Argumentative essays can be organized in many different ways, but one common format for persuasive writing is the five paragraph essay, which includes an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a Definition and History of Art Criticism. When you hear the words 'art criticism', you might first imagine people standing in an art gallery furrowing their brows as they point out the flaws in a Essay definition, a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative. See more
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The definition of art is controversial in contemporary philosophy. Whether art can be defined has also been a matter of controversy. The philosophical usefulness of a definition of art has also been debated.
Contemporary definitions can be classified with respect to the dimensions of art they emphasize. Hybrid definitions aim to do justice to both the traditional aesthetic dimension as well as to the institutional and art-historical dimensions of art, while privileging neither. Two general constraints on definitions are particularly relevant to definitions of art.
First, given that accepting that something is inexplicable is generally a philosophical last resort, and granting the importance of extensional adequacy, list-like or enumerative definitions are if possible to be avoided, art definition essay.
Corollary: when everything else is equal and it is controversial whether and when that condition is satisfied in the case of definitions of artnon-disjunctive definitions are preferable to disjunctive ones. Whether any definition of art does account for these facts and satisfy these constraints, or could account for these facts and satisfy these constraints, are key questions for aesthetics and the philosophy of art.
Classical definitions, at least as they are portrayed in contemporary discussions of art definition essay definition of art, take artworks to be characterized by a single type of property. The standard candidates are art definition essay properties, expressive art definition essay, and formal properties. So there are representational or mimetic definitions, art definition essay, expressive definitions, and formalist definitions, which hold that art definition essay are characterized by their possession of, respectively, representational, expressive, and formal properties.
It is not difficult to find fault with these simple definitions, art definition essay. For example, possessing representational, expressive, and formal properties cannot be sufficient conditions, since, obviously, instructional manuals are art definition essay, but art definition essay typically artworks, human faces and gestures have expressive properties without being works of art, and art definition essay natural objects and artifacts produced solely for homely utilitarian purposes have formal properties but are not artworks.
The ease of these dismissals, though, serves as a reminder of the fact that classical definitions of art art definition essay significantly less philosophically self-contained or freestanding than are most contemporary definitions of art.
Relatedly, great philosophers characteristically analyze the key theoretical components of their definitions of art in distinctive and subtle ways. For these reasons, understanding such definitions in isolation from the systems or corpuses of which they are parts is difficult, and brief summaries are invariably somewhat misleading. Nevertheless, some representative examples of historically influential definitions of art offered by major figures in the history of philosophy should be mentioned.
Artworks are ontologically dependent on, imitations of, and therefore inferior to, ordinary physical objects. Physical objects art definition essay turn are ontologically dependent on, and imitations of, and hence inferior to, what is most real, the non-physical unchanging Forms.
Grasped perceptually, artworks present only an appearance of an appearance of the Forms, which are grasped by reason alone. Consequently, artistic experience cannot yield knowledge. Nor do the makers of artworks work from knowledge.
Because artworks engage an unstable, lower part of art definition essay soul, art should be subservient to moral realities, which, along with truth, are art definition essay metaphysically fundamental and, properly understood, more humanly important than, beauty, art definition essay.
The arts are not, for Plato, the primary sphere in which beauty operates. The Platonic conception of beauty is extremely wide and metaphysical: there is a Form of Beauty, art definition essay, which can only be known non-perceptually, but it is more closely related to the erotic than to the arts. Art for Kant falls under the broader topic of aesthetic judgment, which covers judgments of the beautiful, judgments of the sublime, and teleological judgments of natural organisms and of nature itself, art definition essay.
The deepest metaphysical truth, according to Hegel, is that the art definition essay is the concrete realization of what is conceptual or rational. That is, what is conceptual or rational is real, and is the imminent force that animates and propels the self-consciously developing universe.
The universe is the concrete realization of what is conceptual or rational, and the rational or conceptual is superior to the sensory. So, as the mind and its products alone are capable of truth, artistic beauty is metaphysically superior to natural beauty.
Hegel, Introduction III p. A central and defining feature of beautiful works of art is that, through the medium of sensation, each one presents the most fundamental values of its civilization.
Art and religion in turn are, in this respect, inferior to philosophy, which employs a conceptual medium to present its content. Art initially predominates, in each civilization, as the art definition essay mode of cultural expression, followed, successively, by religion and philosophy. Skeptical doubts about the possibility and value of a definition of art definition essay have figured importantly in the discussion in aesthetics since the s, and though their influence has subsided somewhat, uneasiness about the definitional project persists.
