Stephen Snyder

Arthur Danto’s recent book, Andy Warhol, leads the reader through the story of the iconic American’s artistic life highlighted by a philosophical commentary, a commentary that merges Danto’s aesthetic theory with the artist himself. Inspired by Warhol’s Brillo Box installation, art that in Danto’s eyes was indiscernible from the everyday boxes it represented, Danto developed a theory that is able to differentiate art from non-art by employing the body of conceptual art theory manifest in what he termed the ‘artworld’. The strength of Danto’s theory is found in its ability to explain the art of the post-modern era. His body of work weaves philosophy, art history and art criticism together, merging his aesthetic philosophy with his extensive knowledge of the world of art. Danto’s essentialist theory of embodied meaning provides him with a critical tool that succeeds in explaining the currents of contemporary art, a task that many great thinkers of art history were unable to do. If Warhol inspired Danto to create a philosophy of art, it is appropriate that Danto write a tribute to Warhol that traces how Warhol brought philosophy into art. Danto’s account of ‘Warhol as philosopher’ positions him as a pivotal figure in the history of twentieth-century art, effecting a sea change in how art was made and viewed. Warhol achieved this by conceiving of works that embodied the answers to a series of philosophical puzzles surrounding the nature of art. Warhol, as Danto describes him, manifests himself in his art because he had transformed himself, in a way, into an icon of the times. This pragmatist notion that art should undermine the dichotomies that exist between art and life would, by some accounts, position Warhol to be the philosopher that Danto claims him to be, for he dissolved the philosophical questions posted by late modern aesthetic thinkers by creating art that imploded the accepted notions of art at the time. One of Danto’s greatest contributions to aesthetics is his theory’s ability to distinguish art from non-art, recognizing that it is the artist’s intention that levels the sublimity of art into the commonplace, thereby transfiguring the everyday. However, acknowledging this achievement, I argue that Warhol’s philosophical contribution actually manifests itself in a manner different from that proposed by Danto. Danto maintains that the internal drive of art leads to the unfolding of art theoretical concepts that ineluctably shift the terrain of world of art. I would agree with Danto that Warhol, almost as Hegel viewed Napoleon as Geist on a horse, pushed forward the boundaries of art through the actualization of art’s internal drive. But I would disagree that the conceptual nature of art is one that unfolds merely as a relation of concepts that artists trace through a connection to the meaning of history they forge using their unmediated grasp of style. Rather, I would argue that the artist’s style is not bound so narrowly to the meanings they express. Through their aesthetic articulations, artists initiate a process of social interaction. This process employs the philosophical logic which Danto attributes to Warhol indirectly, and through it, it is able to transfigure the vocabulary of art—the concepts of the artworld—by superseding the language of modernism. Warhol’s philosophical contribution is seen in his mastery of both the medium of art and the underlying logic of the medium’s expression and reception.

Arthur Danto’s analytic theory of art relies on a form of artistic interpretation that requires access to the art theoretical concepts of the artworld, ‘an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld’. Art, in what Danto refers to as post-history, has become theoretical, yet it is here contended that his explanation of the artist’s creative style lacks a theoretical dimension. This article examines Danto’s account of style in light of the role the artistic metaphor plays in the interpretation of the artwork, arguing that it is unable to account for the metaphorical power he claims is embedded within the work of art. An artist’s style issues from a unique perspective, the way an artist inhabits a specific spot in history. Though each person has such a perspective, when applied aesthetically, it is the key to the articulation of a unique historical meaning in the work of art. At the same time, artists’ knowledge of their contribution remains cut off from this perspective, for they are unaware of their self-manifestation of the historical concept of style. This article makes the case that Danto’s notion of style, based on Sartre’s notion of being-for-itself, cannot fulfil the role he allots it in his theory because, at some level, artists must apprehend their style to create a work of art capable of functioning critically as a countertext. It is only through the apprehension of their style, and dialogical activity that takes place between the artist and the beholders, that the unseen body of artworld theory is formed. Without this, when oriented to the aesthetic, style provides no concept or theory for the mind to behold. This article presents an alternative approach to style that recognizes the role of theory in the creation of metaphor, which would circumvent this problem.

This article investigates a tension that arises in Hegel’s aesthetic theory between theoretical and practical forms of reason. This tension, I argue, stems from Hegel’s appropriation of an Aristotelian framework for a historically unfolding social teleology which puts practical reason to work for the aims of theoretical reason. Recognizing that this aspect of Hegel’s dialectic is essential in overcoming problems left in Kant’s transcendental idealism, the appearance of incongruence does not lessen. Grouped together with absolute spirit, Hegel positions art as a transitory mode of mind, a vehicle, which aims to raise spirit to the higher cognition of philosophy. When the unfolding absolute concept becomes too complex for articulation in the material, art must end, as spirit’s message can be expressed only through the non-material form of philosophy. This study focuses on the ambivalence found in Hegel’s writings regarding his account of historical completion. Though Hegel sees in the Absolute a metaphysical solution to the unity of subject and object, the practical aspects of the unity appear to falter when philosophy becomes the dominant mode of expression at the close of a historical cycle. In Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel links his notion of the Absolute, albeit with modification, to Aristotle’s nous. As described in De Anima, this entails a progression in which active and possible intellect rise to the level of the eternal, while passive intellect, the imaginative element, passes on with the body. Because the architecture of Aristotle’s nous, which is not in line with his defense of poetry, is integrated into the blueprint of Hegel’s absolute, an unresolved tension emerges in the spirit of art. A divergence of aims is forced to the surface through Hegel’s application of a template for achievement of theoretical knowledge, with an end in the universal, to a form of practical knowing which has an end in the particular.

