Claim. To deepen their resemblance to an artwork, appreciators engage in ‘subjective action’ — adding their own subjective elements to the object, thereby enhancing the value already created by the artist and enjoying the enhanced value, which Lee identifies with Theodore Lipps’s notion of empathy.
Elaboration. Appreciation in Unification Thought is not passive reception but active co-creation. The appreciator must first adopt the attitude of ‘intuition and contemplation,’ viewing the artwork with a clear mind free from worldly thoughts, with spirit mind and physical mind harmonized in subject-object relation centering on Heart (Requisites for the Subject in Appreciation). The appreciator must also have attained ‘a certain level of culture, taste, philosophy, individuality, and so on,’ and should understand as much as possible the artist’s Sungsang aspect — motif, theme, conception, philosophy, historical and social environment.
The Millet example illustrates: to deeply appreciate Millet’s paintings, it helps to understand the social atmosphere of the February Revolution of 1847, when ‘a heavy atmosphere of socialist reform had descended over France’ which Millet disliked, prompting him to portray countryside life as it was. Understanding Millet’s frame of mind lets one feel the beauty in his paintings more deeply.
Beyond contextual understanding, the appreciator simultaneously engages in creative activity through subjective action. ‘The appreciator adds his or her own subjective elements to the object (art work), thus adding new and additional value to the value already created by the artist.’ Lee explicitly identifies this with Theodore Lipps’s Einfühlung (empathy). The play/movie illustration: an actor breaks down in tears, the audience weeps along, projecting their feelings onto the actor and judging the object subjectively. Through this subjective action, the appreciator becomes more closely united with the artwork and obtains deeper joy.
Lee also notes Hyungsang requisites for the appreciator: healthy sense organs (sight and hearing), good brain and nervous system. Since the human being is a united being of Sungsang and Hyungsang, even the appreciation of beauty (an activity primarily of the Sungsang) requires bodily health.
The result is a robust ecology of appreciation: the appreciator’s preparation matters (purity of mind, education, cultural cultivation, physical health), the appreciator’s contextual knowledge of the artist matters, and the appreciator’s active empathic projection completes the value of the work. Critics will press: doesn’t this make ‘beauty’ embarrassingly elastic, since well-prepared appreciators can presumably project meaning into almost anything? Lee’s reply would be that subjective action must still find purchase in real elements of beauty within the object — empathy cannot conjure beauty ex nihilo, only deepen what is already there.
See also. creation-and-appreciation-as-united-activity, purpose-for-whole-and-individual-ground-creation-and-appreciation, prototypes-require-purity-of-mind-and-education