The End of Art. From Wittgenstein to AI, Passing Through Arthur Danto

Is the artist, who makes art, more relevant, or the critic, who positions the artist's work by relating it to the culture of their time, navigating a jungle of prepositions, facts, and beliefs? Far be it from us to answer; of course, one might say that without the artist, there would be no critic, but are we so sure? Those who deal with analytic aesthetics, that is, with the ontology of art, that is, with what art truly is, could extensively debate this issue, and indeed, for fifty years, they have.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

The first to raise the question was Ludwig Wittgenstein with his skepticism, declaring that art cannot be defined (Philosophical Investigations, 1953, published posthumously). Morris Weitz followed suit in his 1956 essay, The Role of Theory in Aesthetics, arguing that any attempt to define art is destined to fail, leaving only an open definition available, and spoke of families of concepts. We also cite two among the many who have plunged into the fray of this fascinating subject, perhaps the best known, Arthur Danto, who rationalized the theory of art in an attempt to distinguish an artistic object from a common object, achieving that "transfiguration of the commonplace" which gives the title to his important theoretical work, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (1981). Then it's the turn of those who consider it fundamental that art be recognized as such by those who have the authority to do so, thus opening the way for procedural theories. Danto, after hinting at this solution in 1964, later became a critic of it, while the institutional theory of art, extensively developed by George Dickie starting with Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis (1974), carried this perspective forward. In practice, for Wittgenstein, art is undefinable; for Weitz, it is definable interpretively; for Dickie, art is what important people say it is. But what does Danto assert?

According to Arthur Danto, the essence of art does not lie in the aesthetic or formal properties of the work, but in its interpretation within the context of the "artworld." He introduced the concept of the "artworld" as the set of practices, theories, institutions, and discussions that confer an object its status as a work of art.

Andy Warhol's Brillo Box

A famous example Danto uses to illustrate his theory is Andy Warhol's Brillo Box, which aesthetically does not differ from the Brillo boxes one can find in a supermarket. However, what makes Warhol's Brillo Box a work of art is not its visual appearance, but the theoretical and historical context in which it was created and presented. This context includes prior art history, the artist's intention, and the way the work is interpreted and discussed in the artworld.

Arthur Danto proposed a vision of art based on interpretation and the theoretical context in which a work is placed. According to Danto, what makes an object a work of art is not an intrinsic quality, but the way it is recognized and discussed in the artworld. This theory shifts the focus from the search for an essential definition of art to understanding the role of theory and interpretation in the creation and reception of artworks. Danto declares the "End of Art," an idea that does not mean the cessation of artistic production, but rather the end of art history understood as an evolution towards a final aesthetic goal. He argues that after the avant-gardes of the 20th century, art reached a point where everything is possible, and there are no longer fixed rules or objectives towards which art must tend.

But let's return to who ignited the question, to Ludwig Wittgenstein, who in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) states that the world is the totality of facts, not of things. For the philosopher, the world consists of facts (states of affairs) rather than objects. Facts can be represented by propositions that have a logical structure corresponding to the structure of the facts themselves.

The Function of Language According to Wittgenstein

Language has the function of representing the facts of the world. Propositions are logical pictures of facts, and their meaning derives from their correspondence with reality (we have discussed similar positions in Artificial Intelligence, Philosophically Speaking, pt. 1). Ludwig Wittgenstein did not provide a formal definition of art, but he discussed the topic indirectly, especially in the context of his reflections on language and meaning. His perspective on art is connected to his philosophy of language, particularly the idea that the meaning of words depends on their use in specific contexts, rather than on a fixed definition.

Currently, the debate regarding AI and art concerns how to interpret artifacts generated by AI. The debate seems to be centered on the question of whether AI will or will not be fully defined as an 'artist', or perhaps it will remain only a tool for artists? In light of these analyses, of which we can obviously only scratch the surface, we instead ask a very different question. The question is: what kind of art critic would AI be?

If it is true that with Danto's "end of art" one can no longer refer to aesthetics and everything is reduced to facts and language (Wittgenstein) or to system relations (Dickie), we can only note that these are all fields where AI excels. In more and more fields, we discover that it is not AI that replaces humans, but it is humans themselves who, philosophically, have rationalized their reality to such an extent that it becomes computable (we discuss this here: The End of History Has Been Postponed and Algorithms Are Making Fun of Us). Analytic aesthetic philosophers have, over fifty years, shifted what belongs to feeling and seeing towards the formal and language. AI will be but a humble servant, and I fear, with these premises, it could become an excellent art critic.

Demetrio Paparoni with Arthur Danto As for the opening question, whether it is more relevant to be an artist or a critic, we like to quote a phrase by Demetrio Paparoni in Arthur Danto and the Formal Question (Rivista di estetica, no. 35 02/2007): "the best criticism is that made by artists, who understand more than anyone else the difficulties of making a form credible."