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Seeing Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Barry G. Allen
Barry G. Allen*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

Seeing art is not as easy as it looks, because there is more to seeing art than meets the eye. This essay examines some of the presuppositions involved in seeing something as art. In opposition to the view of A.C. Danto that to see something as art is merely to identify it as art, I shall suggest that to see something as art is to appreciate it in a specifiable way. In addition, I shall argue that considerations sometimes deemed adventitious are in fact inescapably involved in the appreciation of all works of art, and in particular, that it is impossible to entirely eliminate intentional and genetic considerations from our critical Judgments.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 1982 , pp. 495 - 508
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1982

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References

1 Collingwood, R.G. The Principles of Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1938) 126nGoogle Scholar

2 Danto, A. C. ‘The Artworld,’ in Margolis, J. ed., Philosophy Looks At the Arts 2nd. edn. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1978) 132-44.Google Scholar Unless otherwise indicated, future references to Danto are from this essay.

3 Danto, 137

4 Danto, 133, 140, 141-2

5 See Danto, A.C. ‘Artworks and Real Things,’ Theoria 39 (1973).Google Scholar

6 See Kennick, W. ‘Theories of Art and the Artworld,’ Journal of Philosophy 61 (1964) 585-7;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Lyas, C. ‘Danto and Dickie on Art,’ in Aagaard-Mogensen, L. ed., Culture and Art (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press 1970) 170-93;Google Scholar Sclafani, R. ‘Artworks, Art Theory and the Artworld,’ Theoria, 39 (1973) 18–34;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Silvers, A. ‘The Artworld Discarded,’ Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 34 (1975-76) 340-56.Google Scholar Also see the essays by Sclafani and Beardsley in the Aagaard Mogensen collection.

7 Goodman's treatment of the problem is in his Languages of Art (Indianapolis: Hackett 1976) 21-6, and ‘About,’ Problems and Projects (Indianapolis: Hackett 1972) 246-72, esp. pp. 265-70. Also relevant are Lewis, D.K. ‘Truth in Fiction,' American Philosophical Quarterly, 15 (1978) 37–46;Google Scholar Plantinga, A. The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1974)Google Scholar chapter 8, section 3; Walton, K.L. 'Pictures and Make-Believe,’ Philosophical Review, 82 (1973);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Parsons, T. ‘The Methodology of Non-existence,’ Journal of Philosophy, 76 (1979) 649-62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Danto, 137

9 Danto, 137

10 K.L. Walton, ‘Categories of Art’ in Margolis, 88-114. Future references to Walton are from this essay.

11 Danto, 140

12 Walton, 106

13 Walton, 106

14 Surridge, M. ‘Artistic Intention and Critical Prerogative,’ British Journal of Aesthetics, 18 (1978)Google Scholar

15 A similar point worries F. Cioffi, ‘Intention and Interpretation in Criticism,’ in Margolis, 307-24, and Ellis, A.J. ‘Intention and Interpretation in Literature,’ British Journal of Aesthetics, 14 (1974).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Many thanks to Laurel Fujimagari, and especially to Gilbert Harman for helpful comments and discussion.