| Arthur C.Danto,one of the most influential art philosophers and art critics in contemporary,whose thoughts on art theory and art critism were deeply influenced by Zen.The influence can be devided into two parts,Danto's input and output of Zen.On the one hand,input of Zen means the approaches that Danto accepted Zen in his life.On the other hand,output means Danto's use of Zen in his own art theory,art criticm and artworks.Therefore,we can find that Zen played an significant role in Danto's art philosophy.Danto's acceptance of zen is not only attributed to his historical background and family environment,but also to his personal character and education.The popularity of Zen in the 1950s in USA,living in a family without compulsive religion,not to mention his open mind with analytic philosophy background,all of these factors have laid a great groundwork for his acceptance of Zen.Furthermore,the consistencies in value between Zen and most Americans,and simplicity of Zen's practice are two main reasons why Americans would like to learn Zen.In addition,Danto discovered there were some similar ideas between Zen and his favourite analytic philosophy.These discoveries made Danto have great interests in Zen.Zen inspired Danto when he encourtered Brillo Box in 1964,that's the begining of Danto's art philosophy.However,after using Zen ideas to see Brillo Box as art,Danto returned to western philosophical tradition,devoted himself to constract his art theory based on ontology.Though Danto used Zen with his own purpose and wrong comprehension,we can't ignore the great impacts Zen had on Danto's mind.Without the help of Zen,it's unimaginable that Danto could regard Brillo Box as art in such a short time.Danto's misreading of Zen helped him build his unique art philosophy world.Thanks to Zen,Danto could understand contemporary art better,like Fluxus,Pop,Gutai and so on,which definitely supported him to interpret contemporary artworks effectively.In fact,Danto didn't believe the state of "Harmony and unity" that Zen claimed,he used Zen only when he needed Zen to demonstrate his own theory or to help him understand artworks.The basis of his art theory was dualism,which was totally opposite to Zen.There are five sections in this thesis,the first part was introduction,including an introduction for Danto,research summary and value of this research.Chapter One is preparatory,and deals with the background that Danto learned Zen,including historical environment and his family.Besides that,this part introduces some incidents connecting Danto and Zen.In Chapter 2,I try to analyse the reasons why Danto could be influenced by Zen.There are two different angles of view.Firstly,what appealed Danto as a member of Americans.Secondly,as an individual,the correspondences between Zen and analytic philosophy.Apart from that,there are Danto's statements on how Zen had impact on him.In the part of Chapter 3,I analyse how Danto used Zen in his art theory,art critism and artworks,to prove that Zen actually played an nonnegligible role in Danto art philosophy world.In the Charpter 4,through comparing Danto's art theories with other contemporary art philosophers's theories,we can find that with the influence of Zen,Danto's theory and critism had important and unique value in contemporary.Furthermore,there are some reflections on Danto's attitude to Zen,and the writer tries to explore the reasons explaining Danto's attitude. |
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