entails finding a relevant part of our identity. It is impossible to ignore it. On 

the other hand, the increasingly reduction of separateness between humanistic and hard sciences offers an 

additional motivation for such a research as our one. Then we must understand the function of the artistic 

production in our world. And we believe that without an interpretative model available for Art itself (not 

only for single forms, genres, “techniques”), we could not get to substantial results. 

2.5 Working Hypothesis 

We just said to have an answer to propose an answer to the demand about a scientific definition of art. We 

think that the fact of the interpretation is not simply one of the phenomena related to the so-called fruition 

of artistic objects. We are firmly persuaded that the interpretation has a role unique to define the sense of 

Art. Interpretation is the identity’s structure of the artwork, of its function. That is not a variation on 

hermeneutics. The thinking line from Schleiermacher to Gadamer and beyond is undoubtedly very 

precious for our work. However, our work operates in a further space, perhaps more radical, perhaps very 

different. Therefore, we shall use the term interpretation and never the heavy word hermeneutics. We 

want to move the interpretation back to the origin of the artistic function and history. In a nutshell: we 

think that every artwork, as such, activates a Call for Interpretation (CFI), destined for every human 

being, and in this way the artwork fulfils its own role in the society. Naturally, there is no transcendent 

call; nobody is calling from a metaphysical realm. The artwork is a tool made for the community by an 

author (willing or unaware he be), and the sense of this creation is just activating a CFI. The 

reader/spectator/listener, etc., stimulated by an artwork of every cultural level, knows, by virtue of a 

shared convention, that the artwork must signify something. He receives the strong CFI without 

exception, because this is the rule of the “game”, a serious game of course. The artwork questions us, and 

the consequence is that we look into it, unavoidably. 

2.6 Signification and Pleasure 

It is a matter of significance. The real life is not compelled to be significant for us. We may find some 

daily experience, which is not semantic, from the exigent human point of view. Someone goes further, 

stating the life to be definitely meaningless. That is because the existence does not need necessary an 

interpretation. Being is self-justified. To be is to be is to be is to be. Conversely, an artwork―which is real, 

obviously, but as human artifact―is created exactly to have a meaning. We all agree on that. Someone 

ingenuously yaps on about the message. This is the lowest degree of argumentation. Meaning is 

something solid, but not merely practical. If we (homo sapiens) have created an artistic activity oriented 



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to make significant objects and thus to arouse an effort of interpretation, this does not exclude the 

pleasure in enjoying an artwork. Pleasure exists in aesthetic realm: this is a truism. How to harmonize the 

grasping of a sense with the delight of the contemplation, when making use of an artwork? This problem 

could seem the most difficult to solve. By contrast, it is a quasi-fake problem. 

First, scientists and philosophers have shown that thoughts and passions are overlapped, concurrent 

and—poetically said—“made of the same stuff”. Thoughts are strictly related to meanings, and the 

meanings of passions are siblings of the formers. Meaning is the key-concept to understand our 

civilization and our way of thinking and feeling. The reaction to the CFI is a blend of aesthetic emotion 

and yearning to catch a meaning. The interpretative ecstasy is the fulfillment of the artistic process, we 

might say. 

Obviously, there are many (though not infinite) interpretations, not only one, least of all the intentio 

auctoris. But also this is a fake problem. 

2.7 The “Beauty” 

Another fake problem is the beauty’s one. Ascertained that the ideas of beauty have been marvelously 

contradictory through the centuries up to now, we have to rephrase that concept. Briefly, the intensity of 

the CFI is proportional to the so-called “beauty” of the artwork. F. i. a commercial b movie may stimulate 

a minimum of CFI; a film by Tarkovskij or Kubrick drives the CFI to the maximum of intensity. 

Therefore, we have different levels of pleasure-and-thought, depending on the expressive complexity of 

the artwork.  

2.8 Building a Research 

How to verify the CFI theory? We want to confirm that every artwork is born to arouse a CFI and that the 

value, importance and beauty of an artistic production are measured up because of the intensity of CFI. 

The two main lines of inquiry will be primarily: 

1) Interrogating an art that is often considered “meaningless”, “beautiful in itself”: music. 

2) Interrogating the function of the primordial art, the Cave painting. 