See section 4, below, and also KivyBrandand Walton Hence art is indefinable Weitz Against this it is claimed that change does not, in general, rule out the preservation of identity over time, that decisions about concept-expansion may be principled rather than capricious, and that nothing bars a definition of art from incorporating a novelty requirement. A second sort of argument, less common today than in the heyday of a certain form of extreme Wittgensteinianism, urges that the concepts that make up the stuff of most definitions of art expressiveness, form are embedded in general philosophical theories which incorporate traditional metaphysics and epistemology.
But since traditional metaphysics and epistemology are art definition essay instances of language gone on conceptually confused holiday, definitions of art share in the conceptual confusions of traditional philosophy Tilghman A third sort of argument, more historically inflected than the first, art definition essay, takes off from an influential study by the historian of philosophy Paul Kristeller, in which he argued that the modern system of the five major arts [painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, art definition essay, and music] which underlies all modern aesthetics … is of comparatively recent origin and did not assume definite shape before the eighteenth century, although it had many ingredients which go back to classical, mediaeval, and Renaissance thought.
As a matter of historical fact, there simply is no stable definiendum for a definition of art to capture. A fourth sort of argument suggests that a definition of art stating individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for a thing to be an artwork, is likely art definition essay be discoverable only if cognitive science makes it plausible to think that humans categorize things in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.
But, the argument continues, cognitive science actually supports the view that the structure of concepts mirrors the way humans categorize things — which is with respect to their similarity to prototypes or exemplarsand not in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.
So the quest for a definition of art that states art definition essay necessary and jointly sufficient conditions is misguided and not likely to succeed Dean Against this it has been art definition essay that psychological theories of concepts like the prototype theory and its relatives can provide at best an account of how people in fact classify things, but not an account of correct classifications of extra-psychological phenomena, and that, even if relevant, prototype theory and other psychological theories of concepts are at present too controversial to draw substantive philosophical morals from Rey ; Adajian A fifth argument art definition essay defining art, with a normative tinge that is psychologistic rather than sociopolitical, takes the fact that there is no philosophical consensus about the definition of art as reason to hold that no unitary concept of art exists.
Concepts of art, like all concepts, after all, should be used for the purpose s they best serve. But not all concepts of art serve all purposes equally well. So not all art concepts should be used for the same purposes. So, art definition essay, since there is no purpose-independent use of the concept of art, art should not be defined Mag Uidhir and Magnus ; cf.
Meskin In response, it is noted that some account of what makes various concepts of art concepts of art is still required; this leaves open the possibility of some degree of unity beneath the apparent art definition essay. The fact if it is one that different concepts of art are used for different purposes does not itself imply that they are not connected in ordered, to-some-degree systematic ways.
That is, it is not evident that there exist a mere arbitrary heap or disjunction of art concepts, constituting an unsystematic patchwork. Perhaps there is a single concept of art with different facets that interlock in an ordered way, or else a multiplicity of concepts that constitute a unity because one is at the core, and the others depend asymmetrically on it. The last is an instance of core-dependent homonymy; see the entry on Aristotlesection on Essentialism and Homonymy.
A sixth, broadly Marxian sort of objection rejects the project of defining art as an unwitting and confused expression of a harmful ideology. On this view, art definition essay, the search for a definition of art presupposes, wrongly, that the concept of the aesthetic is a creditable one. But since the concept of the aesthetic necessarily involves the equally bankrupt concept of disinterestedness, its use advances the illusion that what is art definition essay real about things can and should be grasped art definition essay contemplated without attending to the social and economic conditions of their production.
Definitions of art definition essay, consequently, spuriously confer ontological dignity and respectability on social phenomena that probably in fact call more properly for rigorous social criticism and change. Their real function is ideological, not philosophical Eagleton Seventh, the members of a complex of skeptically-flavored arguments, from feminist philosophy of art, art definition essay, begin with premises to the effect that art and art-related concepts and practices have been systematically skewed by sex or gender.
Such premises are supported by a variety of considerations. a The artworks the Western artistic canon recognizes as great are dominated by male-centered perspectives and stereotypes, art definition essay, and almost all the artists the canon recognizes as great are men — unsurprisingly, given economic, social, art definition essay, and institutional impediments that prevented women from making art at all.
