1) What are the two essential features or conditions, according to Danto’s Abuse of Beauty, that art must establish in order to be considered works of art? How does this expand or democratize what we take art to be?In Dantos book The Abuse of Beauty, he talks about many different subjects relating to art. One of the main things he discusses is aesthetics and the concept of art. There are two essential features according to his book of what are must establish for it to be considered art. The two is that art is about Aboutness and is about Embodied, meaning. Embodied meaning, means to reject the notion of art, and to except it instead. Art Installation can be viewed as a good example of Embodied meaning/Art is always about Embodied meaning, that it is always based on the context of events. It all comes down to how the art is viewed by the viewer. This can also be seen in his art piece that was mentioned in his book.
The Brillio Boxes by James Harvey in 1964. He helped prove that any object can be art. Someone could look at a piece of art and consider it art for a totally different reason than someone else who’s looking at the same piece of art. The artist can have a vision for an art he/she creates, but it won’t be guaranteed that the viewers will have the same meaning for the peace. The person who will be viewing the art will have a whole different interpretation of the art.
A good example of this can be ready mades. They turn a random object to art in a way, or a real not actual. This can be taken back to the cold war. ” The extent to which America’s victory in the Cold War can be credited to the aesthetics of American commercial art can hardly be exaggerated. The image of all those gay packages densely arrayed on supermarket shelves made the sparse dreary shelves of government dispensaries insupportable”(Danto). Seeing all the ready mades of American products had a big positive effect on a whole government. This affects what we take to be art in today’s society in a different way. How people can view art or who can make art has changed.
Today people can view anything as art as long as it has an embodied meaning to them. That being a big change to what art was in Aristotle’s time. Artist now has also gone through the same process. Anyone can be an artist now because we can consider it art even if it’s just a box, the meaning of the box is what makes it art.
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Cultural values has changed for us because of all the types of things we can consider art. Cultural values are embodied meaning and pluralistic at the same time. Because of that, it brings a new enjoyment, thrill, disgust. Dantos ideology changes what our culture considers art today for many different reasons. The idea of how we can view things to be art solely on the reason of its meaning is a new form of aesthetic.
Art is more than beauty to Danto, it’s also about presentation. Just like halftone illustrations that are still considered presentational symbols. Because of that, Danto has that philosophers defined art based on the point of view of themselves. What they considered to be art is what they view to count as art. That’s why he says art can be anything as long as the viewer has an embodied meaning to it.2.
) Discuss what Langer means by the notion that artistic expression is done through presentational symbols that act as a “School of Feeling”.Susanne Katherina Langer had two forms of relations. One was strict relations and had discursive symbolism which was based on languages.That was based thoughts and meaning. It means that everything had to have a process to it, no freeness. Using mathematics and science was a big part of the strict relations. Strict relations also dealt with actual reals. Langer also believes that experience is precognitive.
For example, you hear a song then start to dance right away. Not thinking about moving or dancing before you do it. That would be a good example of the concrete determining the abstract. The abstract also determines the concrete for Langer The second part of her relations of experience was loose relations. This side dealt with non-discursive symbols. Which means non-intentional actions.
This can mean anything that is prior, before the experience. The loose side also deals with expressions, which is non articulation. This is where he school of feeling falls into place. Susan Langer theory is that the artistic expression is done through presentational symbols. This where as we discussed hits would be made. Going into the studio not expecting anything and letting your mind run free, leads to unexpected hits.
Enjoyment of the music is loose and spontaneous. Presentational symbols are what acts as Langer’s school of feeling. That would mean that art is loose or concrete, making it unexplainable.
When Langer goes after this she is not seeking to understand how it is unexplained, but rather why. With the use of non-discursive symbols, meaning and other interpretations of art, it becomes unintentional or expression without articulation. She also uses what Whitehead taught her, the phrase “lures for feelings”. Meaning that everything has relations. Whether that be negative or positive.
In that, positive includes feelings and negative excludes or cancels them out. Susanne also believes that we live in the then and future, not the here and now. A good example of that would be Social media and iPhones.
People wanna know whats next rather than be content with what’s out now. The iPhone 10 came out, but people are already asking whats next. The Art of the “School of Feeling” is on the loose relations side. It talks about this idea that she was the only one to have. Which is the idea of Virtual semblance, non actual real. This where entertainment would be. All enjoyment, imaginative and shock would all be loose. Non-actual reals have possibilities as well that fall into both loose and strict.
The past, might have been, which people can only relate to in their imaginative minds. The other possibilities are the future “may bes” which falls into the strict relations. Virtual semblance can also be seen as what art produces. Lager also has a strong theory that art cannot go with politics. This is because art is seen as an estimation of truth.
