Midterm Presentation Outline

For my midterm presentation I am going to present the four different theories of "what art is" from the book "the Art Question" by Nigel Warbuton. We have been learning about these in my Philosophy of the Arts class and I find them all very interesting.
The first theory is the theory of Significant Form, presented by Clive Bell.
"Some objects, created by human hands, have, for whatever reason, been charged with a power to produce an aesthetic emotion in sensitive viewers. These objects are all around us, and when we are interesting in them as works of art it is irrelevant when they were made, who made them, or why. The power to produce an aesthetic emotion is inherent in significant form." - (pg.10)

The second theory is the theory of the Expression of Emotion, presented by R.G.Collingwood.
"...art proper is the imaginative expression of emotion. He means something quite specific by 'expression' - not an outpouring or betrayal of emotion, nor a deliberate arousing of emotion, but rather a clarification of an initially vague feeling that through its expression becomes clear."(pg.49)

The third theory is the theory of Family Resemblance, presented by Wittgenstein and Weitz.
"Perhaps there was no such thing as the 'correct' definition of art, and the best that philosophers of art could hope for was to reveal the complex patterns of overlapping resemblances between the things we called art." (pg.66)

The last theory is the Institutional Theory, presented by Danto and Dickie:
Danto: "He suggests that it is theory that makes something a work of art, not some visible element of it: 'To see something as art requires something that the eye cannot descry - an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld.'" (pg.91)
Dickie: "A work of art in the classificatory sense is (1) an artifact (2) a set of the aspects of which has had conferred upon it the status of candidate for appreciation by some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social institution (the artworld)."(pg.95)

In my presentation I am going to outline each of these theories and explain the criticisms of each.