The Philosophy of Art: The Question of Definition Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy presents cutting-edge scholarship in all the major areas of research and study. The wholly original arguments, perspectives and research findings in titles in this series make it an important and stimulating resource for students and academics from a range of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. Available in the series: Aesthetic and Artistic Autonomy, edited by Owen Hulatt Art, Language and Figure in Merleau-Ponty, Rajiv Kaushik Art, Myth and Society in Hegel’s Aesthetics, David James The Challenge of Relativism, Patrick J. J. Phillips The Cognitive Value of Philosophical Fiction, Jukka Mikkonen The Demands of Taste in Kant’s Aesthetics, Brent Kalar The Dialectics of Aesthetic Agency, Ayon Maharaj Descartes and the Metaphysics of Human Nature, edited by Justin Skirry Dialectic of Romanticism, Peter Murphy and David Roberts Kant: The Art of Judgment in Aesthetic Education, Pradeep Dhillon Kant’s Aesthetic Theory, David Berger Kant’s Concept of Genius, Paul W. Bruno Kant’s Transcendental Arguments, Scott Stapleford Kierkegaard, Metaphysics and Political Theory, Alison Assiter Metaphysics and the End of Philosophy, H. O. Mounce Popper’s Theory of Science, Carlos Garcia The Science, Politics, and Ontology of Life-Philosophy, edited by Scott M. Campbell and Paul W. Bruno Virtue Epistemology, Stephen Napier The Philosophy of Art: The Question of Definition From Hegel to Post-Dantian Theories Tiziana Andina Translated by Natalia Iacobelli LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 175 Fifth Avenue London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10010 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com First published 2013 © Tiziana Andina, 2013 Translated by Natalia Iacobelli All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Tiziana Andina has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author. This book was first published in Italian asFilosofie dell’arte. Da Hegel a Danto, copyright © 2012 by Carocci editore S.p.A., Roma. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. EISBN: 978-1-4411-6278-6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Andina, Tiziana. [Filosofie dell’arte. English] The Philosophy of Art: The Question of Definition from Hegel to Post-Dantian theories/ Tiziana Andina; translated by Natalia Iacobelli. pages cm. – (Bloomsbury studies in philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4411-4051-7 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4411-3651-0 (ebook) – ISBN 978-1-4411-6278-6 (ebook) 1. Aesthetics. 2. Art – Philosophy. I. Title. BH39.A53513 2013 111’.85–dc23 2012046563 Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India For my mother Contents Introduction: On the Philosophy of Art 1 1 The Twentieth Century and the Long History of the Imitative Theory 25 2 Definitions 43 3 On the Impossibility of Definition 99 4 Works of Art as Social and Historical Objects 125 Notes 169 Bibliography 177 Index 187 Introduction: On the Philosophy of Art 1 Hegel or the beginning The specialized areas of philosophy – that is, the philosophy of the mind, of language, of music, of science, of history, of law or of religion – are generally distinguished by a clear disciplinary identity. In all of the aforementioned cases, philosophy has a precise and detailed objective: history, science, music, law, language or even ourselves, insofar as we are beings gifted in mind and in thought. The philosophy of art is no exception. If we were to ask an average cultured person, someone not particularly experienced in philosophy – a sort of ingenuous philosopher endowed with a robust common sense – what they would expect to find in a book on the philosophy of art, they would most probably answer that they would expect to read a reflection, in essay format, whose object is art and the products of art. Quite simple, really. The task of answering questions such as: ‘what is art?’, ‘what is an artwork?’, ‘what is beauty?’, ‘what is the difference between a common object and an artwork?’, and so on, would be reserved for the philosophy of art. Let us now suppose that our cultured reader, who is minimally experienced in philosophy – we will call him Frescoditesta – must face a rather delicate task entrusted to him by an elderly uncle who himself is keen on philosophy. The eccentric and comical uncle collects works of art, the majority of which are piled up in a large warehouse together with objects of everyday use. When his uncle passes away, Frescoditesta attends the reading of his will which takes