In a century of violence and change, of increasing vulgarity and continued erosion of once-cherished values, it is perhaps not surprising that the arts also are often outrageous and unpleasant or tawdry. Yet at the same time, there are still many who believe that art should be a repository of beauty and truth, something that uplifts our spirit and helps us to recognize and strive for noble ideals.
What is art, and what is its purpose today? The controversy last year about government subsidy (though the National Endowment for the Arts) of work that many consider to be offensive is only the most publicly visible instance of contemporary uncertainty about the nature and function of art. Even while the buying and selling of artworks is a billion dollar business and while hundreds of thousands of people throng to major art exhibitions, contemporary philosophers of art admit that they cannot define their subject anymore. "We have entered a period of art so absolute in its freedom that art seems but a name for an infinite play with its own concept," states one eminent observer and critic of the arts today.
It seems to me that art in America is currently viewed under at least two antithetical and incompatible ideological banners, both inadequate to what I see (and will describe later in this essay) as a more demonstrably useful and universal view of the nature and function of art. The first or "fine art" approach demands largely a passive and hands-off attitude. It claims that art is sacrosanct, ennobling, mysterious - to be regarded with quasireligious reverence. The second robustly asserts democratization and individual expression, where art must challenge, provoke, disturb, liberate, and above all, itself be free. Oftentimes partisans of one or the other of these views find themselves marching under the other banner - the rabble claiming untouchability and a privileged view, or the high priests insisting that their work has popular relevance. (There is also a their view which dismisses or ignores art altogether as being marginal to the real business of life, which is making money and demonstrating American superiority, but this view is rarely openly admitted. Indeed, when confronted with art issues, persons of this persuasion generally trumpet the art-as-sacred-and-valued view, as one could see when Congress debated funding of the NEA.)
The confused double (or triple) view of art arises, I believe, form the peculiar circumstances of the birth in the eighteenth century (and particularly "fine art") as an abstract concept. Until that time, no other society had considered art to be an entity in itself, to be set apart from its context of use (usually in ceremony or entertainment) or the content that was portrayed. What seem to us to be self-evident "art" (e.g., paintings, sculptures, poems, motets, cantatas or - in other societies - carvings, urns, figurines, masks, ornaments, dramatic performances) were not regarded as such by their makers or users. They found no reason to assume that these belonged in a nameable superordinate category, "art," that suggests a special mode of working or noteworthy social identity (being an "artist" rather than someone who paints) or a special result (a "work of art" rather than an altarpiece or ancestor figure.)
THE EMERGENCE OF THE WESTERN CONCEPT OF (FINE) ART
Translations of early treatises about painting or sculpting or musicmaking do use our word and concept, "art,"
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