Continuity or Break: Danto and Gadamer on the Crisis of Anti-Aestheticism (original) (raw)

According to Arthur Danto, the crisis of modern art is not the abandonment of representation, nor an attempt at intentional “uglification,” but a struggle to escape the aesthetic objectification of artworks. This attempt at escape has led modern artists to hold an indifferent attitude toward beauty, an attitude that has resulted in the readymade. Danto’s account of this crisis in art is plausible—for what is one to say vis-à-vis the beauty of objects in art galleries whose twins reside in washrooms and cupboards?— and if accepted identifies a related crisis in philosophy. From Plato to Schopenhauer, philosophers have largely approached the topic of art in relation to, or even as derivative of, the topic of beauty. The question for philosophers, teachers, and students of art, if art and aesthetic considerations have parted company, is what shall we say now? The purpose of this paper is to contrast the answer of Danto with the answer of Gadamer. Both of these philosophers take the modern, anti-aes- thetic turn of art seriously, but they adopt contrasting approaches to the question. Danto, in seeking to follow the lead of modern art, abandons aesthetics altogether. In contrast, Gadamer expands upon the beauty-focused foundation of his philosophical predecessors’ aesthetics, taking beauty not so much as a rule but a starting point for his reflections. Both of these ac- counts have their advantages and disadvantages, but, I hope to show, Gadamer’s approach is superior by virtue of the continuity it posits between modern and premodern art.