George Dickie.
The Art Circle: A Theory
of Art.
Chicago Spectrum Press,
1997.
(1st
ed.: New York, New Haven Publications, 1984.)
I) THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART
In philosophy, the theory of art as imitation goes back to Plato. It
extended for more than two millennia.
Then, the so-called «expression theory of art» was born in the 19th
century. It was the «first theory to challenge the imitation
theory». [Two instances of «expressivistic» philosophers are
Benedetto Croce and R. G. Collingwood.]
To understand better the expression theory, I [ICS] quote Martin L.
Shough:
«a) the composer’s experience gives rise to ‘states of mind,’
»b) these states are codified as pieces of music,
»c) the music is in turn decoded by a listener into an emulation or
understanding of that state of mind.»
[I distinguish in Slough’s words the notion of the listener of
music as a sort of «gramophone». According to this, we only try to
recreate what the composer originally felt; and, if we deviate from
that, we lapse into a mistaken interpretation of the work. This can
be extended to all consumers of any work of art.]
After the avant-garde movements of the 20th century, a
third theory emerged: the so-called «Real Theory of Art». «Art,
the new theory says, is the creation of forms which are not
imitations.» (18.) Thus [I say, ICS], a Cubist still life, or Piet
Mondrian’s Tableau I of 1921, or Barnett Newman’s Onement
I of 1948, to mention only three instances, are neither optical
imitations of the external aspect of objects nor manifestations of
«states of mind» in the expressivistic sense.
[The imitation theory and the expression theory had many followers
among theoreticians. The «real theory» was fitting for all
Cubist-derived and abstract artists. Surely there were more new
theories in the 20th century, but they are not present in
this text because of lack of space.]
Then came the «institutional theory of art». The inspiration for it
was Arthur Danto’s article “The Artworld” (1964). «By an
institutional approach I mean the idea that works of art are art as a
result of the position they occupy within an institutional framework
or context. The institutional theory is, then, a kind of contextual
theory.» (7.)
Dickie doesn’t take art as a synonym of «something valuable» or
«masterpiece». «… the theory of art is about a value-neutral,
classificatory sense of “work of art.”» (13.) «… artmaking is
something which almost everyone can do. It is not a highly
specialized activity […] masterpieces constitute only a minute
part» of art. (14.)
II) DANTO AND THE REVIVAL OF THEORY
In «The Artworld,» Danto argues that what makes art possible are
artistic theories. Dickie offers one possible interpretation of this:
artistic theories are just any «ideas either explicitly or
implicitly about what counts as art.» «In this weak sense, everyone
would have a theory about almost everything that he did…» (20.)
Nevertheless, after «The Artworld,» Danto does not raise that
notion again.
Dickie counters Danto: «…to conclude that two things (in this case
art and the philosophy of art) are identical because they share a
characteristic (in this case have art as subject) is to commit the
fallacy of undistributed middle term.» (23.) [The fallacy goes like
this: «All Z is B. All Y is B. Therefore, all Y is Z.»] «…in the
end we have the case of a philosopher trying to dictate to artists.»
(24.)
In a second article, «Artworks and Real Things» (1973), Danto «may
be suggesting a sufficient condition of art: 1) if something is [...]
a statement [...] then that is a sufficient condition for that thing
to be an artwork. […] 2) in order for something to be an artwork,
it is necessary for that thing to be at some remove from reality (and
being a statement is one way of being at some remove from
reality […]).» (21-22.) In that sense, «a fake does not make a
statement, it only pretends to.» (22.)
Can chimpanzees make art? Danto and Dickie deny it. «Chimpanzees can
neither grasp the institutional framework of artworks (my view) nor
make objects which are about something (Danto’s view).» But can
children make art? Danto answers: no. But Dickie says: yes.
Children’s work can be accommodated within Dickie’s institutional
theory – kids do have a general idea of artmaking.
There is a third article by Danto, «The Transfiguration of the
Commonplace» (1974). There, «Danto maintains that aboutness is
a necessary condition for artworks; that is, he contends that a
semantic dimension is required for being a work of art.» (10.)
According to this idea of Danto, «artworks are about something.»
(23.) «By contrast, the institutional view as I have conceived it
[…] does not necessarily involve the category of language» (10) or
language’s representative function. Therefore, art for Dickie is
not necessarily «a statement (or being about something)» (26.) For
instance, «it does not seem possible that the great bulk of music
could be shown to have a semantic dimension.» (24.) «So aboutness
cannot be a necessary condition of art. I conclude that Danto’s
claim about art is false.» (25.)
