ON THE SEARCH FOR IDENTITY IN AESTHETIC COMMUNICATION BETWEEN CULTURES (O poszukiwaniu tozsamosci w komunikacji estetycznej wiedzy kulturami)

The article is concerned with the problems of European identity, as defined in the process of aesthetical communication among cultures. Such an approach to the question of identity is based upon a conception of culture centred about the aesthetical experience (Vico, Schiller, Brzozowski); in this centre we see the forming of the autotelic kernel (Ossowski, Kloskowska) of those symbolic systems (leading imagines, musical intensities, apriorical structures of aesthetical perception) which are constitutive for the single national cultures. The aesthetical forms contained in such kernels are especially predisposed for the relationships of communication, in which new fusions often occur and new forms develop themselves, which represent an increase of prior forms and denote a common horizon for until now distinct cultures. An activation of aesthetical communication, possibly based upon cultural polyvalence (Kloskowska), would be the first step to perform in our global and intercultural situation, in order to facilitate the mutual understanding in the political, legal or economical domain. Aesthetical communication marked the stages of European history (Italian Renaissance, French and European Classicism) and is particularly intense today (even with the momentaneous character of aesthetics in our times), especially in the domain of art production (examples will be analysed), although it does not enough influence the 'sensus communis' because of the marginalisation of this culture sphere, in which the horizons of culture are designated by art.