An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art

descriptively [i.e. whenitis about something]...This is not at all to say that

art is a language, but only that its ontology is of a piece with that of

language, and that the contrast exists between reality and it which exists

between reality and discourse.^39

That artworks unlike mere real things are representations, have aboutness,

or have a semantic dimension does not yet suffice, however, to distinguish

them fromother, nonartistic representations. There are representations such

as“the picture of a cat in the child’s alphabet book...whose status as art is

pretty moot.”^40 Such representations, together with many words and sen-

tences used descriptively, are what they are in virtue of their semantic

dimension, in virtue of their being interpreted as they are.

But then the question of when is a thing an artwork becomes one with the

question of when is an interpretation of a thing anartisticinterpretation.

For it is a characterizing feature of the entire class of objects [viz.

representations] of which artworks compose a subpopulation that they are what

they are because interpreted as they are. But since not all members of this

class are artworks, not all these interpretations are artistic interpretations.^41

What, then, makes an interpretation an interpretationof art? How does art

manage to mean or representartistically?

To answer these questions, Danto turns to the theory of expression.

“Works of art,”he proposes,“in categorical contrast with mere representa-

tions, use the means of representation in a way that is not exhaustively

specified when one has exhaustively specified what is being represented...

An artwork expresses something about its content, in contrast with an

ordinary representation.”^42 This observation, however, is just a first step.

The crucial notion of a representation expressing something about its con-

tent is still underarticulated. Any representation–even the humblest sen-

tence in an elementary logic textbook or a casual doodle in the margin of a

student’s notebook–will express some attitude or other on the part of its

maker toward its content. All representations (of whatever quality, artistic

interest, or banality) exist because their makers had the attitude that this

subject matter was at least marginally worth representing in this way. What,

then, makes an expression of an attitude toward a contentartistic?

(^39) Danto,Transfiguration of the Commonplace, pp. 82, 83.
(^40) Ibid., p. 127. (^41) Ibid., p. 135. (^42) Ibid., pp. 147–48, 148.
88 An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art