Perceiving Authenticity: Style Recognition in Aesthetic Appreciation

Since the mid-Sixties, philosophers have debated over the aesthetic value of authentic art-objects and their perfect replicas. Originalists argue that authenticity, the quality of an object being of undisputed origin or authorship, is a necessary condition for aesthetic experience, since appreciating an artwork presupposes its correct identification. Antioriginalists retort that there is no aesthetic reason to favor originals over visually-indistinguishable duplicates. To this extent, they claim, the need for authenticity is a matter of case by case evaluation. Drawing from this debate, I argue that judgment of authenticity is not a primary source for aesthetic appreciation. There are instances, however, in which authenticity does intrude upon aesthetic evaluation, namely when style recognition is involved. In these cases, errors in attribution reduce the object’s impact and jeopardize aesthetic appreciation altogether