Notes: Danto, After the End of Art

A. Definition of ArtConcept of Art

ahistorical or transhistorical (universal)
historical (contingent)

B. Narratives of Art/Art History (c. 1400 - c. 1964)

1. Vasarian: mimesis
2. Modern: reflexive and self-defining (search for an essence)
Greenberg: What is the essence of a medium?
Danto: What is the essence of art?

C. Non-Narrative Periods
Pre-Modern (Pre-Renaissance): nothing is art in the narrative sense.
Post-Modern (Contemporary): anything can be art in the non-narrative (post-historical) sense.

A. Definition of ArtConcept of Art

The "transhistorical essence of art" is accepted by Danto. Furthermore, it is not reducible to
a particular and exclusive style. [28] 1

Danto has an admittedly idiosyncratic concept of style.

"[A] style is a set of properties a body of artworks share, but which is further taken to
define, philosophically, what it is to be an artwork." [46]

"[W]hat makes the difference between a work of art and something not a work of art when
there is no interesting perceptual difference between them?" [35]

Danto's Essentialism
The definition of art is a statement of the necessary and sufficient conditions for being an
artwork. Those conditions are transhistorical and universal. But the set of objects which
satisfy the definition is historical and contingent. [95]

Content (meaning) and Form (means of presentation). [98]

Reconciling Danto's Essentialism with His Historicism [193]

Danto's Definition of Art

"To be a work of art is to be (i) about something and (ii) to embody its meaning." [195]
These are necessary conditions stated in terms of content (i) and form (ii). Danto states
explicitly that he is not convinced they are jointly sufficient.

Essentialism in art entails pluralism. [197]

B. Narratives of Art/Art History

Narratives and meta-narratives. [47]

1. Vasarian: mimesis
2. Modern: reflexive and self-defining
Greenberg: What is the essence of a medium?
Danto: What is the essence of art?

1Numbers reflect the pagination in Arthur Danto, After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of
History, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.
C. Non-Narrative Periods
1. Pre-Renaissance: nothing is art in the narrative sense.
2. Contemporary: anything could be art in the non-narrative (post-historical) sense.

End of Art
Tentative statement of Danto's thesis: "[T]he end of art consists in the coming to
awareness of the true philosophical nature of art." [30]

End of art defined again. "[B]y the end of artI mean the end of a certain narrative
which has unfolded in art history over the centuries, and which has reached its end in a
certain freedom from conflicts of the kind inescapable in the Age of Manifestos." [37]

Danto identifies two aspects of the transition in philosophical consciousness with respect
to art:
1. Art no longer bears responsibility for providing its own definition. That is the task of
philosophy.
2. There is no particular way works of art need to look. [36]

Progressive Developmental History (PDH) [65]

Argument for the claim that we've reached the end of art. [43ff]

Historical Continuity and Discontinuity of Art.

a. If art changes its appearance but not its identity as art, what changes and what
remains the same? Style changes. For example, mimesis was the style in the
Vasarian period and the look of artworks was shaped by it. In the modern period
it become a style, but not definitive. Art existed at both times, but the look of art
the stylechanged. [44]

b. Previous historical forms of life are recognizable but cannot be re-lived. [45]

c. There are two senses of freedom after the end of art.

1) One is free to choose any artistic style or form of artistic practice.
2) One is no longer subject to historical conditions for being an "authentic"
artist.

d. The master narrative of the history of art develops according to three stages:
1) imitation
2) ideology (the Age of Manifestos)
3) post-historical ("anything goes" with qualification) [47]

"[A]t first only mimesis was art, then several things were art but each tried to
extinguish its competitors, and then, finally, it became apparent that there were
no stylistic or philosophical constraints. [T]hat is the final moment in the master
narrative. It is the end of the story." [47]

From the Vasarian to the Modern Period

First Key Element of Danto's Argument:

The shift from the Vasarian to the modern narrative can be described as a
change in paradigm from one defined by perceptual representation measured in
terms of visual accuracy in art to one defined by the philosophical
representation of art. This gave rise to a different PDH. [66]

2
 Second Key Element of Danto's Argument:

It became clear to Danto in the early '60s that meaning is a necessary condition
of art and distinguishes artworks from mere real things even if they are visually
indiscernible. [71]

Aesthetic value (beauty) was assumed to be an essential property of art in certain periods. For
Danto this is an historical essence of artit can be, at best, relatively essential. [12; 25]

Timothy Quigley, 2010