Unwieldy as the phrase is, this seems to be it.

"Hartmann distinguishes two levels in the aesthetic object, which he calls the foreground level and the background level. The foreground level comprises the real, concrete and sensible dimensions of the object, everything that is independent of the presence of a subject who addresses the object and seeks to understand it. The background levels vary with the kinds of content the foreground level lets appear. The background level exists only for the subject who grasps it. This level is typically organized into many distinct sub-levels. Following Hartmann, we may therefore state that “according to its manner of being, the artistic object necessarily has two levels” (those of foreground and background), while “according to the overall structure of its content—that is to say, according to its inner form (i.e. the background level)—it has many levels” (AE; Poli 1998). A theory of this kind obviously has two critical points: first, the problem of how the relationship between the two levels is articulated; second, the problem of how the relationship among the sublevels of the background level is articulated. In the former case, Hartmann talks of a “relationship of manifestation” on the basis of which—as has been pointed out on innumerable occasions— the foreground (i.e. the matter of the object) imposes constraints on the background."

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Note added at 6 hrs (2012-10-08 17:34:48 GMT)
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Glad to be of help :)