The Re-enchantment of Art (Chapter 1-5)

This essay has greatly influenced debates about aesthetics and art ever since. In it he was responding to the monumental changes and innovations he was witnessing in this and the previous 50 decades.

Preface: Danto attacks Socrates and Plato’s view of art as imitation (mimesis0 or a mirror. He calls this the “Imitation Theory” or “IT”. If this were correct, then any mirror image would also be an artwork, which is obviously false. It’s true that many artists both at that time and later did try to imitate nature in their art. But the invention of photography put an end to this as the goal of art, and showed that the mimesis or imitation view is false.

When he visited Andy Warhol’s exhibition of Brillo Boxes at the Stable Gallery in New York he asked himself a fundamental question:

What made Warhol’s Brillo Boxes different from commercial Brillo boxes?

More specifically, why are Warhol’s Boxes “Art” and the Brillo Company’s boxes are not?

The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe

The Artists:
Jane Wagner - Playwright
Lilly Tomlin - Actress
Andy Warhol- Artist

This is Soup

and

this is Art

An excerpt from the Play:
The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe
by Jane Wagner
Plymouth Theater, New York City, 1985

Main character : Trudy the bag lady
Location : A street corner in New York City

Lilly Tomlin - 1985

Here I am,
standing on the corner of "Walk, Don't Walk,"
waiting for these aliens from outer space to show up.
I call that crazy don't you. They're late as usual.
My space chums say they're learning so much about us.
They said to me, "Trudy, the human mind is so-o-o strange."
We think so different.
They find it hard to grasp some things that come easy to us,
because they simply don't have our frame of reference.

I show'em this can of Campbell's tomato soup.
I say,
"This is soup".
Then I show'em a picture of Andy Warhol's painting
of a can of Campbell's tomato soup. I say,
"This is art."

"This is soup."

"And this is art."

Then I shuffle the two behind my back.

Now what is this?

No.
this is soup and this is art!

I dread having to explain tartar sauce!

Danto’s Answer to the Conundrum

Danto’s answer to this question, “What’s the difference” was “The Art World.”

This is a term he coined to suggest that it is not possible to understand conceptual art without the help of the artworld, that is, the community of art interpreters –art critics, art curators, artists, and art collectors – within the network of galleries, museums and other art “institutions.”

Imitation Theory and Reality Theory

Arthur Danto published “The Artworld” to explain this philosophical insight gained from artworks.

Dant points to the need for Theory for something to exist as art. Theory provides us ways of looking at paintings and regarding them as art. But if our theories do not match our experiences, then we need new theories. This is analogous to development in the history of science .

Theory –> Deviations -> New theory

Danto contrasts two concepts of “Imitation Theory” (IT) with “Reality Theory” (RT) Recall at this time there was still some resistance to what was then “avant-garde,” that is to say, non-realistic and not representational art. Previously, according to IT, artworks were judged to be artworks only if they were an imitation of reality.

(‘Imitation Theory’, also mimesis: the idea that art is imitation of reality),

Danto contrasts two concepts of “Imitation Theory” (IT) with “Reality Theory” (RT)

Roy Lichtenstein, American (1923-1997). Ohhh…Alright…, 1964. Oil and Magna on canvas. 91.4 x 96.5 cm (36 x 38 in). © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Private Collection.

By contrast, RT explains that art is something that is original and distinguishable. It can look like an object that is not art, and therefore it cannot always be easily recognized as an art object, yet it is easily and correctly recognized and distinguished from non-art objects by those possessing the pertinent theory and relevant facts. Danto says:

“According to it (RT), the artists in question were to be understood not as unsuccessfully imitating real forms but as successfully creating new ones, quite as real as the forms which the older art had been thought, in its best examples, to be creditably imitating.”[2]

According to RT, the acceptance of post-impressionist reveals that art objects are autonomous things. IT ignores their reality, concentrating instead on the “real objects” they represent. But for RT, the real painting (or other object of art) are never ignored. RT recognizes then canvases covered with paint as canvases covered with paint. While consideration of the formal elements of paintings was certainly involved in IT, under RT, it became acceptable to look at paintings more on the basis of their formal properties, and less on the basis of the quality of their imitation or representation. Contemporary art, Danto maintains, must be understood in terms of RT. As an illustration of how theory makes art possible, he points to Post-impressionist painting. There could be no such thing were it not for the RT. It simply would not be considered art.

It is important to make a distinction here between:

1. ‘it would not be possible to paint these images’,

2. ‘it would not be possible for these paintings to exist qua paintings’.

Certainly such images could exist, but no one would/could/should related to them as paintings unless and until equipped with a suitable theoretical framework.

Though it is true of some paintings that they would not have been made if it were not for the development of certain ideas about painting, that development possibly motivated by earlier paintings which may or may not have had an explicit theoretical basis prior to their painting, Danto is talking about how such paintings are considered, and whether or not they are taken up into the art world.

He further makes his point he cites paradigmatic examples where art objects are indistinguishable or nearly so from non-art objects. For example genuine beds from those made by Robert Rauschenberg (an actual bed hung vertically streaked with paint) and Claes Oldenburg.

Robert Rauschenberg, Bed 1955

The “is” of Artistic Identification

Danto asks how one can mistake the art for real beds? This is equivalent to asking what makes them artworks. A naïve person (“Testadura”, Danto calls him) might not realize this is art and might think it’s just a really messy bed. To answer his question, he introduces another new term: the “‘is’ of artistic identification.”[3] This ‘is’ is used in sentences like “That a is b.” where a is some specific physical property or part of an object. It is a necessary condition for something to be an artwork that is can be the subject of such a sentence. So when I point to a certain dark region of color in a painting that I say, that is my mother as a small child.” I am using the “is” of artistic identification.

