Arthur Coleman Danto lived from 1924 to 2013 and was an American art critic, philosopher and professor at Columbia University who served as the long-time art critic for The Nation from 1984 to 2009. His philosophical work spanned philosophical aesthetics, philosophy of history and philosophy of action, and he is best known for developing an institutional definition of art and for proposing the concept of the end of art, describing how Western art transitioned from an adherence to imitation theory toward a post-historical era with no stylistic constraints.
Facts
Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account Defining MomentSourced to the subject's own accountPublished the 1964 essay The Artworld, arguing that identifying something as art requires an atmosphere of art theory and a knowledge of the history of art, a claim that reshaped analytic aesthetics. 1 Birth DateSourced to the subject's own account Notable PublicationSourced to the subject's own accountThe Transfiguration of the Commonplace (1981) 1 Office HeldSourced to the subject's own accountProfessor of philosophy, Columbia University; Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy from 1992 1 Death YearSourced to the subject's own account Death DateSourced to the subject's own account BirthplaceSourced to the subject's own accountAnn Arbor, Michigan, United States 1 Death PlaceSourced to the subject's own accountNew York City, United States 1 TraditionSourced to the subject's own account Classification
NationalitySourced to the subject's own account Connections
Influenced
Dickie's institutional theory of art builds on Danto's 1964 "Artworld" essay and its definition of art via institutional conferral of status.
Additional Source Arthur Danto (Wikipedia)Arthur Danto, Wikipedia, "Artworld" / definition-of-art section
Held Differently
Danto's "end of art" thesis is his own contemporary version of Hegel's dialectical history of art -- a reframing of Hegel's idea, not a plain adoption of it.
Additional Source Arthur Danto (Wikipedia)Arthur Danto, Wikipedia, "end of art" / philosophy of art history section
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Arthur Danto (Wikipedia)
WikipediaInfobox, birth_date field
January 1, 1924
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Ann Arbor, Michigan
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January 1, 1924
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October 25, 2013
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New York City
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October 25, 2013
The Artworld section, art theory passage
an atmosphere of art theory
Lead section, list of major works
The Transfiguration of the Commonplace
Career section, retirement passage
Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
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Analytic
Lead section, nationality sentence
Arthur Coleman Danto (January 1, 1924, October 25, 2013) was an American art critic, philosopher, and professor at Columbia University.
Influenced By: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Arthur Danto, Wikipedia, "end of art" / philosophy of art history section
Danto describes the history of Art in his own contemporary version of Hegel's dialectical history of art. [...] he thinks that a certain history of western art has come to an end, in about the way that Hegel suggested it would.
Influenced: George Dickie, Arthur Danto, Wikipedia, "Artworld" / definition-of-art section
Dickie defined an art work as an artifact "which has had conferred upon it the status of candidate for appreciation by some person or persons acting in behalf of a certain social institution (the artworld)" [...] according to professor of philosophy Stephen David Ross, [Danto's influence bore] "especially upon George Dickie's institutional theory of art."
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