2.9 Music and Interpretation 

The problem of the meaning of music is so complex and centuries old that some musicologists confess to 

be bored by it. In any case, it is still a matter of debate, indeed. The two opposite positions in this regard 

are the formalist one, against the refusal of auto-telic definition of music, on the other hand. The 

bibliography, as obvious, is huge. In this synopsis, we shall privilege only some aspects of the discussion. 

We start again from a point of view to demonstrate: we think that a “meaningless” art, namely, in the 

case of music, an art that means only itself, is a un-logic data. If there is the possibility of formulating a 

theory of everything in the area of artistic productions―and there is―we cannot conceive one kind of art 

absolutely separate from the parameters of all other arts. The so-called “enriched formalism”, which 

recently intends to go beyond classical formulations as those by Hanslick, does not change the state of art. 



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It is impossible to presume that the slightest extra-musical indication may transform the absolute 

(meaningless) music in a music linked to a concept or to a narration and so on. We shall produce some 

examples in our proposal below. Now we simply say that music (a quartet, a symphonic poem, a 

melodrama etc.) is always an art like other arts, and therefore it is subject to the same general aesthetic 

institution (CFI). Understanding well this particular argument will be a qualifying point of our inquiry.  

2.10 Cave Art: A Mystery? 

The option for the second line of research might look like an odd and incongruous choice. We think in 

lieu that, after having deepened the situation of an art that is said to be totally “autonomous”, for 

explaining a contrary opinion, we must turn to the early form of artistic expression in the history of 

mankind. The CFI system will be tested just on the cradle of human artistic creation. The hypotheses on 

the function/meaning of Prehistoric cave painting have been a lot, since 19th century. We think that, 

beyond every geo-historical differentiation during thousands and thousands of years, beyond every 

possible religious, ritual, apotropaic, augural, magic function, the cave figurations are the crib of artistic 

expression of homo sapiens, that is, of our history. Thus, the challenge is this: may we adopt the CFI 

theory even to the blurred and mysterious birth of artistic creativity? We think yes. 

 

3. Result 

3.1 Statements 

The meaning of arts is an object of inquiry that we can see from different points of view. I select 

preliminarily some areas and conceptual frameworks. 

A. 

Historically 

1) We can look for the role of arts in human society. 

2) We can wonder if this role is entirely dependent on the various historical frames and moments. 

3) We can hypothesize this role to be grounded in human sensitivity, thus only partially subject to the 

historical mutations. 

B. 

Metaphysically 

1) We can search for a metaphysical perspective, when asking for the meaning of arts. 

2) We can get to conceive arts as manifestation of the absolute. 

3) We can conversely develop a materialistic conception of the meaning of the arts. 

4) We can get to conceive arts as a game system, a quite serious game. 

C. 

Emotionally 

1) We can deal with the sphere of emotions, formulating arousal theories, to understand the meaning of 



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arts. 

2) We can involve also the neuroscience to have hard paradigms for arts’ reception and reaction. 

3) We can entangle thoughts in feelings to define better the complexity of emotional response to an 

artwork. 

4) We can conversely exclude the elusive and subjective world of emotions from the inquiry on meaning 

of arts. 

D. 

Autonomy/Heteronomy 

1) We can state that the arts’ field is autonomous and never heteronomous. 

2) We can try to demonstrate that the purpose of art is art itself. 

3) We can conversely maintain that in the artistic production pulchrum, verum, bonum are necessarily 

present, even in different “dosages”. 

4) We can consistently argue that dulce is useless without utile in an artwork. 

5) We can eventually state that the meaning/aim of the arts is humankind’s enhancement. 

E. 

Representativeness 

1) We can say that making art is the main way to satisfy our human pleasure in imitation (mimesis). 

2) We can state therefore that the art is above all a representative activity. 

3) We can add that, e. g., the music, or the architecture, are meaningful and indirectly representative arts 

as well. 

4) We can claim, conversely, that music has no meaning but music itself. 

5) We can extend that idea of pure form to all the arts, concluding whichever artwork is a form that means 

and represents nothing but itself. 

Other perspectives have been offered by the history of Aesthetics through Centuries. Our intention is to 

verify the hypothesis that meaning and social role of arts dwell in the activation of a call for 

interpretation, and first we have to resume this working hypothesis. Then we shall explain how to 

actualize that theoretical positioning.  

