In a well known paper,^1 Arthur Danto claims that Hegel’s prediction
concerning the end of art in modern times has finally come true. Art,
according to Danto, has developed into philosophy, at least it has in the
most received avant-garde works from Duchamp to Warhol. For Danto,
this is an ultimate stage in the history of art, at least on a conceptual
level. Basically, he sees two possibilities for the further development of
art: either it may disappear completely or it may cease to develop at all,
continuing its existence at the level of some boring ‘anything goes’
endeavor instead. Neither alternative seems very promising.
In the following, I will try to show that Danto’s reading of Hegel’s dic-
tum about the future of art is incorrect and misleading. Hegel’s thesis
about the end of art is neither a prediction nor a prophecy. The question
is not merely of historical interest: a re-interpretation of the famous pas-
sages in Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Ästhetikwill rather allow a differ-
ent diagnosis of art’s future in the wake of the avant-garde movements.
- Danto’s Claim
1.1 ART ANDHISTORYWhat Danto seeks to explain in his paper on the end of art is the poor
condition of contemporary art. That art is in a poor condition today is
taken for granted rather than argued for in the paper.^2 For him, as for
many other art critics, ‘postmodernism’ is a euphemistic label for the fact
that modern art has run into a fundamental crisis. Postmodernism is
not—or not primarily—the label for an art historical period like
‘baroque’ or ‘romanticism’. Rather, it is an anti-label, a term meant to
express that postmodern art, unlike modern art, does not give birth to
anything powerful or genuine, but only mixes old genres and styles of art.
51[ 3 ]
A Prophecy Come True?
Danto and Hegel on the End
of Art
HENNINGTEGTMEYER