• Danto talks about the “is” at work in works of art.

• This bed is an artwork” is like “This blob (in a child’s artwork) is my dog.”

• It’s also like saying, of the Brueghel painting “Fall of Icarus,” “This blob of white paint is Icarus.”

• Danto also gives two imaginary examples (top p. 38) of abstract artworks that look the same but represent two different laws of Newton.

• Danto calls the “is” in these examples “the ‘is’ of artistic identification”.

• We can’t help the poor naïve guy Testadura understand why this is art until he “gets” it about this “is”.

Danto shows how this can make a very big difference in the way one relates to paintings. For instance he imagines the viewing of two identical paintings (each a white rectangle with a black line through the center). A hardcore abstractionist might refuse to identify his black-lined rectangle with anything – “there is nothing there but white paint and black”. Testadura, who likewise believes that the line represents/ nothing, does not “see” the painting (as an painting) at all.

· Testadura: There is no artwork, all he sees is paint

· The artist: That black paint is black paint

Danto: “We cannot help [Testadura] until he has mastered the is of artistic identification and so constitutes it a work of art” (139)

“To see something as art requires ... an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art, an artworld.” (140)

“It is the theory that takes it up into the world of art and keeps it from collapsing into the real object which it is ...

The abstractionist is employing the ‘is’ of artistic identification, and the philistine is not.

If someone with no aesthetic education simply says, “All I see is paint,” it’s just shows that he fails to grasp artistic identification which will allow him/her to constitute it a work of art. In pure abstraction the artist has achieved abstraction through rejection of artistic identifications, but in fact when Danto says, “That black paint is black paint” he is not just repeating the obvious but using artistic identification.

“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 the theory that takes it up into the world of art and keeps it from collapsing into the real object which it is ... Of course, without the theory, one is unlikely to see it as art ...”

In Sum:

Developments in modern art, especially post-impressionist paintings, challenged the IT, since imitation just was not their goal. To explain or show why these new works were art, a new theory of art was needed. The new theory also worked to make other things start to count as art, such as masks and weapons from anthropological museums. This new theory, the “Reality Theory,” or RT, didn’t pretend that artworks were imitations, it almost threw it in your face that they were not, since they didn’t look realistic, etc. Robert Rauschenberg’s bed is BOTH, actual bed, which he hung vertically on a wall and streaked with paint and an object of art. A naïve person (“Testadura”, Danto calls him) might not realize this is art and might think it’s just a really messy bed.

But Testadura’s error is a philosophical one. He thinks the bed is just a bed, but it’s an artwork. There’s some theory that makes the ordinary thing into an artwork, just like being alive makes a person into more than simply their body.

Is of artistic identification

”This bed is an artwork” is like “This blob (in a child’s artwork) is my dog.” Danto tries to explain and understand the “is” in these sentences. It’s also like saying, of the Brueghel painting “Fall of Icarus,” “This blob of white paint is Icarus.” Danto also gives two imaginary examples (top p. 38) of abstract artworks that look the same but represent two different laws of Newton. In one painting, the line in the middle “is” the path of a particle. In the other painting, the two squares “are” forces pressing against each other. Danto calls the “is” in these examples “the ‘is’ of artistic identification”. We can’t help the poor naïve guy Testadura understand why this is art until he “gets” it about this “is”.

Thus Andy Warhol’s “Brillo Boxes” look just like actual, ordinary ones. Why are they art? Each Warhol box “is” more than a regular box; it ‘is’ an artwork, using this new theory of art. “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” (p. 41). This couldn’t be art without a lot of both theory and history.

Conclusion

We have a valid argument

If we have a work of art, then we have theory.

We have no theory.

Therefore

We have no work of art.

His claim is that it is the work of art (the practice) that implies the theory, not the theory that implies the work of art.

Danto coined the term Artworld to suggest that it is not possible to understand conceptual art without the help of the Artworld. The Artworld is defined in its cultural context of the definition of art, or as an atmosphere of artistic theory. The artworld both holds the IT and the RT, but mostly creates itself in the RT. It created the notion that art is imitation of real objects yet not objects themselves, also create the ability to discern art from that which should be considered/ is art that should not be considered art.

Part IV Style Matrix For Art

Here Danto constructs what he calls the “style matrix” for art.

Representational Expressionist

+ + Artwork is both Fauvism

+ - Representational, not expressionist Ingres

- + Epressionist, not representational Pollock

- - Artwork is neither Pure Abstraction

Danto’s idea is that whenever you give a list of the kinds of features or styles that art can be made in, you also open up the option that someone will just reject those features. (This is a lot like what Kant meant when he discussed how a genius is someone who breaks the rules of art, and sets new rules by example.)

For instance, up until the 20^th century most painters thought of a painting as something done on a flat surface. But then some artists (like Frank Stella) started to make canvases that were shaped or curved and stuck out of the wall. And others made canvases in zig-zag shapes.
Or, one feature of art used to be that it involved or was made on an object, like a canvas. But some artists began to make art out of light, so that the light made shapes and designs. An example is James Turrell with his light tunnel here in Houston at our Museum of Fine Arts. Another is the displays of neon lights by Dan Flavin—you can see some at the Menil Collection’s Richmond Center which is in around the 1300 block of Richmond, across from El Pueblito Place restaurant.

1. Or, the avant-garde composer John Cage made musical works that were just periods of silence, where the musicians would sit there and not move!

Or the avant-garde playwright Peter Handke wrote a play called “Insulting the Audience” in which the actors came on-stage and did just that—insulted the audience!

Danto’s point here is that for almost any feature you can think of that seems to belong to art, some artist is likely to come along and reject it at some time, for some reason. This can only be true if somehow the artist is helping create and advance in our theory of the relevant kind of art.