‘For when Danto speaks of the end of art, that is an abbreviation for the end of the developmental history of art. Historical accounts may be divided into two sorts: narratives and chronicles. A chronicle of events is a list of time-ordered happenings. First x happens, then y happens, then z and so on. But in a narrative, the events are connected by more than temporal succession: there is a beginning that gives rise to complications that converge on closure. Events compose a story; they head toward a climax. When Danto says that the history of art is over, he means a certain development –a certain narrative development– is finished. He does not mean that the chronicle of art history is done. Artworks will still be created ad seriatim. What is over is a particular process of evolution.’ (Carroll 1998: 18)
To sum up, every time Danto uses the phrase ‘end of art’ or ‘end of history of art’, he means ‘the end of developmental history of art’ (Carroll 1998: 18). But still, then one may object by asking why Danto is not more specific? He could have made himself clearer in explaining his standpoint. A first objection can be that it does not seem to make any sense to use the expression ‘the end of art’ instead of ‘the end of art history’ or ‘end of history of art’ instead of ‘the end of the developmental history of art’. Each expression means something different, so one cannot play with words in this way and hope that he is to be taken seriously. Not being
specific may lead to misreading and one can interpret Danto as follows: when Danto claims the end of art or the end of art history he derives this conclusion from the first premise, i.e. that a certain narrative development or a certain evolutionary procedure is finished. So that there is no abbreviation but there are more parts of an argument that are linked together and form the argument which asserts that there is the end of art or the end of art. Because Danto is not specific from the beginning, when he first published in 1964 the paper ‘Artworld’, he may be understood as changing his view over time, since, as Carroll also noticed, in ‘After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History’ (1998) he finally makes himself clearer. Consequently, it may be interpreted as changing his view over time by making a more moderate claim because of the criticism he has received since 1964.
At the first sight, one’s first objection to Danto’s end of art history may be, as Carroll puts it, that reality seems to clearly contradict his claim: ‘There are certainly more art schools, art fairs, galleries, museums, shows, artists, and artworks than ever before. How
could art history be over when art is being produced at such a dizzying rate?’ (1998: 18). Carroll continues by admitting that such an objection is not fair because it does not follow what Danto is trying to suggest.
Danto argues that if art is imitation, then even mirror-images are artworks (Danto 1964: 571). Following this view, it may seem that if we give a camera to any person, even to an 8-year-old child, his pictures are artworks because it represents and imitates the world. One may reply by saying that it is the intention that matters or that it is the camera that imitates the world and not the presupposed artist. Nonetheless, it is not sufficient for a work to be considered art. Once photography developed, it is not just that mimesis is no longer a sufficient condition in art but it was even rejected as necessary (Danto 1964: 571). Ancient Egyptians drew myths and stories inside pyramids, during the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci painted ‘Mona Lisa’ and ‘The Last Supper’, Michelangelo painted the religious myth of ‘Creation of Adam’ and so on. The point is that if someone comes to a professional painter and asks for a portrait, the portrait cannot be considered an artwork unless it is more than just a representation by excellence (see Petrenko & Korotchenko 2012); it seems that the painter needs to express himself as well in the process so that he leaves its individualistic and subjective marks on it. ‘The Creation of Adam’ by Michelangelo is more than a mere illustration of a story, it is how Michelangelo subjectively sees it and the whole scene is meant to be seen as a figure of speech rather than literal, as God intending to reach Adam’s hand, i.e. its own creation.
Going further to the late 19th century, post-impressionists such as Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh are considered to take part in a new form of art (Danto 1964: 574). Although their aim is the same, to express reality, their art form is totally different from classical paintings. People perceive different events or feelings differently. For some, the sunset is something normal and there is nothing special about it, it is just a sunset and nothing more. For others, it is rebirth, a new beginning; it causes a hopeful and joyful feeling, or, for some, it gives rise to a nostalgic feeling. In the same way, perception may be relative in some cases and Van Gogh’s distortions in paintings may be the way he perceived some facts at certain points in time. Even though the ‘Starry Night’ may be seen as an unrealistic representation of a village during the night, it may also be regarded as a more accurate imitation of that scene, since it can be said that the painting style captures the emotion that the place transmitted to the author at that time; so that this is how he felt and perceived the whole night scene. Therefore, the painting itself is not a copy of the night scene
but the experience and impression of it.
From ‘The End of Art: A Philosophical Defense’, an attempt to identify Danto’s
unclear argumentation (1998) is as follows:
- Art became conscious of itself, i.e. of theories behind it; and artworks express it in a direct manner and question the nature of art itself (see Warhol’s ‘Brillo Boxes’);
- History of art has finally recognised that all is free, i.e. all artists are free to expose their own artworks, which follows that there are too many individual stories;
- History of philosophy has ended with Hegel due to its ascent to philosophical consciousness in his narrative;
- Marx and Engels proposed the same narrative vision, i.e. that the history has ended; it ended when class conflicts have ended (assuming that all conflicts resolved, thus end of history);
- The developmental history of art has ended.
First of all, the analogy with Hegel’s thought and his work are philosophically unstable. The same objection applies to the 4th premise. Neither (3) nor (4) support the conclusion. Thus, such an argumentation does not demonstrate that the developmental history of art has ended. According to Danto, it is up to artistic theories to decide what is art and what is not (Danto 1964: 581). But what if there is more than just one coherent theory of art and they do not contradict one another? Who chooses the right theory to be used when deciding the nature of an aspiring artwork? Danto does not discuss anything about such issues in his paper. At the end of his essay, Danto talks about theories that make artworks possible and affirms that ‘the greater the variety of artistically relevant predicates, the more complex the individual members of the artworld become’ (Danto 1964: 583). From this, one may interpret his statement in the following way: a high number of artistic styles is not an issue but a benefit for the artworld (Seel 1998: 112). Thus, it can be a benefit for the developmental history of art as well.
It is a bit surprising and atypical that Danto defends the modern artworks of his time as being part of art history, such as ‘Brillo Boxes’ but he says that ‘Brillo Boxes’ marks the end of art. Why would it be the end of art history? It is still unclear. Danto does not give us any strong arguments for it. Among clear explanations, he lacks strong argumentation.
All in all, the more artistic styles occur, the bigger and more complex the history of art will be. Hence, there seems to be no end to the developmental history of art but on the contrary, it rather seems that it is just the beginning because more and more artistic styles than ever before are marking their place into history. Let just look at contemporary abstract art, digital art, crypto and NFT art; it rather seems that art is flourishing and expanding as never before. Democracy has finally reach art thanks to the new Internet era, blockchain, web 3, and DeFi.