# Art_Criticism_as_Practical_Reasoning_by_Anthony_Cross  ## Metadata - Author: [[readwise.io]] - Full Title: Art_Criticism_as_Practical_Reasoning_by_Anthony_Cross - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Summary: Anthony Cross argues that art criticism should focus on reasons that justify actions, such as particular ways of engaging with artworks, rather than solely on reasons that justify beliefs about the value of artworks. He suggests a practical model of criticism, where critics provide reasons for how individuals should interact with art, leading to genuine practical reasoning. This contrasts with the more common theoretical model, which focuses on evaluative judgments based on features of the artwork. Cross critiques various views on art criticism, proposing a nuanced approach that considers the role of characterizations in guiding audience engagement with artworks. - URL: https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/155334778 ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > Greenberg’s review includes, in miniature, nearly every major aspect of art-critical activity, including what I take to be three of its central constituents: description, the characterization of the various elements of an artwork; interpretation, the characterization of the meaning of the work as it is expressed or made manifest in the work; and evaluation, the attribution of evaluative properties to the work.3 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsv0b587gsphtby8t2s34b62)) > In particular, I am interested in a common view about the function of description and interpretation, which together we can refer to as characterization. On this model of criticism, which I’ll call the theoretical model, characterizations function as reasons for beliefs about the value of the work; in other words, the aim of characterization is to provide reasons that ground evaluative judgments. The provision of such evaluative judgments is taken to be the essential or defining feature of art criticism. Below, I examine this common view of criticism in greater detail before arguing that it is substantially mistaken about the function of characterization in a great deal of art criticism. To anticipate, I will argue for what I call the practical model of criticism, according to which such characterizations primarily serve to provide reasons for action rather than reasons supporting evaluative judgments. A critic’s characterizations provide one with ways that it would be worthwhile to structure one’s engagement with a work of art—rather than steps in a logical argument which takes as its conclusion an evaluative judgment about the work. Art criticism is in large part an exercise in practical rather than theoretical reasoning. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsv1gp4n56hhwzsebsepfk5b)) > Below, I examine this common view of criticism in greater detail before arguing that it is substantially mistaken about the function of characterization in a great deal of art criticism. To anticipate, I will argue for what I call the practical model of criticism, accord- ing to which such characterizations primarily serve to provide reasons for action rather than reasons supporting evaluative judgments. A critic’s characterizations provide one with ways that it would be worthwhile to structure one’s engagement with a work of art—rather than steps in a logical argument which takes as its conclusion an evaluative judgment about the work. Art criticism is in large part an exercise in practical rather than theoretical reasoning. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsx0fx7gkgf4m650fnbsg0g4)) > The problem is that there do not seem to be any plausible candidates for such principles: to take a simple example, Greenberg’s favoured quality of flatness might support an ascription of value to a Mondrian painting, but it would be a liability in a Judd sculpture. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsxj02bbkdpx8syga3rq6jba)) > Other philosophers, such as Frank Sibley, have attempted to show that no such principles are necessary; instead, one might opt for a form of particularism, according to which critical justification linking features of works and beliefs about overall value does not depend upon any appeal to general critical principles.7 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsx0tg6970b2133ydzh3fzpm)) > Isenberg’s alternative suggestion is that the practice of characterizing features of an art- work does not function to support ascriptions of overall value to an artwork; rather, it functions as a means of facilitating perception. The goal of characterization in criticism is to get one’s audience to see the artwork in a particular way; as Isenberg puts it ‘it is a function of criticism to bring about communication at the level of the senses, that is, to induce a sameness of vision, of experienced content’. