Defining Art, Creating the Canon: Artistic Value in an Era of Doubtby crowther, paul

Google Scholar As the title reveals, the aim of Paul Crowther's newest work is to offer a definition of art that can foster a renewed and optimistic interest in our capacity to value works of art. With this purpose in view, Crowther endeavors to erase the various kinds of cultural exclusion present in formalist and designation theories of art by building a normative definition. This approach to art is not new for Crowther and was made particularly clear and instant in a short essay that appeared in James Elkins's 2006 edited volume, Art History Versus Aesthetics (Routledge). In his contribution, Crowther makes apparent his dissatisfaction with how artistic production has become a Western commercial enterprise, which has reduced art to consumer and/or context orientations. Such discontent provokes Crowther to consider in this book whether there is a future for an aesthetic approach to the definition of art and whether the artistic canon can be justified in philosophical (that is, aesthetic) terms (p. 2). Crowther's book answers “yes” to both these concerns by defining art according to a “normative aesthetics” that encompasses two “axes of normativity,” which are orientated on (1) the intrinsic capacity of art to make images and (2) the extrinsic differences between artifacts (pp. 6, 29, 40). The tenor of this definition is well intended and offers possibilities for a more inclusive approach to art; however, it lacks argumentative cohesion and as a result misses opportunities to fully explore how to define art as an open process of image making.