Heading For New Aesthetica

In 1984,Arthur C.Danto,an American art philosopher,came up with the theory of "The End of Arft".That caused a strong reaction,owing to the background of Danto's times,as well as to his unique perspective.On one hand,Danto realized the redefinition of art from the perspective of analytic aesthetics.On the other hand,following Hegel's dimension of art philosophy,he sought the causes of "The End of Art" from the perspective of historical philosophy,with a special emphasis on the inner logical connection between the historical change of the forms of art and the transformation of the conceptions of art.Furthermore,wih his insight into the crisis of Modernist Art,he analyzed contemporary art and some related aesthetic problems,thus directing his theory of“The End of Art”to the ultimate thinking of human nature.Danto,s art theory is logically coherent.Each of his books not only takes hold of the independence of its own subject,but also focuses on the relationship with the theory of 4"The End of Art,which becomes there of gradually clear and deep.In Danto's early writings,he put tentatively forward some ideas about art:art is different from daily commodities due to some invisible fectors.In the various interpretations of the se invisible factors,Danto articulated the role of the historical status of art as an affirmation of art identity,and his "history" is also represented as an“interpretation”for various definitions of ait with historical restrictions.This phenomenon is related both to the development of art itself and to the atmosphere of art philosophy.When its sensibility is eventually deprived,art encounters a severe philosophical problem of itselt and achieves its end and identification through its philosophical self-consciousness,and then art falls into free development.This is what Danto's theory of "The End of art" mainly concerns.Besides as the inevitable result of the development of his own theory,Danto's theory of "The End of Art" is also influenced by some contemporary theories bubbling up in the wave of art's end in the 20th century,as well as by the institutional theory of art in George Dickie who also opposes Neo-Wittgensteinism as Danto does.By comparing these theories with Danto's theory of The End of Art,it will be of help to clarify the particularities of the latter,and whose significance becomes also distinctive in the very comparison.Danto's theoiy of "The End of Art" is not so much an accomplishment which breaks the conventional connection between beauty and art,as a breakthrough that makes aesthetics characterized by sensibility return to art philosophy concentrating on ait itself,and thus provides more ontological possibilities for the development of art and some new opportunity to enrich and liberate human nature.