Moreover, the concept of genius developed historically in such a way as to exclude women artists Battersby,Korsmeyer Moreover, because all aesthetic judgments are situated and particular, there can be no such thing as disinterested taste. If there is no such thing as disinterested taste, then it is hard to see how there could be universal standards of aesthetic excellence. The non-existence of universal standards of aesthetic excellence undermines the idea of an artistic canon and with it the project of defining art.
Art as historically constituted, art definition essay, and art-related practices and concepts, then, reflect views and practices that presuppose and perpetuate the subordination of women. The data that definitions of art are supposed to explain are biased, corrupt and incomplete. As a consequence, present definitions of art, incorporating or presupposing as they do a framework that incorporates a history of systematically biased, hierarchical, fragmentary, and mistaken understandings of art and art-related phenomena and concepts, may be so androcentric as to be untenable.
Some theorists have suggested that different genders have systematically unique artistic styles, methods, or modes of appreciating and valuing art. If so, then a separate canon and gynocentric definitions of art are indicated BattersbyFrueh In any case, in the face of these facts, the project of defining art in anything like the traditional way is to be regarded with suspicion Brand, art definition essay, An eighth argument sort of skeptical argument concludes that, insofar as almost all contemporary definitions foreground the nature of art worksrather than the individual arts to which most?
artworks belong, they are philosophically unproductive Lopes, If these hard cases are artworks, art definition essay, what makes them so, given their apparent lack of any of the traditional properties of artworks?
Are, they, art definition essay, at best, marginal cases? On the other hand, if they are not artworks, then why have generations of experts — art historians, critics, and collectors — classified art definition essay as such?
And to whom else should one look to determine the true nature of art? There are, it is claimed, few or no empirical studies of art full stop, though empirical studies of the individual arts abound. Such disputes inevitably art definition essay in stalemate. Stalemate results because a standard artwork-focused definitions of art endorse different criteria of theory choice, and b on the basis of their preferred criteria, appeal to incompatible intuitions about the status of such theoretically-vexed cases.
In consequence, disagreements between standard definitions of art that foreground artworks are unresolvable. To avoid this stalemate, an alternative definitional strategy that foregrounds the arts rather than individual artworks, is indicated. See section 4. Philosophers influenced by the moderate Wittgensteinian strictures discussed above have offered family resemblance accounts of art, which, as they purport to be non-definitions, may be usefully considered at this point, art definition essay.
Two species of family resemblance views will be art definition essay the resemblance-to-a-paradigm version, and the cluster version. Against this view: since things do not resemble each other simpliciterbut only in at least one respect or other, the account is either far too inclusive, since everything resembles everything else in some respect or other, or, if the variety of resemblance is specified, tantamount to a definition, since resemblance in that respect will be either a necessary or sufficient condition for being an artwork.
The family resemblance view raises questions, moreover, about the membership and unity of the class of paradigm artworks. If the account lacks an explanation of why some items and not others go on the list of paradigm works, it seems explanatorily deficient. The cluster version of the family resemblance view has been art definition essay by a number of philosophers BondDissanayakeDuttonGaut The view typically provides a list of properties, no one of which is a necessary condition for being a work of art, but which are jointly sufficient for being a work of art, and which is such that at least one art definition essay subset thereof is sufficient for being a work of art, art definition essay.
Lists offered vary, but overlap considerably. Here is one, due to Gaut: 1 possessing positive aesthetic properties; 2 being expressive of emotion; 3 being intellectually challenging; 4 being formally complex and coherent; 5 having the capacity to convey complex meanings; 6 exhibiting an individual point of view; 7 being original; 8 being an artifact or performance which is the product of a high degree of skill; 9 belonging to an established artistic form; 10 being the product of an intention to make a work of art Gaut The cluster account has been criticized on several grounds.
Second, if the list of properties is incomplete, as some cluster theorists hold, then some justification or principle would be needed for extending it.
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Definition and History of Art Criticism. When you hear the words 'art criticism', you might first imagine people standing in an art gallery furrowing their brows as they point out the flaws in a Argumentative essays can be organized in many different ways, but one common format for persuasive writing is the five paragraph essay, which includes an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a Oct 23, · The definition of art is controversial in contemporary philosophy. Whether art can be defined has also been a matter of controversy. The philosophical usefulness of a definition of art has also been debated. Contemporary definitions can be classified with respect to the dimensions of art they emphasize. One distinctively modern, conventionalist
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