3.2 Working Hypothesis 

The aim of our research is then to show that the substance of aesthetic experience is a sort of CFI and our 

fundamental inescapable answer to it. However, as we said above, there is nothing or nobody calling 

from another dimension: artworks are tools for human beings, made by themselves. The aesthetic 

dimension does not transcend humankind: art-craft is a creation of men for men. It is social invention of 

Homo sapiens, hence a thing with peculiar functions describing its identity. The target of our inquiry is 

just defining these functions. We think that the main purpose of artistic activities is on one side enabling 

the CFI (author’s side), and on the other trying to give original answers (consumer’s side). An artistic 



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product is a kind of an interpreting tool. We would propose a theory of everything in the aesthetic 

realm—the temptation is so strong... We wish to underline the primary role of interpretation in the 

aesthetic process. We also wish move the interpretation back, to the origins. This is not certainly a new 

variety of hermeneutics. According to our idea, the interpretation is not something optional, a possibility, 

a matter for specialists. It is not an a posteriori. Interpretation is an obligation, a necessity. Interpretation 

is art. Kunst ist Verstehen (overturning the statement of Schleiermacher). Art is interpretation, i.e., it is 

meaning, thought, and interpretation is pleasure. A pleasure nearly forbidden in the real life.  

Communis opinio considered the aesthetic experience to be essentially emotional, intuitional, if not 

irrational, i.e., anti-intellectual. We think that the interpretation’s problem solving is a basic component 

of the aesthetic experience, and we intrude it deeply into the so-called (blurred) pleasure. Tasting is at the 

same time knowing, understanding and evaluating, that is interpreting: this equivalence was suggested by 

Baumgarten (1735: §XCII) quoting the Hebraic term tā’am (םעט). We dare to speak of an interpretational 

ecstasy, to stress the overlapping of enjoyment and endeavor in answering to CFI. This overlapping is 

almost a consubstantiality, a synolon. Why this concentration of artistic functions into the fact of 

interpretation? Because life is often (always?) meaningless, while art cannot be so: we claim art 

meaningful. We can say too: concluded, finished, spherical, even when an artistic work depicts the 

incompleteness or incongruence of life (that is anyway a meaning). In addition, when a tale includes in 

itself détails inutiles and simulates the lack of meaning, the vacancy of “signified” in the referential 

world. We agree with Barthes: le “réel” est réputé se suffire à lui même. But if being is self-justified, art is 

not, indeed. Art is similar to religion, as a response to the marks of life’s meaningless, but the meanings 

of art are not dogmatic, they are fluid, while religion’s ones are absolute, transcendent. 

We saw (E.1-3) that art is hold to be exquisitely representative (except for music and some other abstract 

works), since Aristotle. Yes, but if we give less importance to the definition of art as mimesis (and 

contextually to the definition of music as source-imitation of emotions), we nearly eliminate the 

difference between representative and non-representative arts, confining “realism” only to a merely 

specific formal domain, although historically relevant. This is not in contradiction with the idea of the 

birth of modernity as a new relationship between art and reality—from Cervantes to Galileo, to sum it up. 

Actually, the CFI disregards the quantum of verisimile or the effort of effet du réel present in any artwork. 

Thus, we can restate the marginalization of the mimesis’ theory, or simply we can say that this ancient 

theory is not a totalitarian theory. Moreover, we can do it just resorting to the analysis of musical art, and 

particularly of absolute music in relation with music-literary productions. This aspect will be deepened 

below, in the methodological section of our proposal. 