place in a climate of great sadness. The will, in which Frescoditesta is appointed universal inheritor, includes two clauses: first, in order to inherit the artworks Frescoditesta must be able to distinguish them from common objects. The artworks will remain in his possession, while the other objects will be forever destroyed. The will relates another codicil, the second provision: the young nephew will have to carry out this task without the aid of experts, availing himself solely of his intelligence and, perhaps, a few books. After performing a site inspection of the warehouse, Frescoditesta realizes the difficulty of this endeavour. His 2 The Philosophy of Art: The Question of Definition uncle’s collection is remarkably extensive; it includes ancient archaeological finds – pottery, all sorts of furnishings and countless objects dating back to the most diverse civilizations – alongside paintings from all time periods, some of which are beautiful while others could be considered as junk. There are objects which can be found in any given supermarket, mingled with other truly original artefacts, and atop all of them stands a large fish which looks like a shark, conserved in formaldehyde. In addition is a collection of old LPs – Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson and so on. What is he to do? There is no way of getting around the testamentary provisions, and of this Frescoditesta was fully aware. The only solution is to begin studying in an attempt to find inspiration from books dedicated to the topic. The difficulty is not in separating the beautiful paintings from the ugly ones, the high-quality artworks from the poor quality; it is, rather, a matter of actually singling out the artworks, beautiful and ugly alike. In such a situation, it would be useless to consult books on art criticism; instead, it is necessary to turn to philosophy. Fully determined, Frescoditesta decides to visit an abundantly stocked library. After wandering about and browsing the shelves, he finds the section dedicated to the ‘philosophy of art’, and there he discovers, happily, that the history of the discipline does not date too far back, at least when compared to the general history of philosophy. The baptism of the philosophy of art took place in an exact period, from 1842 to 1843, the year of publication of the Lectures on the Aesthetics by George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who was among the first to distinguish aesthetics from the philosophy of art: the present course of lectures deals with ‘Aesthetic’. Their subject is the wide realm of the beautiful, and, more particularly, their province is Art – we may restrict it, indeed, to Fine Art. The name ‘Aesthetic’ in its natural sense in not quite appropriate to this subject. ‘Aesthetic’ means more precisely the science of sensation or feeling [. .]. We shall, therefore, permit the name Aesthetic to stand, because it is nothing but a name, and so is indifferent to us, and, moreover, has up to a certain point passed into common language. As a name, therefore, it may be retained. The proper expression, however, for our science is the ‘Philosophy of Art,’ or, more definitely, the ‘Philosophy of Fine Art’. (Hegel, 1842–3, Eng. trans., 3) In Hegel’s book, aesthetics is a science that concerns ‘sensation and sentiment’, and it pertains to art only when artworks are considered in relation to the emotions they produce in their audience: wonder, fear, compassion and enjoyment. The object of the philosophy of art, therefore, is not that which is naturally beautiful Introduction 3 or beauty at all. Rather, it is that which arises from the hands (and from the genius) of man: By the above expression we at once exclude the beauty of Nature [. .] It is true that in common life we are in the habit of speaking of beautiful colour, a beautiful sky, a beautiful river, and, moreover, of beautiful flowers [. .] We may, however, begin at once by asserting that artistic beauty stands higher than nature. For the beauty of art is the beauty that is born – born again, that is – of the mind. (Hegel, 1842–3 Eng. trans., 4) Frescoditesta is quick to seize the point of Hegel’s discourse: the beauty of art is the fruit of the work of the mind. It is neither accidental nor random, and in this work (at least at a basic level) the truth of the Absolute Spirit is unfurled. Art, therefore, is many things; but it is, above all, the unfolding of the truth inasmuch as it is configured as the sensory manifestation of the Spirit. There are certainly more perfect exemplifications of the Spirit, yet art remains one of its necessary manifestations.