The critical language of art.

Exercise 5.0. Read the first three pages (at least) of Arthur Danto`s eassay “Works of Art and Mere Real Things” in his book The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, then conduct your own “thought experiment” by choosing a picture of object that is, or you can imagine to be, a work of art. Give this “work” three or more different titles, then reflect on the effect of the title on the work and the work on the title.

I had read the whole essay of Arthur Danto “Works of Art and Mere Real Things” in his book The Transfiguration of the Commonplace before I picked up the object to work on as it was required in the exercise. Below you can find an abstract from the essay I have made as my understanding of Danto`s thesis and his reflections about what kind of object can be considered as artwork and what is art.

In his essay, Danto investigates the difference between “mere” things and art objects. He brings a parallel with Giotto`s paintings of Jesus Christ, describing that the raised arm can signify a whole array of different meanings to different people in different places. He says: “The difference between the action and a mere bodily movement is paralleled in many ways by the differences between an artwork and a mere thing…” (A.Danto, p.5). Actually, he asks the same unresolved question: what can be considered a work of art and what is not. On page 7, he describes the situation with mirrors as art objects and bread baskets which also can be art objects, but why the breadbasket exhibited at a gallery is an art object while the breadbasket on the table is not.

A. Danto reviews two philosophic approaches to the definition of art. The first one is the one suggested by Plato and is described as “mimetic”. The following quote of A. Danto I find as very important for understanding the problem of definition of art: “The theory would have been that art is an imitation of reality, and imitation itself was characterised merely in terms of duplicating an antecedent reality; if nothing more were asked of an artwork than this, there would be no criterion for distinguishing mirror images, which by common consent are not always artworks, from more routine instances of mimesis; and a further condition must be sought”. (A. Danto, p.8). In simple words: art is an imitation of reality, and this approach Danto finds very questionable.

Another approach he describes is the “Euripidean dilemma”. He brings Socrate`s question in Book Ten of the Republic: “what is the point of having in art something which resembles life that no difference between art and life can be marked in terms of internal content? What is the need or good of duplication of what we already have? Who requires a world just like this world?”(p.21). In other words, if art has got just this mimetic function, then what is its value? Danto further explains: “if art is to have any function at all, it must be exercised through what it does not have in common with real life, and the Euripidean program can hardly discharge this function” (p.25). Thus “Euripidean dilemma” poses the question about art as whatever value art has it can not be discharged through mimesis otherwise when art is just about mimicking the reality – who needs that? Danto finds this dilemma as “inescapable” and gives an example with a can-opener which can be considered by a housewife as a practical invention and by an artist as a work of art. At the same time, these two objects can be absolutely identical. The author ask what would be different in these two objects and why one, totally identical, would be considered as a work of art. He leaves this question open and doesn’t give a definite answer, saying (A. Danto, p.32): “  Or can there be no theory wide enough to cover both cases, so that in effect there can be no general theory of art? And suppose that indeed all there is the honorific bestowed by discriminating citizens of the art world, that something is an artwork just because it is declared to be that: then how we are to account for the profound differences between theses indiscernible artworks. Or are we prepared, as I believe we are not, to say of this fortuitously caused object that it, like its indiscernible counterpart, is “one of the deepest paintings in the history of the subject”? Is it deep at all – or is it shallow, empty in the manner of J`s work? These are questions the conventional is tic theory of art does not enable us to answer: so we must press further.”

Below I place two passages from Danto`s essay, which I find very helpful to understand the question in the exercise I am working on. 

1. A. Danto, p.22: “The basis for the distinction….there are two distinct attitudes that can be taken toward any object whatsoever, so that the difference in the end between art and reality is less a difference in kinds of things than an in kinds of attitudes, and hence not a matter of what we relate to but how we relate to it…. But since it is an attitude of contemplative detachment that may be adopted toward just anything. It is possible to see the whole world across aesthetic distance, as a spectacle, a comedy, or whatever”. Because of this detachment attitude, Danto finds it problematic to explicate the connection between artwork and reality because some life phenomenons, for example such as riots and cruelty, can not be represented as art. 
2. A. Danto, p.3: “A title is more than a name; frequently it is a direction for interpretation or reading, which may not always be helpful, as when someone perversely gives the title “Annunciation” to a painting of some apples”;

Below is the object I have chosen as an artwork for the thought experiment required by the exercise.

I have picked up an origami piece, which children use for playing games. I thought about the following names for the object as an artwork: 1) A Flower; 2) Life Journey; 3) A Multiverse;

My thoughts about the object for each name are below.

When I look at the object, and I know the title is “A Flower’, I see the tulip. The object supports this idea with its shape because the paper edges look like tulip leaves and it has an overall flower shape.
Looking at the object and reading the title ‘Life Journey’ makes me see a tiny, fragile boat. I easily imagine it in the stormy river, swinging between waves, which can quickly turn it over at any moment. Then I think further how this reminds me of human life experience.
If the title is ‘A Multiverse.’ In this case, I immediately see the surfaces of every paper wedge and think that each of the planes is a part of a larger structure. I start imagining how this structure can spin and move. Indeed if someone begins to play with it, it doesn’t remind a flower or a boat at all. It requires numbers and patterns in movement like in the cosmos.

Bibliography: 1) Works of Art and Mere Real Things, Arthur Danto, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, online on http://pcnw.org/files/Danto.pdf;%5Baccessed on July 20th, 2021];

Exercise 5.1. Access a summary of Kant`s Critique of Judgment and select three key points that you should then further summarise in approx. 50 words each.

1. Kant noted that even though our esthetic judgments are subjective because each has our individual aesthetic tastes and preferences, there should still be a universal base. This universality of our ‘judgments of taste’ is determined by our common ability to appreciate beauty without any need or purpose to come into practical ‘interplay’ with it. As it is mentioned in summary, “Aesthetic pleasure comes from the free play between the imagination and understanding when perceiving an object.” (Summary of Critique of Judgment, I.Kant, online on http://www.spartnotes.com)

2. Kant brings a difference between the beautiful and the sublime. He points to the fact that we perceive things depending on their scale. We find relatively small and simple objects beautiful. Still, more complex, more prominent, and all those objects/items/things/events are too great to get our heads around (Summary of Critique of Judgment, I.Kant, online on http://www.spartnotes.com) he calls them ‘sublime’.

3. Kant struggled with the idea of God and Grand Design. According to Kant, the existence of God with all its implications and consequences is ‘fundamentally unknowable.’ However, his idea of the universal base in our common ability to appreciate beauty leads to the question, where does this beauty come from, who bestowed it things? “This question would provide a toehold for the Argument from Design, an outcome that Kant determined to avoid’ (Summary of Critique of Judgment, I.Kant, online on http://www.spartnotes.com).

Bibliography: 1) Summary ‘Critique of Judgment’ of Immanuel Kant, online on http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/kant/section3.rhtml; [accessed on July 25th 2021];