III) ART AS ARTIFICE
In the 1950s there was a so-called «new conception of art», headed
by Morris Weitz and Paul Ziff.
For Weitz, the concept of art is a class of objects. This
class «may be enlarged at any time» and is defined according to two
criteria:
1) similarity, «resembling a prior-established work of art»; in
turn, «Ziff remarks that “No rules can be given to determine what
is or is not a sufficient degree of similarity”» (33); and
2) «calling something art.» (31.)
Weitz thinks that «“work of art” cannot be defined because the
class of works of art is one whose members have no common feature.»
Weitz’s view of the term «work of art» is senseless, as Dickie
expresses. Weitz’s and Ziff’s conception is, then, radically open
[ICS].
The «new conception of art» is a double theory, because it is based
on 1) similarity, and 2) the work being an artifact. This «subclass
of artifactual art (nonsimilarity art) […] is the old familiar
class of paintings, poems, musical pieces, and the like, which are
crafted in various traditional ways.» (35.) Similarity does not
necessarily imply traditional craftsmanship (artifactuality) and vice
versa.
Even so, «The first question with which philosophers of art must
deal is “What are the limits of making?” not “What are
the limits of the use of art and work of art?” or “What are the
limits of similarity?”» (37.)
For Dickie, «an artifact need not be a physical object» but is
always man-made. This applies even to the case of picking a
given object: «suppose a piece of driftwood is picked up by someone
who is familiar with the world of art and taken home and hung on a
wall, unaltered […] The driftwood is being used as an artistic
medium and being displayed within the context of the artworld, and it
thereby becomes part of a more complex object [...]
the-driftwood-used-as-an-artistic-medium [...]» (45.) This is a way
of achieving (not conferring) artifactuality. «The urinal Duchamp
used to make Fountain is like the driftwood used as an
artifact medium; it became an artifact of an artworld system.» (46.)
When is artifactuality not achieved? By “pointing and calling”,
like «Dali’s alleged claim that some rocks were art because he had
pointed at them and said they were art.» (46.) [This is the same as
Robert Barry’s conceptual pieces.] [I disagree with Dickie. There
is intellectual work behind the pointing and calling. ICS.]
IV) THE INSTITUTIONAL NATURE OF ART
Dickie stresses that the institution mentioned in the institutional
theory of art is not «a formally organized body» (9;
bold italics mine). Instead, «art-making is an Action-institution
and does not involve any Person-institution in any essential way.»
(52.) This follows a concept given by Jeffrey Wieand:
«Person-institutions are organizations which behave as quasi-persons
or agents, as, for example, the Catholic Church and General Motors
do» (52), whereas there are “institution-types”,
such as «tool-making, storytelling, marriage, or the like,» which
are more general. Art is as general as an Action-institution (Wieand)
and an institution-type (Beardsley).
«Beardsley proposes as a contrast with the institutional conception
of art and artists what he calls the “Romantic” conception of the
artist—an artist working in producing art in isolation from any
institutions. Of course, he does not think all artists work in such
isolation …» (49.) Dickie puts forth: «Suppose that a person
totally ignorant of the concept of art (the member of a primitive
tribe or the culturally isolated individual mentioned above, for
example) and unacquainted with any representations were to fashion a
representation of something out of clay. […] the creator of the
representation cannot recognize his creation as art and that
therefore, it cannot be art. […] he lacks the relevant cognitive
structures. Art cannot exist in the contextless vacuum that
Beardsley’s view requires; it must exist in a cultural matrix, as
the product of someone fulfilling a cultural role.» (55.)
«[...] an artist also creates for a public of some sort. […]
Even art not intended for public presentation presupposes a public …»
(65.) «I speak of a more or less prepared public because artists
sometimes surprise their publics.» (66.) «[…] being a thing of a
kind which is presented to an artworld public is a necessary
condition for being a work of art. […] “Subject matter”
frameworks of the kind envisioned by the imitation theory, Langer's
theory, or even Danto’s “aboutness” theory are not, it is
clear, viable frameworks.» (67.)
Dickie now approaches Timothy Binkley’s «institutional-like
approach».
«Simple specification occurred, according to Binkley, when Robert
Barry made a work of art by saying (specifying) that it is “all the
things I know but of which I am not at the moment thinking—1:36
P.M.; 15 June 1969, New York.” […] I believe that Binkley also
thinks that simple specification was used when Duchamp made Fountain.
[…] Binkley claims to make everything in the universe art by simple
specification, thereby eliminating the problem of keeping track of
which things in the universe are and which are not art.» (59.)
