Art History

ART

__-history, __-theory, __-world

(Accounting for modern art with Dickie, Danto, and Weitz)

Up until the twentieth century art theorists had consistently sought for a definition of artÐ'--a definition that would determine a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be called art. But artists in the 20th century did not want to be defined, and they deliberately tried to create artworks that would not fit under some theorist's umbrella. We saw the Beatniks with their free verse; we saw the pop art of Andy Warhol; we saw the rise of abstractionist and surrealist painters; we saw "happenings", and we saw "ready-made" art, all of which combined to make the finding of a definition of art almost impossible. It's not a surprise that some theorists just gave up and argued that a definition of art, or an umbrella theory, was non-essential at least, and at most not possible. The artworks in themselves in the 20th century were too radical to fit a definition, so an attempt was made to turn the focus away from the artwork itself and instead focus on the "artworld"Ð'--the institutional/historical world that was the practical force for deciding where the line between art and non-art was and how it moved. This essay seeks to explain the theories of Weitz, Danto and Dickie, how they relate to one another, how they changed the focus of art theory from the artwork itself to the "artworld", and the problems that an institutional/historical theory of art runs into.

Both the theories of Arthur Danto and George Dickie are influenced by Morris Weitz's theory, so it is fitting to begin with Weitz. Weitz espoused a kind of anti-theory. He got fed up with all the aesthetic theorists that kept on arguing that previous theorists had it all wrong and that they had it right. Weitz believed that aesthetic theories throughout history tried in vain to come up with the "correct" necessary and sufficient set of conditions that would be able to fully answer the question: "What is the nature of art?" Thus, Weitz steps up to the plate and says, "Aesthetic theoryÐ'--all of itÐ'--is wrong in principle in thinking that a correct theory is possible because it radically misconstrues the logic of the concept of art (184)." Weitz believes that the concept of art is an "open" one, in which case the "logic" of this concept is precisely one which requires that it remains undefined. Weitz is influenced by Wittengenstein's open concept of a "game". Like "a game" art has no stagnant set of necessary and sufficient conditions because art is a product of an ongoing creative process in which its properties are in constant flux and always have the potential to be changed. If you try to think of a necessary condition for a game to be a game, there will always be some game that refutes the condition, or some game that we could invent that would not fit that condition, but could fit many others. The question of whether something is or is not art does not require us to see if all its properties fit into some specific set of necessary and sufficient conditions; rather, it requires us to ask whether or not we will make a decision to "enlarge the set of conditions for applying the concept (Weitz, 188)." For both games and art there are no essential properties, there are only "family resemblances", or relational similarities that allow us to recognize whether a thing is close enough to be considered "art" or "a game". Weitz offers a great summation of his argument concerning the "openness" of the concept of art:

"What I am arguing, then, is that the very expansive, adventurous character of art, its ever-present changes and novel creations, makes it logically impossible to ensure any set of defining properties. We can, of course, choose to close the concept. But to do this with "art" or "tragedy" or "portraiture," etc., is ludicrous since it forecloses on the very conditions of creativity in the arts (189)."

So, Weitz's theory of art as an "open" concept, which cannot be defined due to the logic of the concept of "openness", seems like a vicious attack on all the previous aesthetic theories from the ancient Greek mimetic theories to the formalist theories of Kant and those following his tradition. How can he cast them all aside as false or useless when they have undoubtedly influenced the progression of art and helped to enrich people's experience of it along the way? Weitz himself has undoubtedly spent much of his own time studying aesthetic theory and has been influenced by it to some good. Though Weitz concludes that art cannot be defined and the question of the nature of art is unanswerable, he does not think that all aesthetic theories are useless, rather he makes it explicit at the end of his essay that aesthetic theories should be taken seriously as an "evaluative" tool with which we can "praise" and uphold the standards and "excellence" of art.

Arthur Danto was influenced by the way in which Weitz's "open" concept of art took the focus off of trying to find necessary and sufficient properties of the artwork. Danto agrees that finding and listing a set of empirical properties cannot account for the ever-changing concept of art, but Danto does believe that there is a necessary condition for something to be distinguished as art. This necessary condition is the artworld. The artworld for Danto is the world that surrounds the artwork and holds it up as art. It is a world made by the complex of art theories and knowledge of art history. Danto claims that the average person would not know if they were on "artistic terrain" or not if they did not have a theory of art to tell them so. Intuitively this makes a lot of sense. If I suddenly came upon a tree covered in bright yellow toilet paper in some well known park, I might be inclined to think that some Jr. High kids thought that a prank like this would be funny, but then imagine my reaction when my friend who knows much about art and art theory, explains to me that this was probably done by a prominent artist that has a gallery a few blocks away. This toilet papered tree, which I happen upon, could be construed as a prank or art, but it takes a theory of art and knowledge of the history of art to truly recognize an artwork as such, i.e. for something to be considered an artwork there must be recognition of it as such through an artworld. How, for instance, do you think people responded to the first "ready-made" art? I'm sure many people had no idea