| Description |
This paper explores the evolution of the concept of the art world, starting with the going-away, in order to show that effective art criticism requires knowledge of the art world. The nature of criticism implies that a critic logically identify, define and evaluate a work of art. Reasons are used to justify the critical interpretation (the identification, definition and evaluation) of a work of art, and these reasons are found in what Arthur Danto called the art world. The precursors to the art world include artist colony, bohemia and avant-garde-all of which constitute what Michael Jacobs termed the going-away. Previous examinations of the going-away were partial because they addressed the historical context and ignored the critical perspective implicit in these artistic communities. This historical bias grew out of the dominant, modernist historical definition of art which dictated that art was definable in visual terms and evaluated by developmental standards. In other words, modernist art was defined and evaluated in ways that did not implore a knowledge of the going-away's critical perspective. Thus, the various stages of the art world's evolution from the nineteenth century artist colonies, to the nineteenth and twentieth century bohemia, through the twentieth century avant- garde, have been addressed insufficiently in sentimental memoirs and considered peripherally in criticism. Danto's delineation of the term the art world grew out of a philosophical reevaluation of art's historical definability in the postmodern. The term profiles a theoretical and social structure that was seen as a sufficient, but not a necessary, condition to interpreting art throughout modernism. Through review and analysis of the art world's evolution, its essential role in art criticism as a necessary condition to identifying and evaluating art materializes. The art world is a necessary condition of art's definability because it differentiates relevant artistic endeavors from stagnant institutional mandates and, subsequently, it distinguishes art from nonart. |
