An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art

Here Danto proposes that“the point of intersection between style, expres-
sion, and rhetoric must be close to what we are in pursuit of.”^43 Ordinary
sentences in textbooks or illustrations in some alphabet books have no
particular style. They are not rhetorically effective (nor are they intended to
be) in bringing their audiences to feel something in relation to their contents.
Unlike metaphors, they do not invite their audiences actively to see their
subject in a new light. (Metaphor, for Danto, is a central device of rhetoric.)
Works of art, in contrast,dohave distinctive style anddoinvite us to“see”
their subject actively in a new way.“It is as if a work of art were like an
externalization of the artist’s consciousness, as if we could see his way of
seeing and not merely what he saw.”^44 Rembrandt, for example, paints
Hendrijke Stoeffels–his mistress and mother of their daughter–asBath-
sheba. In doing so, he includes all her folds and wrinkles

because they are part of the woman he loves. Andthat woman, with just those

marks of life upon her,isBathsheba, a woman of beauty enough to tempt a

king to murder for possession of her. And that is the metaphor of the work: to

show that plain dumpy Amsterdam woman as the apple of a king’s eyehas

to be an expression of love.^45

In a fully artistic representation, then, we activelyparticipate ina way of
seeing the world with feeling that the work expresses, enables, and solicits
from us. We encounter not just the thing seen, but another seeing and
feeling mind in whose modes of attention we can participate.

What, then, is interesting and essential in art is the spontaneous ability the

artist has of enabling us to see his way of seeing the world–not just the world

as if the painting were like a window, but the world as given by him. In the

end we do not simply see that naked woman sitting on a rock, as voyeurs

stealing a glimpse through an aperture. We see her as she is seen with love by

virtue of a representation magically embedded in the work.^46

Danto further provides a subtle account of what away of seeingis, in which he
attempts to balance the social and individual dimensions of this achieve-
ment. Meanings, attitudes, and emotions do not springex nihilofrom an
isolated experiencing consciousness. Rather,“meanings more or less come
from the world in which the artist lives;...they must belong to the world the

(^43) Ibid., p. 165. (^44) Ibid., p. 164. (^45) Ibid., p. 195. (^46) Ibid., p. 207.
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