Why do we posit meaning and thinking in a so strict a link? Well, the word mean partakes the same 

Indo-European root with mind (OED: Old English mænan, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch 

meenen and German meinen, from an Indo-European root shared by mind). Simply, meaning is thought 

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/mind


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too. Sometimes I heard it translated in Italian with pensiero. We cannot think to a thought without 

thinking to a meaning’s production. In addition, a meaning is impossible without a thought, or without 

someone who would be thinking. The difference between Sinn and Bedeutung (Frege) is without sense, if 

not nitpicking, in the artistic realm, where sense and meaning are not different (which is not exactly the 

same as to say that they are identical). An audacious analogy may be proposed with the coincidentia of 

esse and essentia in God iuxta Saint Thomas. Problems of meaning are not present (included) in reality: 

being is meaningful, because its sense is being itself; being is self justified: being is, not-being is not, as 

the pre-Socratics taught. This is eventually a materialistic way to describe the same discovery of the Curé 

de campagne at the end of the Journal by Bernanos and of the wondrous movie by Bresson: tout est 

Grâce. Everything that is, it is = everything is grace. Materialism and theodicy coincide. Spinoza, Leibniz, 

Sartre in the same fiery cauldron. A hotchpotch. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent 

(Wittgenstein); that is well, but we may say now: speaking or being silent is the same. Otherwise, we can 

resort to art and to the CFI. 

An artwork is not beautiful and (or but, worse!) difficult, rather beautiful because difficult, more or less. 

I am not defending the marriage between art and mystery, something holy and quasi-divine. I am saying 

that art is interpretation, as a matter of ontology. CFI is the radiant form through which artworks 

manifests themselves. So, more arduous the way leading to interpretation (to interpretations, not to a 

unique interpretation, not to the true interpretation, true idiocy), more beautiful and exciting the artwork. 

However, manifestation is not an absurd aletheia-epiphany. Manifestation is a simple laic word to 

indicate the particular rapport with an artistic object, when a saturation of sense arises and grows, 

generating an exquisite delight. Manifestation is the expression of the function of an artwork, which is a 

tool, even though it so wonderful as to become for us something of sublime. And something looking 

dangerously absolute. 

There are no absolutes. Artistic pleasure is not an absolute. An artist is not an absolute. An art consumer 

is not an absolute. Homo sapiens create pernicious absolutes in his mind always and always, thinking 

about the massimi sistemi as well as about the daily prosaic interrelations of his life. An artwork is not an 

absolute that may stay enclosed in a cavern or in a private room, radiating in solitude. It must be tested; it 

needs a public to make sense. The cook prepares food for the consumers and the measures of the value of 

what is prepared is found in consumption. [...] To be truly artistic, a work must also be estethic—that is, 

framed for enjoyed receptive perception (Dewey). Art is a relative production of meaning-beauty. So art 

is thought. And the emotions? Yes, the emotions. But the most extreme emotion is a torsion of thought as 

well, isn’t it? The pleasure is a delicious torture of the mind, actually. In the guise of an answer to CFI, I 

think that even the most ancient form of artistic expression, cave art, was an invitation to interpret that 

amazing combination of painted beasts, men, hands, lines, and colours. This is the second main 

methodological horizon we shall see below. 



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Every artwork must be interpreted, otherwise indeed there is no game. We think this is valid for music, 

poetry, fine arts, architecture, as if to say for all representative and not representative arts, abstract and 

figurative arts, narrative and not narrative arts. The game—we do not like this term, but it must be 

understood in its most serious meaning—is the same. 

3.3 Substantiations 

Following a hypothetical-deductive line of inquiry, we have to verify the meaning of arts in their identity 

related to CFI. We want to start by analyzing two fields of research, as above anticipated. 

3.3.1 The Meaning of Music 

The discussion about a non-representative art such as music may begin from criticizing the new (enriched) 

formalism of the fortunate Philosophy of music by Kivy. If we take the example of Allegretto by 

Beethoven (7th symphony), we ascertain that Kivy writes about it that it is a grand, magnificent piece of 

melancholic music—but not melancholy in itself, otherwise it would be unpleasant: rather, the Allegretto 

should wonderfully represent melancholy, and the immense beauty of this melancholy, a magnificent 

sumptuous musical image of melancholy. But in the light of Beethovenian previous melancholic quartet 

6 op. 18, and by reading its adagio entitled La Malinconia (lunga-breve-breve-lunga-lunga: ♩♪♪♩♩; the 

same pattern of Allegretto), we can philologically indentify a precise “rhythm of the melancholy” in 

Beethoven, and the illusion of an absolute music vanishes, at least for this time. In a manner to speak that 

enjoying is thinking: The pleasure afforded by music listened to for its own sake is the pleasure of 

understanding (Davies). I would substitute understanding with interpreting, but the concept is clear. 

