Original Paper UDC 111.821:7.

01
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Received November 23rd, 2010

Gizela Horvath
Partium Christian University, strada Primariei 36, RO–410209 Oradea
[email protected]

Whose Shoes?

Identity in Works of Art

Abstract
The problem of identity in the world of art is relevant from many perspectives. This paper
aims at discussing the identity of the work of art. The discussion is built in three steps: the
problem of identification of an object as work of art, the problem of the relevant properties
of a work of art and the question of the author of the work of art as decisive (or not) for the
identification of a work of art. These issues are raised with the evolution of artistic practice
and art theory in the last century. The appearing of the “ready-made” destabilized the firm
identity of a work of art and now we have to decide what the difference is between a work of
art and its perceptually identical pair. Traditionally relevant perceptual features lost their
importance in conceptual art, so we have to decide what relevant properties belong, even
today, to works of art. Finally, the practice of appropriation in postmodern art challenges
the notion of the artist and of the meaning of genuine creation.

Key words
identity of works of art, definitions of art, uniqueness of works of art, authorship

Introduction
We see works of art as special objects1 related to which the features of origi-
nality and uniqueness spring into mind instantly. Thus, the establishing of a
work of art’s identity (“what is this?”) happens in two steps: on the one hand,
the identification of the object as a work of art (generic thesis), on the other
hand, the identification of the object’s uniqueness (specific thesis).

1. The generic thesis: “This is a work of art”

To be able to identify an object as a work of art,2 an obvious starting point is
a definition of art or a theory of art which determines the realm of the artistic,
and so we can decide whether the object in question belongs or not to this

1 2
I use the concept of ‘object’ intentionally am- In the present paper I generally deal with
biguously as an object itself and as the ob- visual arts; since there are significant differ-
jectified subject of thinking. Works of art are ences between forms of art, the differentiated
traditionally objects, but in the 20th century analysis by art forms would have superseded
the work of art is not unambiguously an ob- the framework of present paper.
ject, however, it is still the objectified object
of thinking.
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realm. We can define the generic aspect of a work of art if we know what art
is in the realm of which the “work of art” is created.
The late appearance of the concept of ‘art’ also indicates that the question aim-
ing at the identity of art is not easy to answer. The notion used by the Greeks
– techne (in Latin ars) – brought about a momentum which impacted the fur-
ther history of the concept of art. Techne meant knowledge, competence based
on rules, thus it was relevant to every craft that had rules and could be learnt.
Thus the Greco-Roman world, the middle ages and early modernity held art
as an activity that can be governed by rational principles. Since techne is a
very wide notion, including most skills from mechanic crafts to rhetoric, the
Greeks defined the realm we call art as imitative or mimetic art. This idea de-
fined thinking about art and artistic practice until the 19th century.
As convincingly proven by Tatarkiewicz’s analysis,3 the inclusion of different
art forms into one concept was not an easy task. In the medieval system of
knowledge painting, sculpture, and architecture belonged to mechanical or
vulgar arts, music to liberal arts. Poetry did not figure at all among the arts
– owing to the fact that Plato’s dialogue entitled Ion was known in the Middle
Ages, while Aristotle’s Poetics was not.4 From Plato’s dialogue we find out
that poetry is not a matter of skill but of inspiration, 5 thus poetry can by no
means be art. Aristotle’s authority had to complement Plato’s to raise poetry
among the arts based on Poetics, which was interpreted normatively. These
theoretic boundaries had to be pushed to create an inclusive concept of art that
arranged such different activities onto one plane.
This theoretic achievement can be found in Charles Batteux’s writing pub-
lished in 1746, entitled Les Beaux-Arts réduits à un même principe. The title
of the text also reflects this unifying tendency. From this writing we can find
out that what unifies the arts is the commonly shared goal (pleasure), their
principal property (imitation), and their theme (beautiful nature). We can see
that imitation continues to be a general feature of the definition of art. What
is new, at the same time, is that the value of the beautiful is a substantial part
of art: we do not only speak of imitative arts but fine arts (and in Batteux the
term refers to painting, sculpture, poetry, as well as music and dance).
The definition of art, which was the result of a difficult labour, proved to
be inadequate half a century later. The Romantics went back to the element
which was thought to be irreconcilable with techne: inspiration, the ingenium.
The emphasis was shifted to the process of creation; fine art – using Kant’s
expression – is the art of the genius.6 In this new perspective the faithful imi-
tation of nature ceases to be a goal for the artist creating in the spirit of origi-
nality. The considerations of philosophy of art and artistic practice both found
the theory of mimesis outdated, and called for alternative theories of art. Thus
were born the also popular definitions at the end of the 19th and beginning of
20th centuries according to which art is expression (Lev Tolstoy, Benedetto
Croce), or significant form (Clive Bell). Consequently, art theory by the 20th
century ramified to such suggestions that were irreconcilable with each other.
Perhaps it is Clive Bell’s definition that is the most likely to be universalised.
However, several researchers have indicated that his definition of art is cir-
cular: significant form evokes aesthetic emotion, while aesthetic emotion is
an emotional reaction, which springs from the encounter with the significant
form. On the other hand, even Clive Bell’s definition is not universal enough
to hold such phenomena as Duchamp’s Fountain or Roman Ondak’s Loop.7
Up to the 19th century, the main difficulty was the integrated interpretation
of the diversity of artistic activities, but there was no question as to an object
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being art or not, or whether a painting or a sculpture was indeed a painting

