Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“Humanistic modes of interpretation would enrich the science of culture by exploring what in each individual artwork reproduces the event-nature of human origin. In the hypothetical originary scene, the experience of avoidance and fascination that we call the sacred is not simply a relation between the individual participant and the central object; its crucial element is the emission of the sign that communicates this experience to the others in the group. The sacred experience is one of representation-as-a-substitute-for-appropriation, but once we have represented-instead-of-appropriating, we are less likely to think of appropriating and more of representing. The sacred can be kept alive only by renewing the experience of its birth, regenerating the collective mimetic tension that valorized the sacred object in the first place. This necessary renewal is the function served by culture. How, on this definition, does the necessity of culture imply that of art? Why is it not sufficient to reproduce the scene of crisis in sacrificial ritual? Why does the originary scene give rise not merely to a formal process of signification (the sign signifies the sacred being) and an institutional process of reproduction (the ritual scene reproduces the originary scene) but an esthetic process in which both the sign and its scenic referent are present?”

— Eric Gans, GA and Esthetics: Ideas for a Research Program · Saturday, March 25th, 2000 · Chronicles of Love & Resentment