Single Idea 20444

[catalogued under 21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 7. Ontology of Art]

Full Idea

Currie claims that, in principle, all art forms are multiple. A superxerox machine, duplicating a painting molecule by molecule, would show that paintings are singular only contingently.

Gist of Idea

If paintings could be perfectly duplicated, it would be a multiple art form

Source

report of Gregory Currie (An Ontology of Art [1988]) by Sondra Bacharach - Arthur C. Danto 3

Book Reference

'Key Thinkers in Aesthetics', ed/tr. Giovannelli,Alessandro [Continuum 2012], p.215


A Reaction

This strikes me as correct. An original painting would then have the same status as the manuscript of a poem, giving it an authority, and being moving by its personal contact with the artist. But worth far less than current original paintings.