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsx0xdkfm1bxe68qgfbrddrd)) > According to Isenberg, such critical communication is successful when it brings about a com- munity of vision—that is, when critic and audience share the same perceptual experience, as brought about by the critic’s attempts to evocatively describe the artwork in question. > The problem with Isenberg’s explanation of the function of characterization, at least by the lights of many analytic aestheticians, is that it severs the link between critical com- munication and rational discourse: if critics simply guide us in perception, then what they do not do is give us a reason which supports an ascription of overall value to an artwork. Instead, they simply tell us something about how they see the work, and try—by whatever means necessary—to get us to see it in the same way. This, many have argued, fails to qualify as reasoning.10 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsx4kbgjjj5w6xgw2ywt64bt)) > Where this account differs is that it rejects two claims that Hopkins aims to reconcile: namely, the claims that (a) criticism’s aim is to rationally persuade individuals to accept some belief; and (b) that criticism operates by getting them to see an object in a particular way or to have some specific perceptual experience that grounds said belief about the object. Instead, according to what I call the practical model of criticism, the aim of criticism is to provide individuals with reasons to look at—and, more generally, to engage with—an artwork in some particular way. In this respect, art criticism involves genuine reasoning—albeit reasoning that is practical rather than theoretical. I develop this view below. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsx56cjwr30887125acm2wck)) > According to the practical model of criticism, in characterizing works of art critics pro- vide us with reasons for action: in particular, pointing out these features serves as a way of providing considerations which count in favour of particular acts of looking, contemplat- ing, listening, reflecting, or otherwise engaging with the artwork. For example, on this view to point to the ‘wavelike contour’ of the El Greco is to claim that this feature of the painting counts in favour of a particular way of looking: following the contour with one’s eyes as one engages with the painting. It is likely that, in looking this way, a particular kind of intrinsically valuable perceptual experience will follow—and this is why the critic insists that we look in this way. But on this view the critic’s argument does not establish this perception for us; rather, we need to complete the act of looking ourselves. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsx5b2v4granwndp53tdbyyq)) - Note: summary of the practical model > o c ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsxgejrdgcz2yakdtt89pkgw)) > to study, observe, survey, inspect, examine, scrutinize, a ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsx5q6ns28wcysvhh7gk2pym)) - Note: are these really different actions that one can take? > Venetian paintings ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsxgkdfk0vajt1gv5ckpzxng)) > These considerations should also lead us to doubt Ziff’s claim that critics aim only to specify ways of engaging with works of art that would be valuable for their own sake. If we assume—with Ziff—that the point of all artworks is to facilitate intrinsically valuable experiences via aspection, then this limitation is reasonable. However, once we reflect on the point that artists might aim to effect social change through their works or facilitate deeper moral understanding, it makes sense that critics would direct us to engage with the works in ways that might facilitate these ends. In such cases, critics would be pro- viding us with instrumental reasons to engage with the artwork in a particular way; for example, a critic might suggest that we should empathize with Eliot’s characters in order to deepen our moral understanding. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsx6h1c7etjvxgym3bz7xrb3)) > An alternative picture of practical reasoning is suggested by Jonathan Dancy, according > to which practical deliberation involves ‘an attempt to capture in thought the structure of > the moral situation’ that occurs in roughly two stages: first, we work out which features of > the situation are salient to us from a deliberative perspective—either as reasons to act or > not act in particular ways, as enablers or disablers, as modifiers of existing reasons, and so > on. Then, on the basis of working out this practical landscape, we make a decision on how > we should act.29 > Although this is not a process of inference, Dancy argues that we should > nevertheless think of it as an instance of reasoning: > We are, however, always dealing with reasons here, and drawing our conclusions or > making our decisions in the light of those reasons. So there can be nothing wrong > with talking of reasoning, since we are involved in the handling of reasons. What > would be wrong would be to suppose that all handlings of reasons involve inference.30 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsx7qzd6p9n4k0wtfg0cvrex)) > The example with which I began—Greenberg’s review of Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie—is one that might seem especially well suited to what I have called the theoretical model of criticism, according to which the aim of criticism as such is to provide support for an evaluative judgment about an artwork. However, it is significant that Greenberg’s piece is a review—a particular genre of criticism which is generally focused on supporting ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsx7t29myafd8m6p6dgf02y5)) > a verdict. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hsx7t4d19frffd56sgb1kas5))