The artwork of Maria Bussmann, a trained academic German philosopher and a significant visual artist, provides an ideal test case for a philosophical study of visual art. Bussmann has internalized the relationship between art and philosophy. In this exploration of the history of German aesthetics through Bussmann's work, David Carrier places the philosophical tradition in the context of contemporary visual culture.Each chapter focuses on the arguments of a major philosopher whose c...

Boldly developing the central traditions of American modernist abstraction, Lawrence Carroll's paintings engage with a fundamental issue of aesthetic theory, the nature of the medium of painting, in highly original, frequently extraordinarily successful ways. Aesthetic Theory, Abstract Art, and Lawrence Carroll explains how he understands the medium of painting; shows what his art says about the identity of painting as an art; discusses the place of his paintings in the developmen...

In Museum Skepticism, art historian David Carrier traces the birth, evolution, and decline of the public art museum as an institution meant to spark democratic debate and discussion. Carrier contends that since the inception of the public art museum during the French Revolution, its development has depended on growth: on the expansion of collections, particularly to include works representing non-European cultures, and on the proliferation of art museums around the globe. Arguing ...

David Carrier examines the history and practice of art writing and reveals its importance to the art museum, the art gallery, and aesthetic theory. Artists, art historians, and art lovers alike can gain fresh insight into how written descriptions of painting and sculpture affect the experience of art. Readers will learn how their reading can determine the way they see painting and sculpture, how interpretations of art transform meaning and significance, and how much-discussed work becomes ...

“Wild Art” refers to work that exists outside the established, rarified world of art galleries and cultural channels. It encompasses uncatalogued, uncommodified art not often recognized as such, from graffiti to performance, self-adornment, and beyond. Picking up from their breakthrough book on the subject, Wild Art, David Carrier and Joachim Pissarro here delve into the ideas driving these forms of art, inquire how it came to be marginalized, and advocate for a definition of “tas...

First Published in 1999. John Ruskin (1819-1900), Walter Pater (1839-1894), and Adrian Stokes (1902-1972) represent three generations of English aesthetes whose writings have transformed art history and the formations of museums as we know them. They are three great writers in a distinctively English tradition. Concerned with the nature of aesthetic experience, and with the interpretation of visual art, they offer approaches that are dramatically different, in challenging ways, from those ...

In today's art world many strange, even shocking, things qualify as art. In this book, Cynthia Freeland explains why innovation and controversy are valued in the arts, weaving together philosophy and art theory with many fascinating examples. She discusses blood, beauty, culture, money, museums, sex, and politics, clarifying contemporary and historical accounts of the nature, function, and interpretation of the arts. Freeland also propels us into the future by surveying cutting-edge web si...

A visit to an art gallery can be a baffling experience - a bewildering parade of paintings, sculptures, artists and movements with little perspective on how they all fit together. 50 Art Ideas you Really Need to Know is here to help. For all those who don't know their Degas from Dali or their Monet from their Mondrian, this informative and insightful guide discusses 50 of the most important and influential concepts in art from the Ancient Greeks to the present.Taking in the definin...

Eyewitnessing evaluates the place of images among other kinds of historical evidence. By reviewing the many varieties of images by region, period and medium, and looking at the pragmatic uses of images (e.g. the Bayeux Tapestry, an engraving of a printing press, a reconstruction of a building), Peter Burke sheds light on our assumption that these practical uses are ‘reflections’ of specific historical meanings and influences. He also shows how this assumption can be problematic.

Arthur C. Danto's essays not only critique bodies of work but reflect upon art's conceptual evolution as well, drawing for the reader a kind of "philosophical map" indicating how art and the criteria for judging it has changed over the twentieth century. In Unnatural Wonders the renowned critic finds himself at a point when contemporary art has become wholly pluralistic, even chaotic-with one medium as good as another-and when the moment for the "next thing" has already passed. So...

Conceptual art in the Western world is in crisis. That is the view of many people who are disillusioned with what they regard as its attention-seeking antics, where artists themselves have proudly proclaimed 'the death of art'. Why has art been on this road to destruction, and how did it get there? How does one make sense of the bewildering complexity of Conceptual art, and how does one extract meaning from its diverse and sometimes bizarre manifestations?This predicament needs exp...

Meyer Schapiro: Portrait of an Art Historian by Helen Epstein (19,700 words)This is the only profile available of art historian Meyer Schapiro (1904-1996). A polymath, revered for his extraordinary scholarship and teaching, he championed medieval studies, modern masters like Matisse and Picasso and artists of his own time. His lectures at Columbia and the New School attracted overflow crowds of students and artists. "Sometimes he was so brilliant that he seemed alm...