The end of Art 
Keith  O'Connor:    My  Writings on Art 
 		  
 

 
 
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This is another section in a series of sections that I am developing in unison. Even though they are at the  work in progress stage I have been asked by fellow artists to present them as is.  I will often edit what I have previously written.
This section  started as  a book report on : 
After The End Of Art
by Aarthur C. Danto.
This book put my thoughts about art into an evolutionary context that extended over many centuries of history. After reading this book I felt like I had been taken out of the fishbowl and allowed to look back  into my old way of thinking but with a different perspective. 
In the beginning I found the book difficult  to grasp.  The idea that art began  with someone named Vasari in the 16th century.  This to me was foolishness because art existed before the 16th century, what was this nonsense?,  but as I read on I began to relate what I was reading to Galbrith's(1), idea of  "conventional wisdom"  (conventional wisdom is just the collection of ideas that  most people believe without question).  As I worked on this book report I began to modify and expand some of his ideas so I think it's only fair that I say his book started me thinking along these lines so the following text is a mixture of his and my ideas. 
I will begin with an example of how conventional wisdom defines our belief as it applies to art.  As the publishing industry grew in 19th century England the Victorians found themselves having to define the difference between their ideas of art and the new illustrations of ideas outside their reality. When it came to the art process  both art and illustration used composition, form, drawing, colour and mood etc. 
One method of defining the difference between art and illustration  was as follows: if for example you were drawing an image of something that did not exist, such as a submarine, that was defined as illustration. The problem arises when the submarine becomes a reality.  Another method was to define commercial art (the more modern term is "graphic design"), as that art which concerned itself more with flat areas rather than volumes, but that also had it's problems - it contradicts our  first definition of illustration in that it implies that illustrators must not use form. 
Art was not always defined in terms of pedantic differences by small people with big egos. Before the 16th century  a good sculpture a good painter a good silversmith etc., were all believed to be equally good. A sculpture was not better than a painter and a painter was no better than a silversmith etc. 
I have a 19th century landscape water colour that has a slight quick brush stroke of pearl grey on the surface.  The Victorian art dealer would sell that water colour for a bit more money because that pearl grey stroke signified a better quality water colour. It came with the original gold leaf frame, so the dealer got extra for that.  Now all  they  had to do was convince enough people to believe that illustration was not art because it used imaginary objects. That to any modern marketing student is product differentiation.
Art marketing with product differentiation begins with convincing people to believe that one thing is better than another, product differentiation,  and ends with getting people to believe that everything is equal, the return to the  original structure. Post modernism has been described as: for the political right everything is a competing product in the market place, and, for the political left postmodernism is everything is a variation on a theme. To both, nothing is sacred, even god, either competes for market share or is just another variation on a theme.
The end of art does not mean that the types of paintings that were painted in the past will not continue to be painted, it does mean that they will no longer be the only types of paintings to be painted. The representational painters and abstract painters are still battling over  market share. 
 
It was with Vasari that the idea that art had a narrative, a story, began.   Art became connected with painting, such that when you heard the word art you think painting.  The mimetic (immative) attribute of art would continue to improve from one generation of artists to the next. Perspective techniques were developed, scientific knowledge of the human body expanded into art and new pigments were developed. 
Art functioned as an instrument of religious teaching, it functioned as an instrument in the promotion of nationalist ideology ; it functioned as an instrument in the promotion of the existing social structure it functioned as a recorder for scientific investigations. It provided  objects of prestige for the rich as well as for the new expanding middle class. 
Out of this cauldron of artistic constraints arose the idea of art for art's sake. Some artists began to paint field workers and  beggars. They were the exception to the conventional wisdom of their day and  were not considered part of the art narrative - they were out side the official world of art
After a while their work was accepted as part of the art narrative. They represented growth new directions and  that art was unfolding as it should and would continue to evolve historically.  Then along came  Hegel (1770-1831) who said - no way -  the historical role of art will come to an end.
This becomes the most difficult part to grasp. Vasri lead the charge to define art restrictivly, as painting. Painting became an instrument of idology and  over the centuries lost it's power to promote those  religious or nationalistic ideas, thus it lost it's power to influence history. Danto argues in his book that this loss of influence happens around the 1950's. I think the transfer began with the introduction  of the moveing picture and the expansion of voteing rights. 
It followed a similar path as communism. Once the major supporting powers abandoned communism its role of influencing world history ended. Yes there are still individual communists and communist countries but they do not form a globally  historical or  influentual movement. 
The implication here is that art as painting and sculpture was capable of influencing history (by communicating ideas to people who would change the direction of social history). 
Notes: thematic material for future inclusion or exclusion.  

continue to develop -- historical narrative of art  
pluralism  and artists  

use ideas from the 14th century concerning the mixture of alpha text and art to increase the conversion of the peasants and relate this to pictorial art being used to influence history..
(1) Galbrith:John Kennith:  Economist