5) How does Danto revise Hegel’s thesis that we are at the “end of art”? In your explanation, be sure to describe how beauty is not a necessary condition of art and discuss the importance of other aesthetic qualities, such as embeddedness and immersion over museum exhibitions.Hegel called for the end of art in the early 19th century. Hegel was saying that the role of art was not needed anymore. Since its role for it was done, because history has done all forms of art for societies.
Museums were the history book, that kept all the different forms of art until the end. And now all the art that is coming is just a repeat of the past. Danto declared the end of art following Hegel’s’ thesis. When Danto declared the end of art he had a different meaning. Danto was speaking in terms of today’s society and views.
He meant that since today we do not have any guidelines of what are can be, that is the ending he speaks of today. In today’s postmodern era, there is no book, computer, or person, that can say that art has to meet these specific guidelines. Our society does not limit the people who can make art and criticism art to philosophers only. This means that since we can consider art to be anything as long as it has an embodied meaning. A viewer can look at an art piece and consider it art for a totally different reason than someone else. He is saying that since 1964 after the Brillo box, anyone who considers themselves an artists can make art out anything, everything, and anyone can do this.
Danto has said, “Art today is not for connoisseurs of collectors alone. Nor is it only for the people who share the artist’s culture or nationality. The globalization of the art world means that art addresses us in our humanity, as men and women who seek in the art for meanings that neither of art’s peers – philosophy and religion – in what Hegel spoke of as the realm of Absolute Spirit, are able to provide”(Danto). This is stepping outside of the churches, and art is everywhere in today’s society.
Art has changed so much that it is not art anymore. When he says the end of art, it’s more of the definition has ended. Art definition has changed since Hegel’s society. That shift has changed the need for beauty in art. Since art can be made by anyone out of anything, it doesn’t have to beautiful. Art does not need to beautiful as long as the beholder can embody the meaning and interpret aboutness.
Art is always beautiful since it depends on the viewers taste. If you’re looking at a piece and consider it art, that’s because it looks like a piece of beauty in your eyes. The more time you do spend on viewing an art piece, even if you consider it ugly after awhile it will start to grow on you. The saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder comes into light.
Since beauty is different for everyone, it is not a necessary point for art. So beauty can be defined differently by everyone that’s why it is not necessary. Danto’s theory that art is about aboutness, that it needs meaning, which is different for everyone. The reason that people say that embeddedness is important is that it plays into what people consider art to be. Without it, we would be single-minded and on the loose side. We would have a specific guideline for what society considers art.
Then that would be the only thing that would be considered art.6) Benjamin argues that the modern age of mass production has killed the “aura” surrounding our notions of the audience, artist, and works of art. Explain his interpretation and be sure to describe how art is now “created” under the sway of economic interests aloneWalter Benjamin uses the term aura as a way to describe authenticity and originality. The more aura an object has the more of its originality it has. Another term is mechanically reproduced, something that is pure and not edited through human Some examples of something not mechanically reproduced would be an image of mountains and skies with the shadows casted on you only. There are many things that are ruining that, or kill the aura. One example of something has come about and is killing the aura around art and artist is the photograph. A photograph is a mechanical art that can be mas manufactured.
In-depth, it is a cinema that hypnotizes the eyes, a moving mirror for say. It takes away from the artist because it requires skill rather than talent. Cinema has fluidness and is easily distractible, where photos or paintings root your attention.
Pictures can hold your attention well cinema moves around, easily losing your attention. In someway because it does not require talent to do so, we no longer need an artist or even an audience. That’s why Ben says that the aura is being killed. We are losing the authenticity of art.
Aura is being lost in the mechanical process because of another program, editing program. The reason for that is because it is imitating the real work that can be done by an artist. This is making it easy for anyone to take a picture and edit it with the click of buttons. Anyone can be the artist and or audience. The montage process is exactly that, a series of people syncing, editing and recording to repeat.
Heidegger’s Age of the world picture, talks about how this is turning the 2d (the representation) into 3d. Turning virtual time and space into hyper dimensionality. This all falls into the idea of abstract ? concrete ? hyper imagery. 3d is concrete into 2d which is abstract. All this is feeding the process of production.
Which is leading to commodification, people are trying to economize art. This would increase the more people who want to make art, just to sell. Again killing the aura of artists.
This is feeding into society’s exhibition, or the public desire for an item that is heavenly reproduced. An example of that would be music, an artist selling millions of CDs all over the country. The drive to make art can be said shifted from art to Economic & political Ideology.
One thing that will always sale is sex, power, money. All which are infinite desires. The change in the medium of perception today can be seen as a decay of the aura.