or a sculpture. Until the 20th century such works of art were not common
where the viewer would be tempted to mistake them for everyday objects.
The discussion was at most about the quality of the work of art: whether the
representation of the female nude was acceptable if not enveloped in some
mythological reference (Manet’s Olympia), whether a technique was accept-
able that gives a sense of being unfinished (Louis Leroy commented on Mon-
et’s Impression, Sunrise in 1874: “The most primitive wallpaper is more care-
fully developed than that seascape”8), or whether the use of flashy colours
was acceptable (Leo Stein American critic, who collected Matisse’s paintings,
characterised Woman with a Hat as being “the most repulsive blob of paint I
have ever seen” 9).
The 20th century, however, gives us plenty of phenomena where we first have
to decide whether we are looking at works of art at all, and then maybe after-
wards can we ask the question of what kind of artistic value they hold. The
breakthrough can be linked to Marcel Duchamp’s name, who in 1917 entered
a work for the exhibition organised by the Society of Independent Artists in
New York, entitled Fountain. The work of art is actually a urinal, bought at a
shop, and signed with an alias. It is obvious that this object does not represent
or express anything; furthermore, the theory of significant form cannot be
applied to it, especially if we note that Duchamp himself stated that he chose
this object because of its aesthetic neutrality. 10 This object, one of the first
ready-mades, was accepted by the artistic world, even though no traditional
artistic definition is applicable for it. Subsequently, such processes were in-
cluded into fine arts that did not objectify into one object, one artefact in the
traditional sense: performance is expressly such a genre, which concentrates
on the lived moment, and is survived at most by its photographed, filmed, or
narrated trace. The question of identification is still very relevant: at the 2009
Venice Biennale, one could easily walk by Roman Ondak’s or the award win-
ning Tobias Rehberger11 ‘s works without noticing that they were parts of the
exhibition.

3
See: Wladislaw Tatarkiewicz, Az esztétika in the Giardini, so the pavilion itself is a mere
alapfogalmai. Hat fogalom története, (A His- continuation of the garden outside.
tory of Six Ideas. An Essay in Aesthetics) Kos-
 8
suth Kiadó, Budapest 2000.
Amy Dempsey, A modern művészet története
4 (History of Modern Art), Képzőművészeti
The first humanist translation of Aristotle’s Kia­dó, Budapest 2003, p. 14.
Poetics was made by Giorgio Valla in 1498.
 9
The first authoritative translation for human-
ism was Alessandro de’ Pazzi’s work from Ibid., p. 69.
1536, and Segni’s 1549 Italian translation. 10

