Arthur Danto S Philosophy Of Art Essays

From the nineteen-eighties on, Arthur Danto was the most significant art critic and philosopher of art in world. This book provides a comprehensive, systematic view of his philosophy and criticism including his views in relation to not only painting and sculpture but to cinema and dance.

An eclectic collection of essays centering on the intersection of art and philosophy, especially in the late 20th century.

The first half of this collection addresses these themes as given voice by the philosopher and critic Arthur Danto, while the second part contains essays of a more independent cast which assume a variety of stating points aimed at illuminating the theoreticity, temporality, computability, and abstract possibilities of present and future arts.

Arthur C. Danto is unique among philosophers for the breadth of his philosophical mind, his eloquent writing style, and the generous spirit embodied in all his work. Any collection of essays on his philosophy has to engage him on all these levels, because this is how he has always engaged the world, as a philosopher and person. In this volume, renowned philosophers and art historians revisit Danto's theories of art, action, and history, and the depth of his innovation as a philosopher of culture. Essays explore the importance of Danto's philosophy and criticism for the contemporary art world, along with his theories of perception, action, historical knowledge, and, most importantly for Danto himself, the conceptual connections among these topics. Danto himself continues the conversation by adding his own commentary to each essay, extending the debate with characteristic insight, graciousness, and wit. Contributors include Frank Ankersmit, Hans Belting, Stanley Cavell, Donald Davidson, Lydia Goehr, Gregg Horowitz, Philip Kitcher, Daniel Immerwahr, Daniel Herwitz, and Michael Kelly, testifying to the far-reaching effects of Danto's thought. Danto brought to philosophy the artist's unfettered imagination, and his ideas about postmodern culture are virtual road maps of the present art world. This volume pays tribute to both Danto's brilliant capacity to move between philosophy and contemporary culture and his pathbreaking achievements in philosophy, art history, and art criticism.

Arthur C. Danto's essays not only critique bodies of work but reflect upon art's conceptual evolution as well, drawing for the reader a kind of "philosophical map" indicating how art and the criteria for judging it has changed over the twentieth century. In Unnatural Wonders the renowned critic finds himself at a point when contemporary art has become wholly pluralistic, even chaotic-with one medium as good as another-and when the moment for the "next thing" has already passed. So the theorist goes in search of contemporary art's most exhilarating achievements, work that bridges the gap between art and life, which, he argues, is now the definitive art of our time. Danto considers the work of such young artists as John Currin and Renee Cox and older living masters including Gerhard Richter and Sol LeWitt. He discusses artists of the New York School, like Philip Guston and Joan Mitchell, and international talents, such as the South African William Kentridge. Danto conducts a frank analysis of Matthew Barney's The Cremaster Cycle, Damien Hirst's skeletons and anatomical models, and Barbara Kruger's tchotchke-ready slogans; finds the ghost of Henry James in the work of Barnett Newman; and muses on recent Whitney Biennials and art influenced by 9/11. He argues that aesthetic considerations no longer play a central role in the experience and critique of art. Instead art addresses us in our humanity, as men and women who seek meaning in the "unnatural wonders" of art, a meaning that philosophy and religion are unable to provide.

Danto writes about the contemporary art to be seen in museums and galleries, placing it in the context of the history of modern art and of current debates about essential ideas in our society.

Updated and revised, the Second Edition of Danto and His Critics presents a series of essays by leading Danto scholars who offer their critical assessment of the influential works and ideas of Arthur C. Danto, the Johnsonian Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University and long-time art critic for The Nation. Reflects Danto's revisions in his theory of art, reworking his views in ways that have not been systematically addressed elsewhere Features essays that critically assess the changes in Danto's thoughts and locate Danto's revised theory in the larger context of his work and of aesthetics generally Speaks in original ways to the relation of Danto's philosophy of art to his theory of mind Connects and integrates Danto's ideas on the nature of knowledge, action, aesthetics, history, and mind, as well as his provocative thoughts on the philosophy of art for the reader

The lead essay by Arthur Danto "addresses the possibility that art as it has been enshrined in the museums, galleries, and other canonizing institutions of modern culture has reached an end, that it has nothing more to do or say." The other essays in the book are reactions to the lead essay.