From Aesthetic Subjectivity to the Mode of Being of the Artwork
Gadamer’s turn toward the concept of play is not an attempt to compare art with entertainment in the everyday sense. Play is not used as a psychological metaphor to explain the artist’s creative state of mind or the freedom experienced by the viewer in aesthetic pleasure. In Truth and Method, the function of the concept of play is to think the being of the artwork on a level independent of the subject’s state of consciousness. Aesthetic consciousness establishes a distinction between the subject who evaluates the artwork and the object being evaluated. The work becomes an object standing before us, examined in terms of form, style, and effect. Gadamer, however, argues that the experience of art cannot be reduced to this relationship. The person encountering the work does not look at it from outside as an unchanged subject. What occurs in the experience of art is not the consumption of the work by the spectator, but the spectator’s being drawn by the work out of their habitual world.
At this point, the ontological significance of play emerges. The meaning of play is not completed in the intention or consciousness of the player. The player participates in the play, but cannot constitute it as an object standing opposite them and entirely under their control. The order, movement, and demands of the play draw the player into themselves. Gadamer thinks the artwork through play because what is decisive in the experience of art is likewise not the activity of the subject, but the mode of being of the work that draws the subject into its own movement.
Gadamer formulates this ontological displacement in decisive terms:
“The players are not the subjects of play; instead play merely reaches presentation through the players.”
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 211.
This proposition does not mean that play is a substance independent of the players. Play is not a completed object existing before it is played. It is realised only through players; nevertheless, what is realised is not the sum of their personal actions, but the play itself. The players make the play possible, but the unity of its meaning cannot be explained through their individual purposes.
The Subject of Play and Its Medial Structure
Gadamer turns toward everyday and metaphorical uses of the concept of play in order to show that play is not a subject-centred activity. When we speak of the play of colours, the play of waves of light, the interplay of forces, or the play of words, we do not presuppose a particular player directing the action. Here, “play” is less a movement externally initiated by an agent than a process taking place of itself. In this respect, the fundamental meaning of play has a medial structure. It is neither entirely the action of an active subject nor a movement passively suffered by an object. Language says that “something is being played,” that “something is taking place,” or that “something is happening.” Play becomes the name of the movement that realises itself.
This medial structure is decisive for understanding the being of the artwork. The artist produces the work, the actor performs the role, the musician plays the composition, and the spectator participates in the presentation. Yet the event of art is not identical with any one of these individual activities. The work attains its unity of meaning through them. Artistic occurrence is less a result produced by a subject than an event that unites artist, performer, and spectator within the same movement.
The subjectivity of play should not be confused with the subjectivity of a conscious being. “Subject” here refers to the structure that carries the continuity of the movement and binds the actions of the participants to its own order. Players may change; forms of presentation may differ. The identity of the play is nevertheless preserved through these different realisations.
To-and-Fro Movement and Repetition
The most fundamental characteristic of play is a to-and-fro movement that does not lead itself toward a determinate final point. This movement is not an instrumental process that ends when an external purpose is reached. The movement of play renews itself through repetition. The ball passing from one side to the other, one move calling forth a countermove, or a rhythm beginning again continually sustains the play.
The centrality of this to-and-fro movement makes the question of who performs it secondary. The player is a necessary condition of the movement, but the movement is more enduring than the personal characteristics of the player. Different players can participate in the same game, and each time the play can be realised anew within an order that exceeds their individual intentions.
Repetition here does not mean mechanical recurrence. The essence of play does not consist in copying the same movement exactly. Every repetition takes place under conditions different from the previous one; countermoves, speed, tension, and unexpected developments give the play a new form. Nevertheless, what is repeated is recognised as the same play.
The performance of an artwork possesses the same structure. When a musical work is performed, the same sounds are not mechanically reproduced each time. Every performance makes the work present anew. The difference among performances does not abolish the identity of the work, just as the identity of the work does not make different performances unnecessary. The work gains continuity because it can be repeated, yet every repetition is a new realisation.
The Seriousness of Play and Self-Forgetfulness
Although play is separated from everyday purposes, it is not the opposite of seriousness. The player knows that what they are doing is “only a game.” Yet for the play genuinely to occur, this knowledge cannot be preserved with the distance of an external observer. Participating in play requires taking its demands seriously. The person who does not take the play seriously disrupts it. This is not because play is an externally imposed duty, but because its internal order becomes binding for the player.