5 See: Arthur C. Danto, Hogyan semmizte ki

See: Platón, Ión. Menexenosz, Atlantisz Kia­ a filozófia a művészetet? (The Philosophical
dó, Budapest 2000. Disenfranchisement of Art), Atlantisz, Buda-
pest 1997, p. 29.
6
11
See: Immanuel Kant, Az ítélőerő kritikája
(Critique of Judgment), Osiris Kiadó, Buda- Tobias Rehberger, Was du liebst, bringt dich
pest 2003. auch zum Weinen (Cafeteria). The cafeteria
designed by Tobias Rehberger was operated
7 and visited as a real coffee house: coffee,
Roman Ondak: The Loop. At the 2009 Venice drinks and pastries were sold and consumed
Biennale Roman Ondak planted the Slovak in it just like in any other cafe.
pavilion with the same vegetation that grows
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Developments in the artistic world created theories of art which tried to inte-
grate Jackson Pollock’s spotted canvases, the ready-made, performance, Andy
Warhol’s Brillo boxes and conceptual art. The most important theories of art
developed in the second half of the 20th century were Clement Greenberg’s
version of formalism, George Dickie’s institutional theory and Arthur Danto’s
contextual theory built on the metaphoric structure of art.
Clement Greenberg is known by many as the Pope of abstract expressionism.
Just as some decades earlier in England Clive Bell wanted to make room
with his formalist theory for the post-impressionism offensive to traditionalist
tastes, Clement Greenberg also worked to support avant-garde abstraction in
American culture. It was due to his influence that abstract expressionism, as a
specifically American trend was institutionalised after World War II. He pub-
lished his essay entitled “Modernist Painting” 12 in 1960, in which he outlined
a theoretical train of thought which would connect Kant’s critical work with
avant-garde artistic creation. In this writing Greenberg describes Modernism
as taking further the Kantian form of self-criticism. He interpreted Kant’s
theoretical practice as the self-reflexive criticism of philosophy, i.e. the im-
manent criticism of the discipline. Modernism is the reflexive use of the dis-
cipline’s own methods in the interest of setting its own boundaries, and thus
becoming stronger within its boundaries. Painting, for example, has to resist
becoming sculpture-like, it has to find its own laws. According to Greenberg,
the main characteristic of painting is its two-dimensionality, the flat surface.
This is why abstract painting is important, because it makes it clear that any-
thing can be negligible – theme, the imitation of reality, perspective, shading,
etc. – except for bidimensional flatness.
Clement Greenberg’s description is important for the identification as art of
such works as Jackson Pollock’s paintings or Frank Stella’s black canvases
(to which many tend to react with an “I can do that!”, thus blocking it from the
realm of art, which is still the “work of genius”). Greenberg however does not
deal with, and is in no relation with Duchamp’s ready-mades or pop art.
Next to Duchamp’s Fountain, it is Andy Warhol’s pop art which is a challenge
for art theory. At the middle of the century it seemed that abstract expression-
ism was the final stage of the development of art, that painting has revealed
its own essence, and there is no return (for example into figurativity), nor
possibility for renewal. In the sixties, though, pop art defied the need for mini-
malism and abstraction. The modernist demand for minimalism is condensed
into Mies van der Rohe’s famous motto: “Less is more”. However, the atmos-
phere of the 60’s is expressed by Robert Venturi’s answer: “Less is a bore”.
Clement Greenberg managed to compose a theoretical framework based upon
which non-representative art was accepted in the art world. However, for the
reception of Andy Warhol (or Tom Wesselman, Jeff Koons, Jasper Johns) to
be legitimised, the art theories of Arthur C. Danto and George Dickie were
necessary.
George Dickie’s institutional definition dates from 1969. This shows that the
agents of the art world are the ones to confer the artistic attribute to artefacts,
as well as persons (e.g. artists), on behalf of the art world.
“A work of art in the descriptive sense is (/) an artifact (2) upon which some society or some
sub-group of a society has conferred the status of candidate for appreciation.”13

