The abuse of beauty. This paper was certainly thought provoking, but I found myself at odds with Danto's ideas and the way he interpreted his study. Calling the September 11 attack the greatest work of art ever is something said for the sake of controversy, it does not make it art.
Art itself requires consideration, and/or appreciation for itself. Rather than saying something needs qualification from someone who promotes art is irrelevant, because it leaves out the matter of individual interpretation. This seems to be the dividing line in my mind. How can one justify art except individually? How are we to say that two people experience ANY piece of art in the same manner? This leaves the audience with the question, where is the line between something that is called art because it is offensive, like Dada, and something that is just plain wrong? Is that line even tangible?
Guillermo Vargas is the perfect example. This artist left a dog chained up without food or water in a museum to starve to death. Art?
Kant tells us that what is beautiful is left in the eye of the beholder, leaving our definition up for interpretation, and then makes it known that something like tattoos are a perversion of what we are given, of humanity even. How these two work together is a distinction that is left up to Kant himself, as his interpretation of art and beauty.
Does morality play a role in how we define art? Almost certainly this must be the case. How can we view the destruction of life as art? If we allow this line, it opens us up to interpreting Charles Manson as a great artist in his creativity of the destruction of life. In reality, it is a matter of the change of subject from Guillermo Vargas' idea. This moral line of ambiguity pushes us to define art, is the moral line not different for everyone? I know that I would pull that dog out of there and feed it before watching it starve to death in the name of art. This line of morality must differ for everyone, which makes the entire system we call art a grey area.
So then, art is defined on an individual level. However, there are certain factors that qualify art. Art must first be defined by an individual. This seems to be the only unifying factor. Something intentionally done in the name of art as defined by one person.
I cannot get past the idea that art must be a creation. The artist must focus his/her own energy into a piece with a deliberate attitude in order to make art. This realization draws me back to my like and dislike of experimental music. The player piano performing more complex rhythms than possible by human hands in music's name, when in reality, the artist did not plan or understand the full outcome. Without a deliberate attitude, art cannot be created. As I hold this to be evident it follows that because an artist is intentionally making something, not destroying, the matter of destruction of anything cannot be called art. Can there be one without the other? Art must be created with emotional content behind it too, in order for emotional meaning to be conveyed to the audience. Without audience, there is no beauty, there is no art.
Beauty can be understood best through time and numbers. A thing of creation by an artist appreciated by people in it's time (possibly), and looked back upon for generations to come is truly beautiful, and can truly be called art. This is the final word for me, that art must have the qualifications of appreciation, deliberation, duration and creation, and beauty is a variable for everyone.
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