Rules are not merely a pre-established set of prohibitions and permissions. They open the field of movement of the play, determine possible moves, and make the player’s actions meaningful.
Every play gives the player a task. This task does not destroy the player’s freedom; it defines the field within which freedom can take place. The player’s possibilities are not unlimited. The play determines which moves are possible, which actions fall outside it, and which risks must be undertaken.
Self-forgetfulness is the consequence of this seriousness. A player who constantly observes their own behaviour from outside cannot participate fully in the play. To be in play means directing attention away from oneself and toward the task of the play. The player’s self does not disappear, but during play what matters is not self-reflection, but responding to the situation that arises.
The spectator’s position in the experience of art is similar. When the spectator turns the work into a mirror of their own feelings, they do not participate in the movement of the work. Only to the extent that they withdraw themselves before the claim of the work can they enter into the unity of meaning of what is represented.
Self-Presentation and Representation
According to Gadamer, play by its nature presents itself. The movement of play does not merely occur; in occurring, it also brings forth what it is. The self-presentation of play differs from the players displaying their personalities. Rather than foregrounding their individuality, the players fulfil the movement of the play.
In human play, this self-presentation can become the representation of something determinate. In children’s play, the child may become a king, soldier, or animal; in theatre, the actor performs a character. Yet in the play of art, representation is not merely the actor behaving as though they were someone else. The play becomes a meaningful whole for someone else.
For this reason, the spectator is not an external addition to the play of art. The play presents itself to the spectator. The presence of someone toward whom the representation is directed participates in the constitution of the unity of meaning of the play. Actors perform their roles not merely by losing themselves in their own performance, but in such a way that the whole of the play becomes present for the spectator.
The methodological priority of the spectator does not mean reducing the artwork to subjective reception. The spectator does not arbitrarily produce the meaning of the play. On the contrary, the whole of the play binds both player and spectator to the same claim. The player performs the role according to the unity of the play; the spectator experiences the play not as the sum of personal reactions, but as a whole that demands to be understood.
Transformation into Structure: How Does Play Become a Work?
Gadamer explains the completion of human play as art through the concept of “transformation into structure.” When play is transformed into structure, it acquires a repeatable and recognisable unity that can be distinguished from the temporary actions of the players. It is no longer merely an activity taking place at a particular moment; there is now a work capable of reappearing in different performances.
Transformation into structure is not a simple alteration. In alteration, an underlying essence is assumed to remain the same beneath what changes. In transformation, however, what existed before passes as a whole into another mode of being. The everyday identities and actions of the players recede; what is represented becomes the true being of the play.
The person on stage is no longer decisive as the individual they are in everyday life. What stands before the spectator is not the actor’s private existence, but the character portrayed and the world of the play. The actor’s concealing themselves or pretending to be someone else is not by itself transformation into structure. A person in disguise preserves their own identity and merely wishes others not to recognise it. In artistic play, by contrast, the actor’s individuality acquires its function within the represented whole.
Play transformed into structure acquires the character of an ergon; it does not remain merely a temporary energeia. Nevertheless, structure is not a closed schema independent of performance. The work realises itself only in presentation. Its repeatability does not indicate an abstract existence, but its power to become present as the same work across different performances.
This ontological structure also prevents the work from being reduced to the artist. The poet, composer, or actor provides conditions for the work’s realisation, but the meaning of the work transformed into structure is not identical with their psychological existence. What endures within the work is not the producer’s experience, but the represented unity of meaning.
Total Mediation and the Being of the Work
The fact that the artwork requires presentation does not mean that it is deficient or dependent. The relationship between work and presentation is not one in which a previously completed content is subsequently transmitted through external means. Presentation is the mode through which the work attains its own being.
Gadamer thinks this structure through total mediation. Performer, stage, sound, language, and spectator mediate the emergence of the work. Yet in successful presentation, attention does not terminate in the mediators. Mediation recedes within the presence of what is represented.
This recession does not mean that the mediator disappears. The actor’s voice, the musician’s interpretation, or the staging remains decisive. Yet when these emerge as independent objects in themselves, the work fragments. The correctness of a performance is measured by the relationship it establishes with the structure of the work itself.
The different presentations of a work are therefore both free and bound. Presentation is not condemned to literal repetition; every performance realises one possibility of the work. Yet interpretation cannot be entirely arbitrary. The fact that a presentation can be judged a distortion demonstrates that a measure arises from the work’s own structure.
Total mediation does not establish absolute identity between work and performance, but neither does it separate them as independent beings. The work differs from its performances, yet reaches its genuine presence only within them.
