The body as an aesthetic paradigm: form, function, idea

The body has many different properties (physical, biological, mechanical, aesthetic), each of which requires different theoretical assumptions. In fact, we can approach the concept of the body as materialists or animists, as mechanists or vitalists, as artists or scientists, even as formalists or symbolists. The aim of this paper is to highlight the difficulties and limitations common to the various critical positions that deal with the concept of the body - regardless of their heterogeneous nature - and to assess whether there is a way to contain them, as well as to consider such difficulties and limitations not in themselves, but instrumentally, since my purpose is to isolate a specific aspect of the notion of the body that stands as a paradigm for art and visual culture.