Paintings as Solid Affective Scaffolds

Abstract

We humans continuously reshape the environment to alter, enhance, and sustain our affective lives. This two‐way modification has been discussed in recent philosophy of mind as affective scaffolding, wherein scaffolding quite literally means that our affective states are enabled and supported by environmental resources such as material objects, other people, and physical spaces. In this article, I argue that under certain conditions, paintings function as noteworthy affective scaffolds to their creators. I begin with a theoretical overview of affective niche construction and affective scaffolding. Then, based on the criteria of robustness, concreteness, and dependability, I specify a more restricted, solid type of affective scaffolding and propound paintings as a cogent case of such. In support of my argument, I highlight two feelings typical to painterly creativity: the feeling of aesthetic resonance and the feeling of fusion. To conclude, I discuss the overall contributions and limitations of my account.

Narrative Scaffolding

“…While Clark (1997) and Sterelny (2010) focus on cognitive domains, more recent work has explored the affective domain. For example, Colombetti and Krueger (2015) and Krueger (2020) propose that many affective processes (with a strong focus on emotions) are causally dependent upon environmental resources (see also Coninx and Stephan 2021;Griffiths and Scarantino 2009;Maiese 2016;Saarinen 2019;Stephan et al 2014). Under the assumption that this proposal is on the right track, the question arises how cognitive scaffolding and affective scaffolding are related (Maiese 2016;Saarinen 2019).…”

“…In philosophy, there have been many attempts to describe these scaffolding relations and to show how the embodied engagement with environmental resources influence our cognitive capacities (e.g., Clark 1997;Sterelny 2010;Sutton 2016) and our affective capacities (e.g., Colombetti and Krueger 2015;Saarinen 2020). However, in-depth examinations of concrete examples of scaffolding relations are scarce (for exceptions, see Maiese 2016;Saarinen 2019;Varga 2019). The thorough analysis of specific cases of scaffolding is therefore urgently needed for probing and specifying the descriptive and explanatory scope of the concept of 'scaffolding' (Sutton 2016).…”

Painting Practical Support: A Study about the Usage of Painting Materials in Children’s Painting Works

“…Painting materials also support the artistic features of paintings. Artworks are the fusion of aesthetics and emotions (Saarinen 2019). The expression of artistic emotions needs to be revealed by the painting material that exists in real life.…”

An Analysis of Characteristics of Children’s Growth through Practical Art

“…Painting is one of the ways to represent people's imagination [1] (pp. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]; in other words, people like to record their imaginary and observed scenes in paintings. Moreover, paintings are the sum of people's perceptions of objects (such as the perceptions of the appearance of the shape, volume, and color of the object).…”

“…When students have learned basic painting techniques, they start to pay attention to the details of objects in their paintings-for example, the decorative patterns, proportions, distances, and positional relationships of objects. After children learn to paint, they also start to pay attention to the proportional relationships between objects in their paintings [22]. In Asian nations (including China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore), many preschool children often find themselves in learning environments of scripted teaching, rote learning, and standardized assessment [23][24][25].…”