This theory was criticised on the grounds that it is circular: artefacts are de-
fined by artists, while the artist is the one to create artefacts. Furthermore, it
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is difficult to determine who the “agent” of the art world might be, who can
appoint an artefact a work of art in a legitimate way. According to Dickie:
“The artworld carries on its business at the level of customary practice. Still there is a practice
and this defines a social institution.”14

A potential concern may arise that the “appointment” of works of art implies
a great deal of arbitrariness and does not apply for criteria of value. Such an
approach does have its advantages, however. Its first advantage is that it can
be made universal: since it is completely independent of the contents or form
of the works, it can be used for any kind of artefacts, thus for any future form
of artistic practice. Moreover, Dickie interprets the expression “artefact” in a
way that even found objects can count as artefacts from the moment that the
artist has set them apart from their environment. Dickie’s theory also draws
attention to the fact that the work of art is not created in and does not exist
in a vacuum, and it is insufficient to approach it starting merely from the
work itself: one has to take its socio-historical context into account as well.
In this last point, Dickie follows Arthur C. Danto, who in 1964 developed the
concept of the artworld, exactly to emphasise the indispensability of the con-
textual approach. Danto was greatly influenced by the work of Andy Warhol,
the example of the Brillo boxes or the Campbell soup, often appear in his
writings. To be able to voice the question of the identity of works of art in all
its seriousness, Danto develops the argument of the indistinguishable pairs.
Let us suppose that a storage space exists where we can find the perceptually
identical pairs of works of art, which are however not works of art. Danto
argues that the identification of the work depends on the identification of the
author, in the case of works indistinguishable from their natural pairs. When
a child, a forger and an artist create similar objects, these will have their sepa-
rate identities, since they are embedded in different art-historical traditions.
Arthur C. Danto proposes a conception of art which takes the socio-historical
background into account, and approaches the works based on their metaphor-
ic structure: works of art have a rhetorical structure, we do not have to read
them literally, and we use them to change people’s attitudes towards certain
things. The interpretation of work of art as metaphor is a proposal that can
actually work in the case of any object. The problem is only that metaphorical
structure can be the genus proximum of works of art, but we are still missing
the differentia specifica.
As we have seen, in the question of identity of works of art we cannot rely
on a universally acknowledged, always working definition. But all the above
listed theories of art grasp something of importance, and can be applied to
specific territories of art with success. Thus, the best we can do is consider
Wittgenstein’s proposal, according to which we are not to look for one es-
sential trait that can be found in every item, but a batch of properties which
let us discover family traits in works of art. Based on these family traits we
can generically conclude the identification of works of art as works of art. We
also have to be prepared that the list of these traits will grow longer, parallel
with artistic practice.

12 13
Clement Greenberg, “Modernist Painting”, George Dickie, “Defining Art”, American Phi­
http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/modern- losophical Quarterly Vol. 6, No. 3 (Jul. 1969),
ism.html. Accessed on July 22nd, 2010. pp. 253–256.
14
Ibid., p. 255.
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2. The uniqueness of the work of art (the specific thesis)

In the case of works of art, identity takes the form of uniqueness, which in the
case of objects created by humanity is not a rule, but an exception. In the case
of tools, or everyday objects (bed, table, car, toothbrush, shoes, etc.) we do not
talk about individuals, but pieces, items. Works of art are not further pieces or
copies but vindicate a kind of identity for themselves which is more similar to
the identity of persons than of objects. I approach the identity of works of art
in three steps. The first point of view is the organic thesis where the question
arises, in what the uniqueness of the work of art can be grasped from a mate-
rial point of view. In the second step, I will investigate what influence on the
identity of the work the hermeneutic thesis has, according to which the work
ends in the recipient. In the third step I will investigate whether the author is
a part of the identity of the work.

