The End of Master Narratives vs. Continuity of Art History: On Snyder's Revision of Danto's Notion of the End of Art
Abstract
The idea that art came in a narrative sense to an end pronounced by Arthur C. Danto became a topic in the contemporary debate in aesthetics again a couple of years ago.
In my paper, I focus on the last contribution to this discussion, on Stephen Snyder's book End-of-Art Philosophy in Hegel, Nietzsche & Danto. I aim to scrutinize the new necessary condition for being art introduced by Snyder, which should serve as a correction for Danto's definition of art as well as a counterargument for his end-of-art thesis.
Moreover, Snyder seeks to offer a new narrative of art history in which art did not come to an end. In my paper; I will argue that Snyder misinterprets certain aspects of Danto's end-of-art thesis, and therefore, his project of creating an alternative narrative of art history fails.