| Title: |
Posture of Contemplation |
| Artist: |
Danto, Arthur C. 'Arthur Danto' (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1924 - Resides, New York) |
| Date: |
1959 |
| Medium: |
Original Woodcut |
| Note: |
Arthur C. Danto 'Arthur Danto': One of the most influential
art scholars and philosophers of our times, Arthur Danto is the author of
more than twenty books, including such familiar works as The Transfiguration
of the Commonplace (1981), The Madonna of the Future, Beyond
the Brillo Box and Philosophizing Art (1999). Perhaps his most famous
work, however, is the 1984 essay entitled, "The End of Art." Briefly,
Arthur Danto writes that after passing through the various movements of the first
half of the twentieth century, the era of ideology which he terms 'the Age
of Manifestos (Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism,
Abstract Expressionism, et al), we come to the decade of the 1960's and
pop art. Here one can no longer determine that something is art by simply
looking at it. In this relative world, therefore, anything can be art and
anyone can be an artist. Hence the end of art. Whether or not one agrees
with this provocative theory it certainly helps to explain why so much bad
art has been created during the past fifty years. |
| |
Arthur Danto further writes that art can still be created "after
the end of art." But in this culture without direction it is a mistake
to treat either the artist or his art too seriously. The major culprits
here are of course the institutions and galleries that acquire these often
hideous sculptures, paintings, assemblages, collages and other various post
modern objects d'art and ascribe to them either an economic value or an
aesthetic meaning. Both are purely arbitrary. Thus what was twenty years
ago hailed as a revolutionary masterpiece and purchased for a large sum
by a major public museum is often now relegated to a storage space where
bad art goes to die. |
| |
Before "the end of art" Arthur C. Danto was an artist.
He received his B.A. in Fine Arts from Wayne University and his M.A. and
Ph.D. from Columbia University. He was awarded the Fullbright Fellowship
in 1949 and concluded his education at the Academie Julian, Paris. Arthur Danto
began exhibiting his art in national exhibitions in the early 1950's. During
this decade his woodcuts were exhibited at The Art Institute of Chicago,
the Detroit Institute of Arts, Los Angeles County Museum, the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston, and at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. In 1957
the Detroit Institute of Arts awarded Arthur Danto the Hal B. Smith Prize. |
| |
Almost all of Arthur Danto's art was in the medium of the original woodcut.
He stated, "I prefer the black-and-white woodcut. It permits the directest
statement with the greatest economy of means." * Posture of Contemplation
is clearly of great interest both as an original work of art and as an early
element of Danto's developing philosophical concerns. |
| |
In the early 1960's Arthur Danto became a full professor
at Columbia University. He is now the Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy
Emeritus at that institution. For many years Arthur Danto also served
as art critic for The Nation. |
| Edition: |
Limited Edition of two hundred and twenty impressions 20/220. |
| Reference: |
* L. J. Rosenwald, et al, American Prints Today,
1959, Print Council of America, New York, 1959. |
| Size: |
17 1/4 X 10 1/2 (Sizes in inches are approximate,
height preceding width of plate-mark or image.) |
| |
Matted with 100% Archival Materials |
| Condition: |
Printed upon mulberry (rice) paper and with large, full
margins. Containing slight mat burning and some foxing within the image.
Signed, dated, titled and numbered, '20/220', by the artist in pencil
along the lower margin. Posture of Contemplation represents a
truly striking example of the original woodcut art of Arthur C. Danto 'Arthur Danto'. |
| Price: |
Sold - The price is no longer available. |
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