Klesis – Revue philosophique – 28 : 2013 – Imagination et performativité 62 Performing Imagination: The Aesthetics of Improvisation Alessandro Bertinetto (Università di Udine) I. Introduction: The Difficult Relation between Aesthetics and Improvisation It is undeniable that the artistic significance and part of the social reputation of the practice of improvisation in Western culture diminished at the time that gave birth to 1) aesthetics as a philosophical discipline devoted to a particular kind of experience which is detached from everyday affairs, 2) the so-called « system of the fine arts » 1 , and, partly as a result of the spread of typography 2 , 3) the triumph of the notion of the artwork even in the field of the performing arts 3 . The practice of improvising has been conceived as such an obvious and natural expression of the human being that it didn’t need a specific name until about the seventeenth century. Since Aristotle 4 it has been understood as the origin of poetic creativity and – from the Greek bards, to Church music and the Commedia dell’arte (to mention only well -known cases) – it was widespread in many artistic fields as an ordinary and valuable way of art making. Then, as the different ways of making and experiencing art began to be organised and theorised, the verb « to improvise » appeared in various languages. The noun, « improvisation », was coined later, during the Romantic age, by Madame de Stael, who thereby showed that by now the difference between the action of improvising and its result was established 5 . 1 Cf. P. O. Kristeller, « The Modern System of the Arts: A Study in the History of Aesthetics », Part I in Journal of the History of Ideas, 12, 4, 1951, pp. 496-527, and Part II in Journal of the History of Ideas, 13, 1, 1952, pp. 17-46. 2 On writing and musical improvisation see D. Sparti, Il corpo sonoro, Bologna, il Mulino, 2007. 3 See B. Nettle, « Introduction. An Art Neglected in Scholarship », in B. Nettl & M. Russell (eds.), In the Course of Performance, Chicago & London, The University of Chicago Press, 1998, pp. 1-26 ; L. Goehr The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works. An Essay in the Philosophy of Music, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992. 4 Aristotle, Poetics 1448b7-1449a14. 5 See J.-F. de Raymond, L’improvisation. Contribution a la philosophie de l’action, Paris, Vrin, 1980, pp. 17-36 ; S. Blum, « Recognizing Improvisation », in In the Course of Performance, pp. 27-45, in part. pp. 37-40.