. This paper discusses the transformative power of aesthetic narrative within the framework of Nietzsche’s theory of transvaluation. The transformative power of creative narrative is the power to give meaning to life’s activity by keeping ahead of forces that would deny it. The power of aesthetic transvaluation plays a fundamental role in the dynamic of the resistance movement that sprang from the Gezi Park sit-ins. The movement erupted with an aesthetic intensity that surprised detractors as well as supporters, employing aesthetic creativity in a way that sets it apart from other protests in Turkey and the Arab world. On several levels, the young movement has become a form of artistic protest. Striking parallels are found in Nietzsche’s aesthetic claim that the existential transformation of one’s narrative is the principle aim of the artist and the dynamic action of the people in Turkey who resist what they feel is an encroachment on their democratic rights and their way of life. The point of the essay, however, is not merely to illustrate the parallels. It is to examine how aesthetic imagination plays a role in forming a narrative that conjures meaning solely through creative fiat, showing how the power of transvaluation is manifested in the Gezi Park resistance.

This book examines the little understood end-of-art theses of Hegel, Nietzsche, and Danto. The end-of-art claim is often associated with the end of a certain standard of taste or skill. However, at a deeper level, it relates to a transformation in how we philosophically understand our relation to the ‘world’. Hegel, Nietzsche, and Danto each strive philosophically to overcome Cartesian dualism, redrawing the traditional lines between mind and matter. Hegel sees the overcoming of the material in the ideal, Nietzsche levels the two worlds into one, and Danto divides the world into representing and non-representing material. These attempts to overcome dualism necessitate notions of the self that differ significantly from traditional accounts; the redrawn boundaries show that art and philosophy grasp essential but different aspects of human existence. Neither perspective, however, fully grasps the duality. The appearance of art’s end occurs when one aspect is given priority: for Hegel and Danto, it is the essentialist lens of philosophy, and, in Nietzsche’s case, the transformative power of artistic creativity. Thus, the book makes the case that the end-of-art claim is avoided if a theory of art links the internal practice of artistic creation to all of art’s historical forms.

This paper investigates Danto’s claims that the narrative of art is over. In this state, which Danto sees as ideal, art is free from any master narrative, and its direction cannot be predicted. The claim that art ought to remain in its current state—pluralistic, free and with no further historical development—is problematic. Danto is correct that late 20th c. art could not be explained through a single narrative, and the myriad forms art takes demonstrate its pluralism. But Danto’s claim that freedom is the outcome of inexplicability, and progress is measured by amenability to narrative, does not follow. Based on Gombrich’s theory of pictorial representation, I provide an alternative explanation of Danto’s claim that art no longer manifests the narrative of the era of art, arguing that the shift in art’s preferred form of presentation, though no longer supporting narrative explanation, is developing as a language of disclosure.

This essay explores claims made frequently by artists, critics, and philosophers that artworks bear personifying traits. Rejecting the notion that artists possess the Pygmalion-like power to bring works of art to life, the article looks seriously at how parallels may exist between the ontological structures of the artwork and human personhood. The discussion focuses on Arthur Danto’s claim that the “artworld” itself manifests properties that are an imprint of the historical representation of the “world.” These “world” representations are implicitly embodied in the artist’s style. The “world” that is stamped on the people of a historical period entails a point of view that influences how they might act, something like the logic that guides a conversation. This “conversational” logic is also extant in the artworks that artists of a given period create. This analysis of Danto’s account of how people are connected to their world clarifies Danto’s assertions that a parallel structure of personification in the artwork and the human exists. It also explains his claims that artworks themselves appear to be in a kind of dialogue.

This essay discusses the mounted image of St. George slaying an emperor within the broader context of how and why early Christian images were transformed and adapted to the early Byzantine religious style. The representational framework of Arthur Danto’s philosophical system is used to tie together the threads of this research. By drawing parallels between changes in contemporary art and culture – often referred to as the modern/postmodern shift – and the transition of the Hellenistic to the Byzantine era, structures common to artistic creation and reception are brought to the fore. The case study presents the history of the depiction of St. George slaying Diocletian, how it emerged in the Caucasus region, and the manner in which it reflects the stylistic changes that took place in the late antique eastern Roman world. The social, cultural and philosophical ramifications of the shift of high classical art to the early Byzantine style are laid out in terms of art, modes of inquiry, and action-orientation. A theory is presented on what role the image of St. George killing Diocletian may have played in transforming the late antique and early medieval worldview. The final section sketches a philosophical framework that supports the conclusions of this research.