Expression as Impression. The Metaphor of Artistic Expressiveness in our Thought on Aesthetic Surgery.

In present-day medico-technological culture, theories of artistic expression have a far broader relevance than one might make out on account of the philosophical debates on art and on the mind. Both in the context of art and in the broader context of culture at large, an adequate account of artistic expressiveness should be center stage. Yet, the comparison between natural expression (in a person's face, etc.) and artistic expression may stand in our way, if it is done from an epistemological point of view that inquires after norms of correspondence between outer and inner. Anglosaxon philosophy appears to have, thus, depsychologized expression in either art or the human face, by approaching it almost exclusively epistemologically. In the present chapter, I give better weight to the interactive psychology of expression so as to enable us to critically assess our traffic with aesthetic surgery. In cultural contexts, processes of social expressiveness abound. Like advertizing, and branding, aesthetic surgery means using expression to make an impression, treating outward appearances instrumentally, concentrating on short term successes at the cost of long term profundity. Aesthetic surgery makes explicit use of the metaphor of artistic expressiveness. What motivates this use shall be treated here as a desideratum for an account of artistic expressiveness, building on the idea that its instrumental application to natural expression is both legitimate and telling (about the value of art).