2.1. The organic thesis

Works of art are traditionally considered indissoluble unities. Thus, while a
painting or sculpture is a physical, inorganic object, it works more as a living
organism: a system which cannot be added to nor taken from without it losing
its identity. It is impossible to cut off a 5cm wide strip without changing the
painting itself: even if the strip were empty, its lack would change the propor-
tions of the picture, i.e. the picture itself. In this sense, the identity of the work
may even be more defined than that of living organisms. A work is not only
different because it depicts a shoe or a boat, but also because of formal traits
that are not of a representative nature: line, form, drawing, proportions, lines
of force, composition, colour, etc. These parts of the work are unchangeable
because they define the aesthetic properties of the work.
In the sixties, Frank Sibley, approaching from analytical philosophy, raised
the question of aesthetic properties. If aesthetic properties separable from other
properties exist, these will obviously be relevant to works of art. Sibley’s
premise is exactly this difference:
“Many judgments about the shape, color, sound, wording, subject matter, or composition of
things, including works of art, are such that it would be ludicrous to suggest that aesthetic sen-
sitivity, perceptiveness, or taste had been exhibited in making them. (…) By contrast, there are
other judgments the making of which could be clearly be said to exhibit an exercise of aesthetic
sensitivity or perceptiveness.”15

Sibley calls properties belonging to the first category non-aesthetic proper-

ties (e.g. large, circular, green, slow, monosyllabic), while the second group
is the one of aesthetic properties (e.g. graceful, dainty, garish, a work of art
is balanced, moving, powerful). Non-aesthetic properties can be noticed by
anybody, but the perception of aesthetic properties command a special skill
– taste. Aesthetic debates are not started because people cannot see non-aes-
thetic properties, but because they cannot see the aesthetic properties rising
above these.
We might notice that Sibley does not speak of the traditional “grand” aesthetic
categories such as the beautiful or the majestic. He calls the latter verdictive
aesthetic judgements, as these establish whether a work is good or not:
“I called them ‘verdicts’. I regard them as very different from judgments of the second type – for
example, that something is gaudy, or graceful, or balanced – and as raising largely different,
though occasionally overlapping, questions… Nowhere in my paper did I discuss judgment of
the first type”.16
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Sibley assumes a complicated relationship among the three types of proper-

ties, as well as the judgements based on these. While we cannot logically
deduce aesthetic properties from non-aesthetic properties, there is a closer
relationship between aesthetic judgments and verdicts. There are aesthetic
properties that can by all means be positively assessed (e.g. balance, grace,
wit).
Based on the organic thesis, the aesthetic properties of the work can be re-
garded as its essential properties. Two questions arise, however: the first one
is whether the aesthetic properties of the work are enough to define its iden-
tity. The second one is whether the aesthetic properties of the work are in
every case the necessary elements of the work’s identity.
The first question arises in the case of the “perceptually indistinguishable
pairs”, dealt with prominently by Arthur C. Danto. Let us rather start with an
example Garry Hagberg discusses in one of his essays. Hagberg talks about
two cases which seemingly support the theory of imitation, i.e. are represen-
tational works, and he points out the fact that the essence of the works is still
not their similarity with outside objects. The discussion of one of Watteau’s
works is especially relevant from our point of view. Hagberg describes its
theme in the following way:
“The ladies are being escorted by the gentlemen onto the ship which will carry them back from
the island. The gentlemen seem to hasten the departure from the island, while the ladies, reluc-
tant to leave the lovers’ retreat, seem to hesitate.” 17

The question becomes complicated because we know of two titles for the
painting: The Departure from Cythera, and The Departure to Cythera. Hag-
berg notes:
“If Watteau’s title included ‘to’ rather than ‘from’, the reluctance of the ladies takes on a diffe-
rent meaning, as do their expressions” 18.

