The reason why we consider the modern art as modernist can be articulated in many aspects: First, one−as Greenberg does in his essay “Modernist Painting” (1960) −may give an account of its philosophical and ideological link with the modernist tendencies in philosophy initiated by Kant; second, one may elaborate on the possibility of defining art in general along with presenting the past and current alternative definitions to discuss the alleged contribution and continuation that relate the modern art to the older schools in the field of art. This second point I have briefly introduced is developed through different art theorists and philosophers’ writings into a new−one is justified to call it “Modernist”−reference point or standpoint in appreciating art; that is this point not only concerns the art as artefact itself, moreover it relates that artefact to the viewer/spectator in a critical and evaluative activity s/he engages. Towards this end, Bell proposes the qualities of every plausible aesthetic theories which involves evaluative capacities of the perceiving subject, Danto gives two definitions of art at the two opposing extremes and tries to conceptualise the emergence of authentic artworld in modern art with the representative approach by turning down imitation theory of art for some reason, lastly Dickie proposes a third approach to define art which he calls “evaluative” and tries to give theoretical background and basis for an artwork to be appreciated as an artwork after a historical and theoretical consideration of the different paradigms that it could belong.
To start with the philosophy of modernism, as Greenberg puts it one may begin with Kant, his approach to human reason and to the Enlightenment. To be self-critical and ability to limit one’s rights and to know the limits of one’s knowledge and the responsibilities to others are the crucial aspects of modernist philosophy as put forward by Kant. Thus, one may say, having been unable to justify itself through this process of immanent criticism, religion became a concern of lower importance in modern society when compared with the past. Greenberg says that the fact that one may only talk about the artwork of a modern artist only after looking at the picture itself, unlike an old masters’, in which we can see what is in the picture without even see it because he employs direct images in the flat surface. The deliberate choice in the paintings on the flat surface, not leaving the matter to be shaped by given images from outside as in old masters, for Greenberg, a modern artist also limits himself and also he necessarily commits to the modernist approach that human reason is bounded.
Although having made these influential claims, Greenberg does not say that authentic works of modern art are completely out of the historical and philosophical continuity with the other artworks; yet, he admits that there is a continuity and there is a shared ground of all artworks from past to present which enables us to make sense of the modern art and to differentiate art from non-art. Our commitment to this shared ground of all artworks leads us to the aesthetic theories to make sense. Bell, in his essay “Art”, claims that all plausible aesthetic theory includes two qualities−artistic sendibility and open-minded, critical thinking. For me, Bell, with these proposed qualities, not only commits to the modernist critical position, but also he appreciates the subjective aesthetic experience in objective aesthetic theories−this is what never resolves in art and thus the main characteristic of art. This appreciation which is enough wide in scope enables him to build a link between past and current theories, as well as his commitment to the “significant form” as the quality that all artwork share.
In the exciting reading named “The Artworld”, Danto emphasizes the role of theorists in creating different artworlds in which different qualities respectively, in different combinations can be qualified as an artwork. This is closer to the institutional approach in terms of art, as he finds the merit of avant-garde art not in the art per se, but in the world which appreciates the work as art. As such, the incentives of museums, fashion, spectators etc. may affect the possible qualifications of an artwork can take upon.
Dickie, as Danto does, classifies the attempts to define the art in history−in fact, the ones who affirms the possibility to define the art− as the imitation and expression theories of art. Then, by introducing the ones who propose that it is undefinable, he finds defects in all in terms of giving the right picture of the artworld. Then he gives an instiutional analysis by adding a different sense to the term “work of art” in which it takes upon a paradigmatic importance relative to other art works, emphasizing the process of evaluation in the modernist art given by individuals and institutions. In brief, what is crystal clear in overall account in these readings regarding the modern art is that it is no longer possible for an artist to be isolated from the matters of the world, but he is a direct contributor to it and he thinks and elaborates upon these matters making the resulting artwork impossible to be regarded without a social-historical-philosophically supported aesthetic theory, as Baudelaire claims while descibing the modern artist.
BESTE GÜN ASLAN 