The Poetics of Abstract Substantive Art

The aim of this paper is to discuss the reasons why abstract substantive works of art achieve poetic meaning. Its ultimate purpose is to understand the poetic meaning of non -vocal instrumental music. In the first and second sections, I present certain philosophical assumptions about the substantive arts and about abstract art. Next, I recognize the non -neutral classificatory nature of my proposal (section 3). Then, I analyze certain examples of abstract works of art, especially musical works (sections 4 and 5). Finally, I conclude that, in order to achieve poetic meaning, works of abstract substantive art should be linked in an intelligible way to the reality outside them.