«Binkley's argument for Barry’s Thoughts and its ilk being
art, as we have seen, is that they are created by recognized artists,
treated by critics as art, written about in art journals, and,
finally, that they have developed out of a cultural tradition.
Binkley is of course right when he says that a philosopher in
constructing a philosophy of art should look to the actual practices
of artists, the sayings of critics, and so on. It does not follow
from this, however, that a philosopher must take seriously everything
that the denizens of the artworld do …» (60.)
«…Binkley treats Duchamp’s Fountain and Barry’s “piece”
as if they were exactly the same type. They are, however, quite
different: Fountain, to begin with, is a work of visual art
[…] and Barry’s “piece” is not.» (60.) «Barry's “piece”
[…] has no medium; it was not crafted with anything, it was just
specified. […] Fountain is thus not, as Binkley thinks, a
case of conceptual art, and conceptual art is art made by simple
specification. […]» (60.)
When someone states that he or she has accomplished an activity, is
that statement enough to accomplish that activity? «Sometimes it is,
as Austin has taught us» with the notion of performativity of
language. (61.) But it doesn’t always happen. Art is a context
where such an assertion is not enough. «Making art has had at its
center working with a medium. […] It will not do, I think, to say
that Barry’s unthought knowledge is his medium. Barry does not work
his unthought knowledge nor does Binkley the universe, they just
refer to these things in an unusual way.» [But referring is
working them – thought is work! ICS.] (61.)
In spite of the above argued, it is inevitable that «Some will no
doubt wish to claim that with Thoughts Barry is trying to
extend and succeeds in extending the cultural tradition in somewhat
the way it was expanded when another actor was added to the Greek
drama or when artists began to use acrylic paints.» (61.)
V) THE ARTWORLD
It is an «obvious fact that creating art is an intentional activity
[…].» (71.) «The role of a member of the public also has two
central aspects. First […] the awareness that what is presented to
them is art. The second aspect […] is the wide variety of abilities
and sensitivities which enables one to perceive and understand the
particular kind of art with which one is presented.» (72.)
«…the artworld consists of a set of individual artworld systems,
each of which contains its own specific artist roles plus specific
supplementary roles. For example, painting is one artworld system,
theater is another, and so on.» (75.)
We finally arrive at George Dickie’s Criteria about art:
«I) An artist is a person who participates with understanding in
the making of a work of art. […]
«II) A work of art is an artifact of a kind created to be
presented to an artworld public. […]
«III) A public is a set of persons the members of which are
prepared in some degree to understand an object which is presented to
them. […]
«IV) The artworld is the totality of all artworld systems. [...]
«V) An artworld system is a framework for the presentation of a
work of art by an artist to an artworld public.» (80-82.)
This takes us to the conclusion that «not everything can become a
work of art.» Rather, «it is the work done in creating an object
against the background of the artworld which establishes that object
as a work of art.» (12.)
«Some may feel these results involve a vicious circularity» (77),
but, nevertheless, «if art is the sort of thing I think it is, the
only correct account of it would have to be a circular account.»
(78.) «Artist, work of art, artworld, and artworld system are what I
shall call “inflected concepts.” […] a set of concepts which
bend in on themselves, presupposing and supporting one another. No
member of such a set can be understood apart from all the other
concepts in the set.» (84.)
«There are basic or primitive terms which are unanalyzable and,
hence, undefinable.» (77.) It is useless to learn about them through
«the theories or definitions of philosophers […].» (83.) Rather,
we «learn the meaning of these primitive terms only in some
nonlinguistic way: sensory experience, rational intuition, or
whatever.» (77.) That is the case of the term «art.» «We learn
about art in different ways, but we invariably do so at a tender
age.» (83.) «Virtually everyone, including even quite small
children, has at least a partial understanding of the expression
“work of art.”» In practical terms, «virtually no one is in
need of a definition of “work of art”» in the same way as when
we find «an unfamiliar word.» (79.)
«The institutional theory, however, places virtually no restrictions
on what art may do […] The institutional nature of art does not
prevent art from serving moral, political, romantic, expressive,
aesthetic, or a host of other needs.» (86.)
VI) AESTHETIC OBJECT
Dickie accepts «Monroe Beardsley’s meaning of “aesthetic object
of a work of art,” namely, “those properties of a work of art
which are properly appreciated and/or criticized.”»
(89.) «The first attack on the institutional theory of aesthetic
object which I will consider is that of Robert Schultz.»
(91.)