Then we may speak a bit about Schubert and his celebre trio in Es dur: here the pure pleasure of making 

music together, ensemble music (i.e., music as meaningless, absolute art) plays in a painful dialectic with 

the music as angst, anguish (i.e., music as meaning-bearer), and the aftermath is a negative dialectic, 

without resolution. Moreover, everything that means (i.e., thinks to) implies an obliged—never 

unique!—answer required to the listener, and it reveals the original presence of a CFI, q.e.d. (erat/erit). 

Anyway, the last Schubert poses questions, while for instance Schumann always unveils the 

unavailability of answers (see, for instance, the adagio espressivo of his second symphony). The last 

Schubert (think only to the awesome extreme quartet) crushes the previous joyful belief in a simple 

socially self-validating music. Also the unanswered questions posed by Schumann are a desperate, 

extreme sort of CFI.  

Another more geometric musical example: the sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti hide under the brilliance of 

the hyper-virtuoso style the neurosis of coactive repetition. Eventually virtuoso habits and the 

compulsive mode coalesce, particularly so if the performance is not “romantically” slow and meditative 

but goes on fast and furious. And we can ask: what does a Scarlatti’s sonata think? Music is a thought. 

Alternatively, we can propose a doubt: does a sonata think or rather does it narrate? Otherwise, 

symmetrically, does Hegel think or does he narrate in his Phänomenologie des Geistes? (Which is one of 



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the most beautiful novels in the XIXth Century). Is there a link between the philosophical thought-tale and 

the musical narration-thought? Probably the answer is yes. 

Then a poetic-musical example: the crucial western model of complexity, Don Giovanni by Da Ponte and 

Mozart. Here, in the scene of the Commendatore showing up at dinner, the musician alters the libretto’s 

words and mood. The serious-comical blend offered by Da Ponte (who follows his main model Bertati) is 

transformed in the very tragic scene of a man in front of supreme justice. Voilà a hyper-tragic scene of 

contrast between the bare human being and the powerful divinity messenger. The comic 

counterparts-lazzi of Leporello are absorbed in the terrible ensemble. The nimbly funny Ohibò in 

Bertati-Gazzaniga—“stolen” by Da Ponte3—becomes a frightening tessera of a serious grand operatic 

scene. Don Giovanni is an empio and he must meet up with his punishment. But is it a real justice, or a 

supreme injustice? Is really Don Giovanni, the hero of the freedom (viva la libertà), guilty? Is his 

challenge to society a true impiety? The ambiguity of this melodrama is actually supreme. The CFI is 

incredibly strong. Hence, the artistic magnificence of Don Giovanni is incomparable. 

Only few examples, these, to indicate the richness of the matter. The debate about the meaning of music 

is relatively ancient; we think to the formalism from Chabanon to Hanslick up to the recent positions; the 

bibliography is huge (cf. a few suggestions in Gigliucci). The new biomusicology (Wallin), that studies 

the origins of music (evolutionary musicology), the human brain and music (neuromusicology), the 

functions and uses of music (comparative musicology), enriches incredibly the frame of inquiry.  

How and why to proceed in the field of studies about music’s meanings?  

Why: we think that the extreme case of music, the less representative art, is telling for us. The problem of 

the meaning is drastic, so to speak, in the artistic identity of music. Therefore, we find this problem 

substantial for our research. To verify the efficacy of CFI theory, the analysis of music looks like a correct 

starting point.  

How: the relationship between music and literature (poetry for music and musical outcome, or in general 

comparison betwixt logos and melos) is fundamental to go on toward the definition of absolute music. 

We have to ascertain that CFI paradigm allows to include music in the realm of other Arts, and to give up 

considering music as a world apart, a meaningless unique art that signifies only itself (as it were, that 

signifies nothing...). If the problem of meanings’ production is the problem in aesthetic sphere, first we 

must study the musical phenomenology from many points of view: emotions and their intertwining with 

thoughts, the meaning and what does it mean, the social role of music and so on. The methodology will 

be variable according to these perspectives of investigation. 

