Arthur C. Danto: Remarks on Art and Philosophy

"What makes something a work of art?" This was the question that philosopher Arthur C. Danto (1924–2013) asked himself after seeing Andy Warhol’s "Brillo Box" at a 1964 exhibition at the Stable Gallery in New York City. The philosophy of art was not Danto’s primary area of inquiry at the time, but Warhol’s work prompted him to return to this question over several decades. Danto, professor of philosophy at Columbia University since the 1960s and art critic at The Nation from 1984 to 2009, delivered the previously unpublished lectures presented in this volume at the Acadia Summer Arts Program in Mount Desert Island, Maine, from 1997 through 2009. They explicate the ideas that he set forth in professional philosophical papers and books, including The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (1981), which describes his philosophy of art. Informal yet deeply thought-provoking, these lectures explore how Danto analyzed art through a philosophical lens, yielding an approach that differs from most other contemporary art criticism. Danto’s thoughts on art go beyond formal analysis and taste judgments, instead focusing on questions about the nature of art and attempting to define what a work of art is. These lectures present some of his most notable ideas in terms that those with no training in philosophy can readily understand.