La visione che tocca

Monteiro, Mario do Rosario, Ming Kong, Mario S., & Pereira Neto, Maria Joao (eds.): Modernity, Frontiers and Revolutions. Boca Raton London New York Leiden: CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group. ISSN Print: 2161-3907. ISSN Online 2639-0205, 2019

The awakening of art to self-awareness and the statement of its autonomy are modern phenomena.Here I deduct three elements of the modern paradigm of art from the idea of “beauty without concept”: (1) the original artist, who is seen as a genius, (2) the work of art with an aura, and (3) the museum as the temple of art. Then I present how artists, based on the requirement of originality, worked on dismantling the frontiers of the modern paradigm.

The traditional conception of art is about sensual beauty and refined taste; modern art on the other hand has introduced an entirely unexpected dimension to the visual arts, namely that of 'revelatory narrative'. Classical art aspires to present works which can be appreciated as sensually beautiful; modern art, when it succeeds, presents us instead with the unsettling narrative. This radical difference in artistic purpose is something relatively new, and not yet fully appreciated or understood.

2019

This thesis seeks to answer a basic question of the philosophy of art: What is art? After examining the answers provided to this question by several art theories, it proposes that the definition of art offered by Arthur Danto is the one that most conforms to the reality of art, although it suffers from certain imperfections and insufficiencies. On the basis of this critical conclusion and through a careful analysis of what is categorized as art in the present time, it attempts to modify Danto’s definition and to transfigure it into a new one, capable of better conforming to the reality of art. It firstly introduces the contemporary situation of art and the existing art theories which didn’t successfully do sufficient justice to the totality of what is considered as artistic. Through a critical examination of these theories, it tries to show that the sufficient and necessary conditions for being art that they propose are either not sufficient or not necessary. It then tries to clear ...

Early modern art and art theory are still considered by historians and theorists of art mainly in terms of aesthetic principles in the service of the representation of political and ideological concepts. However, the body of early modern art and especially theory abounds with notions, which anticipate the modernist tendencies of self-criticism. In this paper, we would like to suggest that self-criticism also characterized pre-Modernist art, complemented by advanced art criticism, especially during the Mannerist era. We would like to point out that the notion of self-criticism equally applies to both early modern art and art theory in which the specific concentration on problems of construction and composition of painting based its foundations on abstract mathematical rules, serving to justify and dignify the medium itself. Furthermore, this tendency divorced the art of painting, specifically, from the illusion of reality, thus entrenching it more firmly in its own area competence, to use Clement Greenberg's phrase. We would also like to demonstrate that late 16 th-century art theory pushed well beyond its time, especially the theory written by artists. Their programmatic reliance on pre-existing pictorial models allowed these artists-theorists to abandon the question of realism and naturalism for pure speculation, which could not have been achieved in contemporary practice. We would like to suggest that ideas of abstraction and speculation, so characteristic of Modernist art, featured well before Modernism in the writings of Mannerist artists and theorists Twentieth century art theory introduced notions long present in the history of thought about, and the philosophy of, art that reached ultimate interpretations in the Modernist theory of art written by Clement Greenberg, who identified Modernism with the intensification of self-critical tendencies. 2 For him, the essence of modern-1

Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2016

This is the final draft of a review published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. You can access the published version at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jaac.12253/abstract

Memory & Oblivion, 1999

The paper discusses the relationship between art history/theory and art in recent decades, taking as a starting point a passage in Gian Paolo Lomazzo’s Idea del Tempio della Pittura where a fictional ideal painting is described, the realisation of which supposed the recourse to an “eclectic” procedure. It proposes that a Lomazzian-like model has been at work twice during this century, first in the case of the socialist realism and then in the case of postmodernism. It uses the example taken from Lomazzo in order to show how certain historiographic patterns may influence, or even shape artistic practice and argues that such a relationship may be said to exist between present-day art and the discipline of art history.

(Peer-reviewed Journal) Art Style, Art & Culture International Magazine, 2019

[Peer-reviewed article by two scientific committee members of the magazine] This essay seeks to provide an idea of the basis of the main theories of contemporary art criticism. It begins with the assumed knowledge and tradition of the Academies of Fine Art, with their ideal of beauty and classical structure. The importance of such traditional references has its origin in the Renaissance in the 16th century, in Florence with Giorgio Vasari (1511-74), in Haarlem with Karel van Manda (1548-1606) and, above all, in Paris with Charles Lebrun (1619-1690) of the French Royal Academy, which established the first strict rules for the fine arts and was a reference for Europe as a whole. Academies of Fine Art were established in the major European capitals, and from the 19th century, in the Americas and worldwide. The themes and rules presented over the course of history always related to the functions of art and the legacy of classical thought as tradition. However, values and ruptures, ethics, ideologies and political ideals, and the progress of science have conditioned the fundamental importance of the renewal of Western thought. This essay concerns the decline of tradition in the arts, the lack of ideologies guiding modern art, and the transition to contemporary art. The main theories that marked this transition period-20th and 21st century-are analyzed with respect to the art, its criticism, and the theories to the understanding and transformative sense of artistic creation. Such creativity usually appears strange or transgressive to the public and primarily to be seeking a legitimation of the artist's autonomy of choice and freedom of thought. On the whole, this essay presents the main aesthetics notions relating to the critical analysis of traditional European cultures and, more recently, American ones too. American culture, in which the languages of art are based, is analyzed for its effect on occidental philosophy. Both theories of art and contemporary aesthetics are emphasized so as to better understand the work of art's current aim with regard to the discernment of theoretical, prescriptive, and ideological thinking in the visual arts. Cite as: Wagner, Christiane. 2019. “What Matters in Contemporary Art? A Brief Statement on the Analysis and Evaluation of Works of Art.” Art Style, Art & Culture International Magazine, nº 1, (March): 68-82. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5168105

This article discusses one particular change in the development of Art in the twentieth century – the creation of Art as a reply to such questions as " Are there any substantial features of the work of art? " , " What is the difference between the works of art and nonartistic reality? " , " What does constitute the work of art as such? " Some contemporary artworks tell us merely about the nature of art. The attempt to conceive the works that belong to Biotechnological art, Social art, and Participatory art includes also a reflection on the question about the reasons which allow attributing these works to art. Creation includes consideration of what is possible in the art and notes on art history. The artworks combine the creation of artwork as such and questioning its content, meaning, form, and style. Art is perceived as an investigation of the status of the art object and the role of the artist himself.