From human nature, to different objects painted in a canvas, it never came to the need of a metaphysical thought. Looking through the superficial meaning of an artwork was not necessary. Everything the artwork contained was part of what the artist was living, thus making it easy to define the quality of it.
Modern era uncovered questions hidden by the time, about what is called or not art. Is photography art? To give an answer to it, one needs the definition of art. Danto, did not separate different categories of art, treating them all as part of art itself.
“What in the end makes the difference between a Brillo box and a work of art consisting of a Brillo box is a certain theory of art. It is theory that takes it up into the world of art, and keeps it from collapsing into the real object which it is. [Warhol’s Brillo boxes] could not have been art fifty years ago. The world has to be ready for certain things, the art world no less than the real one. It is the role of artistic theories, these days as always, to make the art world, and art, possible.” (Arthur Danto, n.p)
Following this philosophical view of Dantos about what art is, essentially proves that art is art if its own followers, quiet simply understand the meaning of it and accept it, based in theories of art and its critics, otherwise the definition of what is art, fall off, being left with just a photograph.
As coming to a conclusion, feels a necessity to define the separation of what is called art, and what is not. Using Dantos words, art world is made of philosophical theories and critics, which based on those, is defined which is art and which is not, defining that photography can be an artwork.
Leave a Reply