Philosophy of art

Philosophy of art, the study of the nature of art, including concepts such as interpretation, representation and expression, and form. It is closely related to aesthetics, the philosophical study of beauty and taste.

Distinguishing characteristics

The philosophy of art is distinguished from art criticism, which is concerned with the analysis and evaluation of particular works of art. Critical activity may be primarily historical, as when a lecture is given on the conventions of the Elizabethan theatre in order to explain some of the devices used in William Shakespeare’s plays. It may be primarily analytical, as when a certain passage of poetry is separated into its elements and its meaning or import explained in relation to other passages and other poems in the tradition. Or it may be primarily evaluative, as when reasons are given for saying that the work of art in question is good or bad, or better or worse than another one. Sometimes it is not a single work of art but an entire class of works in a certain style or genre (such as pastoral poems or Baroque music) that is being elucidated, and sometimes it is the art of an entire period (such as Romantic). But in every case, the aim of art criticism is to achieve an increased understanding or enjoyment of the work (or classes of works) of art, and its statements are designed to achieve this end.

The test of the success of art criticism with a given person is: Has this essay or book of art criticism increased or enhanced the person’s understanding or appreciation of the work of art in question? Art criticism is particularly helpful and often necessary for works of art that are more than usually difficult, such that persons not already familiar with the artist or the genre or the period would be unable to adequately understand or enjoy the work if left to themselves.

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The task of the philosopher of art is more fundamental than that of the art critic in that the critic’s pronouncements presuppose answers to the questions set by the philosopher of art. The critic says that a given work of music is expressive, but the philosopher of art asks what is meant by saying that a work of art is expressive and how one determines whether it is. In speaking and writing about art, critics presuppose that they are dealing with clear concepts, the attainment of which is the task of the philosopher of art.

The task of the philosopher of art is not to heighten understanding and appreciation of works of art but to provide conceptual foundations for the critic by (1) examining the basic concepts that underlie the activities of critics and enable them to speak and write more intelligibly about the arts and by (2) arriving at true conclusions about art, aesthetic value, expression, and the other concepts that critics employ.

Upon what do philosophers of art direct their attention? “Art” is the ready answer, but what is art and what distinguishes it from all other things? The theorists who have attempted to answer this question are many, and their answers differ greatly. But there is one feature that virtually all of them have in common: a work of art is a human-made thing, an artifact, as distinguished from an object in nature. A sunset may be beautiful, but it is not a work of art. A piece of driftwood may have aesthetic qualities, but it is not a work of art since it was not made by a human. On the other hand, a piece of wood that has been carved to look like driftwood is not an object of nature but of art, even though the appearance of the two may be exactly the same. This distinction was challenged in the 20th century by artists who declared that objets trouvés (“found objects”) are works of art, since the artist’s perception of them as such makes them so, even if the objects were not human-made and were not modified in any way (except by exhibition) from their natural state.

Nevertheless, according to the simplest and widest definition, art is anything that is human-made. Within the scope of this definition, not only paintings and sculptures but also buildings, furniture, automobiles, cities, and garbage dumps are all works of art: every change that human activity has wrought upon the face of nature is art, be it good or bad, beautiful or ugly, beneficial or destructive.

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The ordinary usage of the term is clearly less wide. When works of art are spoken of in daily life, the intention is to denote a much narrower range of objects—namely, those responded to aesthetically. Among the things in this narrower range, a distinction, although not a precise one, is made between fine and useful art. Fine art consists of those works designed to produce an aesthetic response or that (regardless of design) function as objects of aesthetic appreciation (such as paintings, sculptures, poems, musical compositions)—those human-made things that are enjoyed for their own sake rather than as means to something else. Useful art has both an aesthetic and a utilitarian dimension: automobiles, glass tumblers, woven baskets, desk lamps, and a host of other handmade or manufactured objects have a primarily useful function and are made for that purpose, but they also have an aesthetic dimension: they can be enjoyed as objects of beauty, so much so that people often buy one brand of car rather than another for aesthetic reasons even more than for mechanical reasons (of which they may know nothing). A borderline case is architecture: many buildings are useful objects the aesthetic function of which is marginal, and other buildings are primarily objects of beauty the utility of which is incidental or no longer existent (Greek temples were once places of worship, but today their value is entirely aesthetic). The test in practice is not how they were intended by their creators, but how they function in present-day experience. Many great works of painting and sculpture, for example, were created to glorify a deity and not, insofar as can be ascertained, for an aesthetic purpose (to be enjoyed simply in the contemplation of them for their own sake). It should be added, however, that many artists were undoubtedly concerned to satisfy their aesthetic capabilities in the creation of their work, since they were highly perfectionistic as artists, but in their time there was no such discipline as aesthetics in which they could articulate their goals; in any case, they chose to create “for the greater glory of God” by producing works that were also worthwhile to contemplate for their own sake.

This aesthetic sense of the word art, whether applied to fine art or useful art, is the one most employed by the majority of critics and philosophers of art today. There are two other senses of art, however, that are still narrower, and, to avoid confusion, their use should be noted: (1) Sometimes the term art is restricted to the visual arts alone or to some of the visual arts. But as philosophers of art use the term (and as it is used here), art is not limited to visual art; music and drama and poetry are as much arts as are painting, sculpture, and architecture. (2) Sometimes the term art is used in a persuasive sense, to include only those works considered good art. Viewers at an art gallery, examining a painting they dislike, may exclaim “That’s not art!” But if the term art is to be used without confusion, it must be possible for there to be bad art as well as good art. The viewer, then, is not really denying that the work in question is art (it is a human-made object presented to be contemplated for its own sake) but only that it is worthwhile.

The word art is also ambiguous in another way: it is sometimes used to designate the activity of creating a work of art, as in the slogan “Art is expression,” but it is more often used to designate the product of that process, the completed artwork or artifact itself, as in the remark “Art is a source of great enjoyment to me.” There will be occasion later to remark on this ambiguity.

Countless proffered definitions of art are not definitions at all but are theories about the nature of art that presuppose that the ability to identify certain things in the world as works of art already exists. Most of them are highly unsatisfactory even as theories. “Art is an exploration of reality through a sensuous presentation”—but in what way is it an exploration? Is it always concerned with reality (how is music concerned with reality, for example)? “Art is a re-creation of reality”—but is all art re-creation, even music? (It would seem likely that music is the creation of something, namely, a new set of tonal relationships, but not that it is the re-creation of anything at all.) “Art is an expression of feeling through a medium”—but is it always an expression (see below Art as expression) and is it always feeling that is expressed? And so on. It appears more certain that Shakespeare’s King Lear is a work of art than that these theories are true. All that seems to be required for identifying something as a work of art in the wide sense is that it be not a natural object but something made or transformed by a human being, and all that is required for identifying it as art (not as good art but as art) in the narrower sense is that it function aesthetically in human experience, either wholly (fine art) or in part (useful art); it is not even necessary, as has been shown, that it be intended by its creator to function in this way.