After the End of Art

By Arthur C Danto,

Book cover of After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History

Book description

Originally delivered as the prestigious Mellon Lectures on the Fine Arts in 1995, After the End of Art remains a classic of art criticism and philosophy, and continues to generate heated debate for contending that art ended in the 1960s. Arthur Danto, one of the best-known art critics of his…

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Why read it?

1 author picked After the End of Art as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This book is an amazing combination of the philosophy of art, the philosophy of art history, and art criticism. The late Arthur Danto was not only a distinguished philosopher but also an award-winning art critic. In this book, Danto tracks the decline and fall of Modernism (which he describes as “the end of art”) and the advent of our present artistic moment which can be critically characterized as an era of post-historical pluralism. Danto, following GFW Hegel, proposes a partial definition of the artwork as an embodied meaning – thereby addressing the challenge to say what art is -- as…

From Noël's list on philosophy that surveys the arts.

Want books like After the End of Art?

Our community of 11,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like After the End of Art.

Browse books like After the End of Art

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in postmodernism, historiography, and philosophy?

Postmodernism 34 books
Historiography 49 books
Philosophy 1,718 books