The example above proves quite convincingly that a work of art becomes dif-
ferent (it expresses different things, it is to be read differently, has a different
effect) if it gets a different title.19
Arthur C. Danto’s thought experiment points in the same direction. It starts
out from a painting Kierkegaard described in Either/Or: there is an anecdote
about the artist commissioned to do a mural of the Israelites passing through
the Red Sea – so he painted the wall red, explaining that they had reached the
other side, and the Egyptians all drowned. Danto lists various all-red paint-
ings that look exactly the same: one described by Kierkegaard of Israelites
crossing the Red Sea, one by a Danish portraitist titled Kierkegaard’s Mood,
Red Square (realist), Red Square (minimalist version), Nirvana, Red Table

15 18
Frank Sibley, “Aesthetic and Nonaesthetic”, Ibid., p. 370.
The Philosophical Revue, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Apr.
19
1965), pp. 135–159
Danto also notes this case. Arthur C. Danto,
16 The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art,
Frank Sibley, “Aesthetic Concepts: A Rejoin- Columbia University Press, New York 2005,
der”, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 72, No. p. 49.
1 (Jan. 1963), pp. 79–83.
17
Hagberg, Garry, “Aristotle’s ‘Mimesis’ and
Abstract Art”, Philosophy, Vol. 59, No. 229
(Jul. 1984), pp. 365–371.
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Cloth, canvas grounded in red lead prepared by Giorgione (not an work of

art), a surface painted but not grounded in red lead (not an work of art, just a
thing with paint on it). Then he notes:
“With this my exhibition is complete. Its catalogue would be rather monotonous since all pic-
tures look the same – despite the fact that it is made up of reproductions of the most varied
kinds: there are historical paintings, psychological portraits, landscapes, geometric abstractions,
religious works and still lives. In addition, it shows pictures of something that comes from
Giorgione’s workshop, as well as of something which is just a thing and does not aspire to the
sublime rank of work of art.”20

Danto also discusses the case of Duchamp’s snow shovel and the snow shovel
indistinguishable from it: one we accept as work of art, while the other is
“just an object”. If there is a difference, Danto concludes, it is not based on
aesthetic properties, as Sibley described:
“If aesthetic response is always and only to what meets the eye (or ear or whatever other sense),
it is difficult to see where aesthetic difference can lie, given the indiscriminability of our snow
shovels. So if there is to be a difference, it must lie logically hidden from the senses.”21

These cases point at the inadequacy of the organic thesis: it is not only aes-
thetic properties that count in works of art, most of the time other circum-
stances are also relevant components of their identity: the title, the author, the
circumstances of the creation of the work. These aspects are determined by
interpretation, thus Danto claims that it is interpretation that transforms mate-
rial objects into works of art:
It will have been observed that indiscernible objects become, quite different and distinct works
of art by dint of distinct and different interpretations, so I shall think of interpretations as functi-
ons which transform material objects into works of art. Interpretation is in effect the lever with
which an object is lifted out of the real world and into the artworld, where it becomes vested in
often unexpected raiment. Only in relationship to an interpretation is a material object an work
of art22.

Danto’s analysis not only shows that aesthetic properties are not sufficient for
determining the identity of a work of art, but also that it is interpretation that
decides which aesthetic and non-aesthetic properties belong to the work.
The universality of the organic thesis is questionable from a further point of
view, which is the aspect of open works. It was Umberto Eco that drew atten-
tion to the ontological specificity of open works in his writing of the same title
published in 1962.23 Here Eco primarily refers to such musical works where
the author does not fully determine the work, i.e. he leaves it to the performer
which group of notes to start with, or in which order he/she plays the sections.
However, among his examples we can find two works of art as well: Calder’
mobiles, which are lightweight structures that react to the movement of air,
changing their own space and form, as well as the object created by Bruno
Munari, which is a colourful collage that the recipient can watch through a
lanterna magica, and can actually control the image by rotating the lens.
The recipient’s inclusion into the completion of the work, which was the ex-
ception from the rule in the middle of the twentieth century, occurs more and
more frequently from the second half of the twentieth century, when “unfin-
ished”, interactive works are often created that gain their final form through
the recipient’s activity (and not merely interpretation). Visual media offers
an excellent medium for this, with its own transitory image not occupying
space (not existing in a certain place). The “Aura” exhibition was opened in
Budapest in 2003, which showed works made with digital technology, where
half of the works were “interactive also in a physical sense”.24 Of these I
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found very exciting George Legrady’s work entitled Pockets Full of Memo-
ries, made up of an installation and a website relating to it. The work asked
the visitor to scan an arbitrary object that was found on their person right
there and then, and to fill out a digital form answering questions related to
the object. Then the objects were classified in a system based on their similar
properties, and got a place on a two-dimensional map where the visitor’s own
comments related to the object were also seen. With the agreement of the visi-
tors, a continually growing database and, based on that, a relationship-based
object-map were born. The work is also interesting because, although it incor-
porated randomness, still, it seemed rigorous, due to its table-type nature, and
the rhythm of randomly repeated object-types: hands, keys, ID-s.
The recipient’s activity was also requested in the trick-table of the pair of
authors Zoltán Szegedy-Maszák – Márton Fernezelyi entitled AURA, where
the picture formed on the mirror-like flat surface of the cup changed by be-
ing moved by the recipient. In the case of similar works the organic thesis is
useless: we cannot determine with which physical state of itself is the work
identical. More exactly, the work has a real, non-changing framework (e.g.
technical infrastructure, programme) and a bunch of possibilities that con­
tribute more spectacularly to the determining of the identity of the work than
the stable parts.
To sum up, we can say that although the organic thesis and the aesthetic prop-
erties based on non-aesthetic properties related to it are valid for a substantial
part of art history, and are useful in the determining of the identities of works
of art, we can point out many works in the art of the twentieth century where
perceptual properties are not necessary, nor sufficient for the identification of
specific works of art.

