Danto and the Work of Art

In reading Arthur Danto’s The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, two chapters in particular resonated with me, these being: “Works of Art and Mere Real Things,” and “Aesthetics and the Work of Art.”  I am at once frustrated and fascinated by the enigmatic puzzles Danto has laid out in admirable organization, but to which he himself admits there are pieces missing – that is, the question to the ontological status of art is clear but confused.  While it is interesting to note that Alexander Baumgarten, heralded as the ‘inventor’ of aesthetics in philosophy, considered none other than the clear and confused representation to be the most poetical, perhaps it is not sufficient to be clear yet confused in thoughts about the representation in question, or the topic in general.  One of the best points that Danto drives home is also one that troubles me the most – the possibility that, not only do we not have a distinct or consensual answer to the old question, ‘What is Art?’ and other neighbouring questions, but also that we may have been asking the wrong questions all along. 

 “Works of Art and Mere Real Things,” which is the first chapter in Danto’s Transfiguration, is terrifying because of its lucidity.  Following in the footsteps of Descartes’ famous methodology of hyperbolic doubt, Danto begins his book, and his quest for answers, by introducing historical and theoretical responses to the question of the ontology of the artwork, and in a way, eliminates (or at least, casts serious shadows) over any response that may be doubted even in the slightest.  More specifically, Danto is searching for how different ontological categories or orders of materially alike things come to be, and he presents a range of theories, from the Platonic idea of representation as a mirror to reality, to the more modern, psychological view of art as something we conceive as art or is held in the perimeters of art.  He announces the merits of each theory, yet seems to still hold doubt.  But first, let me clarify, what I mean by ‘terrifying’ – I do not mean that Danto’s ideas are ill meaning, rather, that they shake loose the foundations which I am standing upon, and I am terrified of falling.  To that, I read this chapter with great anxiety and with great care, so that I may find some sort of place of rest.   While I did not arrive at, from this chapter alone, a settled theory of my own, or a theory of another’s to defend, Danto has brought up quite a few approaches which sparks some thoughts in my mind.  In particular, one approach, which I believe he takes as the basis for his later work on the Third Realm, a topic more extensively studied in his book, The Abuse of Beauty, is to endeavor to understand the gap between art and life, i.e. imitations and reality, to understand what the two extremes have in common or not, so to better elucidate both the extremes and the middle ground at once.  Too often am I ensnared in the battle to distinguish between art and non-art, or even, high and low art, and therefore establish some sort of criterion, to even think that there is an expanse between the two.  But while I believe that the space between the extremes is increasingly closing, it must be studied as extensively as one side or the other, so that we can understand where exactly the lines are drawn.  Of course, this is at the core of my investigation: where are the lines, why do we divide them where they are, and how does this affect one’s values in the consumption of art objects and images?  I especially liked one theory that Danto purposes that the distinction between art and reality is not due to difference in material of the object or attitude of the viewer, but to conventional perimeters.  Those that are privy to the conventions of an art form understand that what they experience is not reality, and should not be reacted to as such.  Danto proposes that these conventions are indicated to us by things such as a theater stage or a painting’s frame, which appropriately annotes the objects they contain, and acts analogously as brackets or quotation marks.  So, one can conclude that we recognize objects as art by institutional, social, or situational cues, yet Danto denies this in a later chapter. 

Danto insists in chapter 4, ”Aesthetics and the Work of Art,” that what distinguishes art objects from non-art is “not institutional, it is ontological,” which heavily implies that there is a quality or qualities found in artwork that is not based on external indicators, such as attitude or material (including cues on perimeter conventions).  He admits that changes in one’s attitude towards an object, when revealed as a work of art (which may be because of reverence, ritual, or other kind of significance), is indeed a social or institutional change.  Yet the fact that we do associate some sort of quality with art which makes it worthy of our respect and change of attitude, implies that the quality is of the art itself, and may be inherent.  That is, “learning it is a work of art means that is has qualities to attend to which its untransfigured counterpart lacks, and that our aesthetic responses will be different.”  Danto closes the chapter on that point, yet what is most revelatory to me is not the distinction between external and internal qualities, but rather his question of the place of aesthetics in the consideration of art.  He writes that while aesthetics has always had a natural place in the discussion of art, it is still in the air “whether aesthetic considerations belong to the definition of art… if they do not, then they simply will be among the things which go with the concept without pertaining to its logic,… such as preciousness or collectability,… which have also been part of the practice if not the concept of art.”  To me, this is a division which I will have to seriously consider – especially given that I have always understood qualities such as preciousness and collectability to be part of art, much less aesthetics.  In my general inspection of the role of authenticity in art for value and appreciation, I had taken for granted that there is no avoiding factors such as preciousness (for example, the material preciousness of real gold in a piece of work, as opposed to something gold-like) in evaluating the art-ness or art value of an object.  To this, I realize that perhaps my inquiry is more sociological rather than philosophical, and endeavor to pursue the possibility of the marriage of the two, as it is clear to me that there must exist an important relationship, at least in the consumption of art, between the social the ontological.