Vprasanje Umetnosti [the Art Question]1

Warburton, N. (2012). Vprasanje umetnosti [The Art Question]1. Afterword study by Marjan Simenc. Ljubljana: Sophia. 158 p., ISBN 978-961-6768-48-1.Nigel Warburton is a philosopher, best known for his work in the popu- larisation of philosophy across the globe. The podcast series he made with Da- vid Edmonds, Philosophy Bites, publishing interviews with some of the most noted philosophers of our time, was a monumental success - as were many of his other written works, especially Philosophy: The Basics, Philosophy: The Clas- sics and Thinking from A to Z. Besides the extensive work he has done for the promotion of philosophy, Nigel Warburton is also an influential author for art theory and history, specialising in photography and architecture; he has writ- ten about Erno Goldfinger in his book Erno Goldfinger: The Life of An Architect and edited a book about the photographer Bill Brandt. The Art Question is his attempt to summarise the analytical tradition of modern art theory. At the same time, however, the author builds, with different comments and critical remarks, his own standpoint. His own contribution to art theory is clearly explicated in the last chapter.In his work, Nigel Warburton is interested in the question: 'What is art?' The question is, he adds, equally important for the aesthetics of the 20th cen- tury as well as for artists and art itself. Already in the introduction, he contra- dictorily remarks that the question of art is more in the domain of philoso- phy than in the domain of arts. He even hints that the sole question is worth tackling simply because it is a complicated one. This position can be followed throughout his book: while the author investigates different aesthetic theories and even interprets different art works with their help, he constantly provides counter-examples to prove them wrong, stating that art is not something theory can fully embrace and define.The Art Question is divided into five chapters, each devoted to a certain theoretical aspect in the history of aesthetics. The first chapter is devoted to the formalist theory of Clive Bell, which argues that the form of the picture is es- sential for its aesthetic value and experience. In the second chapter, Warburton analyses the expressive theory of art as introduced by R. G. Collingwood. The third chapter examines the idea that the concept of art bears so-called family resemblance, an idea introduced by Ludwig Wittgenstein. The idea of family resemblance signifies that there is no actual rule to describe all the forms of art and all the artistic objects, but each of them must have at least one resemblance to at least one other. In the fourth chapter, the author analyses the well-known institutional theory of art, which was introduced by philosopher George Dick- ie, who stated, that 'a work of art in the classificatory sense is 1) an artefact 2) upon which some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social institu- tion (the art world) has conferred the status of candidate for appreciation'. This eventually means that everything can be presented as art, as long as the 'the art world' accepts it as such.The most intriguing part of the book is by all means the last chapter, which contains Warburton's own contribution to the theoretical discourse about art. He would suggest that it is not possible to define art, since all works of art do not have even one collective characteristic. However, the definition of art is still useful for three reasons: it helps us discuss borderline examples, it helps us understand why something was declared art in the past, and finally, it shows which objects will satisfy us if we pay particular attention to this particular object. The author tries to demonstrate his hypothesis with comparison of two photographers, Cindy Sherman and Stuart Franklin. While Sherman has been accepted into art canon as an artist, Franklin is regarded more as an esteemed journalist photographer. Their photographs are labelled differently, although there is no definable difference between them. …