2.2. The hermeneutical thesis

The above conclusion still stands if we accept the thesis according to which
“the reader is the one who finishes the work”, i.e. “only in the interaction of
text and recipient does the text become a work of art”.25 The dialogic recep-
tion-model of hermeneutics considers the momentum of interpretation essen-
tial, which it holds as part of the work, and not a consequence detachable
from the work. If the interpretation happens by the merging of the horizon of
the work and of the recipient, obviously there will be as many interpretations
as recipients. And if the interpretation is part of the work, then the seeming
identity of the work will be endlessly fragmented.
Take for example Van Gogh’s painting which depicts shoes. Seemingly the
identity of the work is not at question here, fix physical properties ensure the

20 24
Arthur C. Danto, A közhely színeváltozása, Anikó Erdősi, Anyagtalan aura. AURA, a
(The Transfiguration of the Common Place) technikai reprodukálhatóság korszaka után.
Enciklopédia Kiadó, Budapest 2003, p. 16. Médiaművészeti kiállítás a C3 és a Millenáris
közös szervezésében, Millenáris, Budapest
21
2003. október 31 – november 30. http://www.
A. C. Danto, The Philosophical Disenfran- balkon.hu/balkon03_12/02erdosi.html. Ac-
chisement of Art, p. 26. cessed on July 24th, 2010.
22 25
Ibid., p. 39. Paul Ricoeur, Válogatott irodalmi tanulmán­
23 yok (Selected Literary Studies), Osiris, Buda-
Umberto Eco, Nyitott mű (Opera aperta), pest 1999, p. 294.
Európa Könyvkiadó, Budapest 2006.
SYNTHESIS PHILOSOPHICA
52 (2/2011) pp. (283–297) 292 G. Horvath, Whose Shoes?

work’s identity and uniqueness. It is the painting Heidegger uses as a starting

point in his writing entitled The Origin of the Work of Art to illustrate how a
work of art opens up a world. According to Heidegger’s famous analysis, the
painting depicts a peasant woman’s shoes, and the philosopher gives a touch-
ing description of the painting:
“From the dark opening of the worn insides of the shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stands
forth. In the stiffly solid heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow
trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field, swept by a raw wind.
On the leather there lies the dampness and saturation of the soil. Under the soles there slides the
loneliness of the field-path as the evening declines. In the shoes there vibrates the silent call of
the earth, its quiet gift of the ripening corn and its enigmatic self/refusal in the fallow desolation
of the wintry field. This equipment is pervaded by uncomplaining anxiety about the certainty of
bread, the wordless joy of having once more withstood want, the trembling before the advent
of birth and shivering at the surrounding menace of death. This equipment belongs to the earth
and it is protected in the world of the peasant woman. From out of this protected belonging the
equipment itself rises to its resting-in-self.”26

