There were two New York, art worlds in the 1950s: the art world described in our histories and the world of the printers. If you want to understand what Danto the artist was doing in the 1950s, then you need to see how personal was his response to that art world. The second of Danto’s importance influences was the great Japanese print makers of the nineteenth century. Thanks to the German born William Valentiner, director from 1924 to 1945, the museum has a great pioneering collection of German Expressionist art. Detroit is a beleaguered city, but the museum is grand. More recently, Meyer Schapiro, who made informal works of art, described himself as a summer painter and Clement Greenberg and Leo Steinberg did drawings.Īrthur Danto was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, New Year’s day, 1924, and so as an adolescent had access to one of the great American museums. Roger Fry took his own painting very seriously, but even his Bloomsbury friends could not help noting how derivative his art was. John Ruskin did drawings and watercolors. Nietztsche’s music and Wittgenstein’s house may shed light on, but they do not help explicate their philosophies. And Wittgenstein designed a house in Vienna whose architecture has been related to the structure of his early masterpiece, the Tractatus. Nietzsche composed some music, which thanks only to his fame is occasionally performed. It’s always interesting to learn what art great historians and philosophers of art make. Courtesy of the University Museum, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Danto’s Woodblock Prints: Capturing Art and Philosophy, at the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale from August 24 to October 1, 2010. This essay is a shortened version of a lecture given at the exhibition, Arthur C.

Arthur c danto what art is