Defining Art, Creating the Canon: Artistic Value in an Era of Doubt

INDefining Art, Creating the Canon, Paul Crowther argues for what he terms a ‘normative aesthetics’ (p. 2) that incorporates both a definition of art and a defence of canonical artistic values. Artworks, he writes, have an intrinsic significance grounded in their status as made entities. Art is a matter of making images that interpret rather than merely reflect the world. Furthermore, interpretation is always stylized, expressing the unique perspective of the image maker. An image becomes art in the full sense (‘Art’), however, only insofar as it can engage us aesthetically through its originality in its use of the medium. The high status accorded to the arts is justified because artworks not only draw upon but also make manifest universal features of human cognition. Great artworks are those that are not only original but also open up new possibilities for image-making in a given medium, and it is greatness so construed that provides an objective basis for the artistic canon.