The Content of Art Criticism

Abstract

The task of defining art criticism as one of the four disciplines of discipline-based art education becomes increasingly difficult in direct relation to the extent one thinks of criticism as distinct from other disciplines. It becomes increasingly apparent that although each discipline has certain distinct features and functions, a defining quality of disciplinebased art education is the interdependence and overlap of one discipline with another. For example, the metacritical definitions in which I am about to engage are a primary task of aesthetics. Likewise, metacriticism is an important activity of the art historian. These three disciplines can be managed as separate entities through defining their unique qualities, but in reality there is an irrevocable interdependence. The only way criticism can be separated from history and aesthetics in a practical sense is that it, like studio production, is a physical practice, an activity, a craft in which a skill is developed and techniques refined through practice and application. The practice of this craft is art criticism. Any talk about the nature of this activity is metacriticism (Ecker & Kaelin, 1972) and rightfully falls into the camp of aesthetics. Art criticism is funded by aesthetic theory. Among the dominant theories funding criticism have been phenomenology, analytic, positivist, Marxist, romantic, pragmatic, structuralist, and deconstructionist aesthetics. Important figures in this parade include Kant, Wittgenstein, Santayana, Croce, Dewey, Collingwood, Whitehead, Langer, Hegel, Danto, Dickie, Beardsley, Derrida, Goodman, Weitz ... and on ... and on.

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