Mimesis, Recognition, and the Cognitive Character of Art
Gadamer explains the truth dimension of transformation into structure through the concepts of mimesis and recognition. The emergence of what is represented within the artwork is not the mechanical copy of an object in the external world. In mimetic representation, what is recognised is not merely an object already known; through representation, what that object is becomes more distinctly understood.
Recognition is more than seeing something again and identifying it. What is recognised emerges from its accidental circumstances and appears in its essential unity. When the spectator says “this is that,” they do not merely remember what is represented; they know it anew within a determinate meaning.
In this section, Gadamer’s analysis of the cognitive character of art takes mimetic artistic structure as its basis. The event, character, or action represented within artistic play gains a unity different from the dispersal of everyday reality. Rather than simply reproducing things as they are, the work allows them to be recognised within a meaningful whole.
The truth claim of art lies in this recognition. The spectator does not merely observe the skill of the actor or the technical success of the performance; they participate in the meaning of the represented world. Play transformed into structure surpasses the accidental appearances of reality and presents an intelligible whole.
Spectator, Theoria, and Participation
The spectator’s belonging to the artwork does not mean that they are a judge externally supervising it. Gadamer finds the original meaning of spectatorship in the historical roots of the concept of theoria.
The theoros is the person sent to a festival whose task is to be present there. Their participation consists not in directing the event, but in being wholly present to what is taking place. “Being there” does not merely mean occupying the same physical space as something. Participation means directing attention away from oneself toward what is happening.
In the play of art, the spectator suspends private purposes and becomes open to the unity of meaning of the work.
The spectator’s self-forgetfulness does not mean the loss of self. For Gadamer, this self-forgetfulness is the condition for returning to oneself at a deeper level. While the world opened by the work removes the spectator from everyday purposes, it also gives the spectator their own being back within another whole.
The difference between curiosity and aesthetic participation emerges here. Curiosity is drawn toward the attraction of novelty and leaves the object when its interest is exhausted. The artwork, by contrast, does not depend solely upon the novelty of the moment; it makes an enduring claim. The spectator does not merely experience surprise before the work, but assumes the task of understanding that the work demands.
Contemporaneity and the Time of the Festival
The temporality of the artwork cannot be explained as the remembrance in the present of an object produced in the past. Every presentation of the work makes it present anew. Gadamer expresses this presence through the concept of contemporaneity.
Contemporaneity does not mean that things belonging to different periods merely coexist within the same consciousness. It means that the spectator experiences a work whose origin lies in the past as a genuine claim in the present. The historical distance between the past work and the present spectator is not abolished; presentation brings them together within the same event of meaning.
The time of the festival provides an example of this structure. A festival celebrated every year is not the recollection or reproduction of the first festival. Every celebration is the festival itself. The festival exists only when it is celebrated; nevertheless, each time it is recognised as the same festival.
Repetition is not a feature externally added to the essence of the festival. It is the festival’s mode of being. The festival always takes place under different conditions and preserves its identity precisely through these different realisations.
The artwork likewise does not exist solely at the moment of its historical origin. It becomes present anew in every performance, reading, or representation. This does not mean that the work is “timeless.” It is not an immutable structure standing outside time, but a temporal being that continually realises itself in different times. Its continuity lies not in being protected from historical change, but in its capacity to appear again as the same work within changing presentations.
Conclusion
Gadamer’s concept of play overcomes the aesthetic model that explains the artwork through either the creator’s intention or the spectator’s subjective experience. The ontological priority of play does not mean that the work is an object independent of human beings and existing entirely on its own. The work is realised only within performance, representation, spectatorship, and interpretation; nevertheless, this realisation cannot be reduced to the sum of the participants’ personal actions.
The unity of the artwork lies in the structure that binds those who realise it to its own order. The transformation of play into structure is not a passage from a temporary activity to a frozen object. Structure is a unity of meaning capable of remaining the same work across different presentations. Performances and interpretations may change, but these differences do not indicate that the work is reconstructed from the beginning each time; rather, they indicate its realisation within one of its own possibilities.
Gadamer’s fundamental conclusion is that the artwork does not first exist in completed form and only afterwards become represented. Representation is not an appearance the work acquires from outside or a transmission subsequently added to it; it is the mode through which the work attains its own being. The ontology of play thus makes it possible to think the artwork not as a fixed object, but as an event of meaning that occurs within representation and draws its participants into its own movement.