3.3.2 Cave Art 

The second field of inquiry will be the scene of the discussion about the function and the meaning of cave 

art, particularly of Paleolithic wall paintings. Metaphysics as we know it is all but unthinkable without 

the image of the cave and, no doubt, without the images in the caves (Rosengren). The search for an 



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absolute beginning involves necessarily our work, to clarify a possible applicability of CFI system 

already to prehistoric times, to the cradle of artistic production by Homo sapiens.  

A preliminary investigation on the main interpretations of cave art will be done. Actually, after the 

ornamental theory, the magic-sympathetic, the structuralist, the shamanic etc., scholars nowadays prefer 

underline the uncertainty of every hypothesis and the probable variation of meaning and functions 

through millennia and in the various human settlements. Nonetheless, the questions survive: homo sum, 

nihil humani alienum a me puto, least of all our human past. Cave art calls us for interpretation, and 

consistently called our ancestors as well. 

3.4 Why and How 

• We have to understand if the CFI has been the identity of art since the dawn of art itself.  

• We have also to consider the (refutable) objections of those who do not deem prehistoric rock art as 

art.  

• We shall try to index opinions, interpretations, images, recent scientific acquisitions.  

• We hope in this way to demonstrate that the activation of an interpretative reaction has always been 

the innermost sense of art making. If there were some religious or holy implications, that should not 

disturb the simple, calm, perennial grounds of artistic achievement intended as a call for interpretation, 

an escape from the obscure and frequently meaningless life towards a realm where everything must be 

meaningful, must have a sense, according to a common human convention. 

 

4. Discussion 

The two main methodological choices above declared are a sort of pincers to grasp our issue and to verify 

our hypothesis. The two fields (music and prehistoric figurative art) are two extreme areas of interest, and 

we claim that they are significant for us for this very reason. But we must obviously consider other 

scopes as well. Only a few examples, before provisionally concluding. 

I will take my first exemplar from the field of painting again, particularly from the production of one of 

the most popular artists of every time, Caravaggio. His Lazarus’ Resurrection has recently been perfectly 

restored. Roman people who saw this canvas before its return to Messina’s museum, have been living an 

extreme, bewildering aesthetic experience. Caravaggio’s Lazarus: resurrection or deposition? Who is 

calling whom? Christ is talking with the death, through—almost necromantically—Lazarus? Mors says: 

cur me persequeris?, or: cras morieris (alluding to the Passion), tu seras mort demain et encore plus après 

demain... A wholly humanized Christ stands in front of death, of his own death (the cross, foreshowed by 

the arms of Lazarus), while resurrection remains only a possibility. It is neither denied, nor proclaimed. 

Eventually the next resurrection is a hypothesis. 

The new exegesis on Matthew in the Vocation’s painting of S. Luigi de’ Francesi corroborates the former 

interpretation of Lazarus. Actually, if the called is the young avid, covetous publican and not the bearded 



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old man who should indicate with his finger precisely the rough adolescent, then the instant selected for 

the picture is just the one before the conversion, so before the “miracle”. Will Matthew answer to Christ’s 

calling? We are not sure of it; Caravaggio makes it not certain, actually. Otherwise, do we all agree upon 

this interpretation? Probably, or rather certainly not. However, what interests us is that the supreme 

beauty of Caravaggio’s paintings dwells in the terrible, unavoidable CFI that they command. 

Another example, a literary one, now. A classic: Bacchae by Euripides. The last masterwork by the third 

great tragedian of 5th Century Athens has been read as a religious, palinodic, extreme play, or as a fierce 

antitheist and rationalist tragedy. If we consider Bacchus as the hero, we propend for the first reading. If 

we appreciate the rationalist Pentheus and consider him the innocent tragic victim, then we think that 

Euripides never abandoned his bad opinion about the Gods, and thus we have a proclivity for the second 

reading. 

Eventually, and atrociously shortly, we can say that the dilemma has no solution, because the terrible 

ambiguity (in the highest sense) of the masterwork by Euripides is just an insoluble conundrum, in which 

the culpability of the main characters has the same mould and shape of their innocence, in which 

ridiculous behaviour is at the same time a tragic one. Bacchae activates an incredibly powerful CFI, and 

this is the reason of his perennial bloody beauty. These and other interpretations will be considered. The 

research is now only outlined. Nevertheless, we hope this draft will elicit consequences and reactions. 

 
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