According to Schultz —and Dickie accepts this— there must be a
«distinction between an independent sense of the aesthetic and a
dependent sense of the aesthetic. The independent sense […] has no
necessary connection to art.» (91.) «Schultz’s argument runs as
follows:
»[…] 2) “…appreciation [of the mere visual sensations]
is irrelevant to the proper treatment of Duchamp’s urinal as an art
object.”
»[…] 5) […] “…Dickie’s account makes it fundamentally
arbitrary … just which … objects are art objects.”
»[…] conclusion: it is an absurd result that “…Sophocles’
Oedipus Rex, a 200-year-old pine tree, Goedel’s Theorem, and
an act of kindness …” can all be works of art.» (92.)
But Schultz «fails to take account of the context in which candidacy
for appreciation is embedded.» Appreciation must be a dependent
sense of the aesthetic. (94.)
Dickie now addresses Gary Iseminger’s ideas.
«Iseminger [...] agrees with me that not every property of a work of
art is aesthetically relevant; or, in my terminology, not every
property of a work of art is an element of the aesthetic object of
that work. […] however, he says […] that there are
“…aesthetically relevant properties of things which are not works
of art,” and he gives as an example the delicacy of a flower.»
(95.)
His problem is that «he is confusing the aesthetically relevant
(that which belongs to the aesthetic object of a work of art) with
aesthetic qualities or properties of the Sibley kind [i. e.,
the physical and merely perceptible ones; Kantian?]. […] aesthetic
relevance cannot exist independently of art.» (96.)
«Iseminger’s account of aesthetic objects of works of art has
essentially the same kind of flaw as Beardsley's account. What can be
appreciated (for Beardsley it was what can we perceived) is not
powerful enough to separate the aesthetically relevant properties of
art from the aesthetically irrelevant properties of art […] The
theories of both Beardsley and Iseminger fail because neither takes
into account the fact that works of art are cultural objects which
are created within complex artworld practices. They both treat works
of art as if they were natural objects such as orange trees and
sunsets.» (98.)
Robert McGregor and Carolyn Korsmeyer are two thinkers with whom
Dickie now deals.
They are interested only in the aesthetic qualities of art, not in
the «“artistic” characteristics of art, i.e., those which are
not linked to “aesthetic perception.”» Korsmeyer «gives a
definition […] For her, “aesthetic qualities must mean those
which can be appreciated without regard for practical, moral, or
theoretical relevance.”» (102.) She and McGregor admit,
nevertheless, that this doesn't help much «in resolving the problem
of aesthetic relevance». (103.) As a matter of fact, «no one,
including the aesthetic-attitude theorists, has succeeded in working
out a theory which underlies the distinction between aesthetic
qualities and nonaesthetic qualities.» (104.)
Dickie now recognizes two different senses of the word «aesthetic»:
«a sense which refers to aesthetic qualities and a sense which
refers to [...] all the properties of a work [of art] which are
properly appreciated and/or criticized». This latter sense includes
«various aesthetic qualities, nonaesthetic qualities, personal
qualities, expressive qualities, representational characteristics,
moral characteristics, and so on.» (105.) In fact, «the two senses
have little or nothing in common.» (105.)
Although several authors, like Beardsley, Iseminger, and Jerome
Stolnitz, put forth that there is «some general, clear-cut way» to
distinguish aesthetic relevance (105), Dickie believes that the
solution «will have to be a piecemeal affair …» (106.)
«As long as one is faced with traditional kinds of art, one can rely
on the established conventions for guidance. When innovation occurs,
one will be to a certain extent on one’s own to figure out what is
going on, although since the innovation will occur within some
traditional form or other, there will be some minimum of guidance.»
(106.)
EPILOGUE: REFLECTIONS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART
«…the institutional theory easily accommodates the representative,
expressive, symbolic, formal, and such properties of art, but it
rejects them as defining characteristics. There is nothing about the
institutional theory which inhibits or restricts art in any way. Art
has been the bearer of a myriad of things …» (110.)
«We have seen, however, that works of art do share
properties—artifactuality and being of a kind created to be
presented to an artworld public—and that these properties are
sufficient for defining “art.” Are these properties the essence
of art? […] Perhaps they do constitute the essence of art, but the
institutional theory makes no claim that they do. […] I spoke of
the essential framework of art. In so speaking, I do not intend to
make any claim about a timeless essence of art […] In the case of
the institutional theory, the definition of “art” is not at all
foundational. The definitions are, as I said, inflected—they
mutually support one another. […] The content of the institutional
theory and its central definitions are radically different from those
of the traditional theories […].» (111.)
NOTAS