The trouble began when Meyer Schapiro, with the accuracy typical of ana-
lytic philosophers, identified the painting Heidegger wrote about. In fact, Van
Gogh does not have one, but eight paintings the subject of which are shoes or
boots, and Heidegger’s description fits most. Thus Schapiro asked Heidegger
which painting he meant, and identified an 1886 picture of a pair of boots in
this way.27 Using Van Gogh and Gauguin’s correspondence, he also found out
that it was made of Van Gogh’s own shoes that had special significance for
their owner. Based on this, Schapiro presents the shoes as a metaphor of the
artist’s life, relying on both biographical data and perceptual description.28
The above example shows that even in the case of a traditional painting,
where identification as a work of art is beyond doubt, and where the physi-
cal properties of the work are fixed, the identity of the work depends on who
the depicted shoes belong to, which cannot be decided at all solely based on
perceptual properties. So much so, that we can almost talk about two different
works. Thus the hermeneutic perspective also confirms the hypothesis that in
the case of works of art, the non-perceptual properties contribute significantly
to the determination of the work’s identity.

2.3. The question of authorship

There is a non-perceptual property that contributes in the greatest measure
to the definition of the work’s identity: the author of the work. So much so,
that the name of a well-known author functions as a genus (“this is a Rem-
brandt!”). The author weighs so much in the value of a work that the name of
an “in” artist is guarantee enough for the quality of the work.
This was so naturally a norm for a few hundred years that, next to “aesthetic
distance” and “disinterested pleasure”, “fine art is the art of the genius” could
be built into Kant’s Critique of Judgement. If we approach the question his-
torically, the idea of authorship does not seem so universal. In the Middle
Ages a way of thinking prevailed that held true ideas to be coming directly
from God, thus it could seem completely incidental who it was that God used
as a tool to reveal the truth.
The author’s self-consciousness is a product of modernity: it came spectacu-
larly into the foreground during the Renaissance. In the case of works of art
the signature of the author becomes a kind of guarantee. It guarantees the
work’s “authenticity”, the truth of its identity. The author is one of the main
components of the work’s identity – precisely because of this, the original pic-
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ture is to be carefully distinguished from the copy (that is made, for example,
with the goal of learning), and from the forged work, which wants to steal the
original’s identity.
The idea of authorship itself is not as obvious as it appears. On the one hand,
it is not quite clear why a copy that is held to be original should lose its value
only because it turns out that somebody else is its author. On the other hand,
why should a signature automatically confer value to a work?
I would like to evoke two cases. One is the case of Han van Meegeren, who
painted Vermeers in the thirties: i.e. very authentic canvases that dealt with
new themes in Vermeer’s style (e.g. religious themes that are not typical of
Vermeer). The best contemporary critics vouched for the authenticity of these
canvases as Vermeers, and Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus, which was a
convincing fake, was deemed to be more valuable than the previously known
Vermeers. Han van Meegeren’s scam was discovered when they found out
that during the Second World War he sold a Vermeer to Göring, and after the
war the Dutch government charged him with treason. The punishment would
have been death. Han van Meegeren had a hard time convincing the judges
that the pictures were made by himself: in jail he made another Vermeer,
proving his innocence in the treason trial. The case raises the question of
why Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus, so admired by critics, lost its value
when it turned out that it was painted by van Meegeren. Why was the Dutch
government ready to execute a man for selling a Vermeer to Göring, but did
not care that a van Meegeren was sold to the enemy? Christ and the Disciples
at Emmaus – although physically, perceptually remained the same object, it
seems, changed its identity together with its author.
The second case is a vague rumour about Dalí signing blank canvases and
sheets of paper in his last years on which forged works appeared, thus the
museums and galleries treat works created in Dalí’s last years carefully. If
this is true, then the question is whether here the signature works as the es-
sential element of the work’s identity. If the signature does not work, we have
to determine based on much more uncertain and controversial stylistic traits
whether a painting is “a Dalí” or “not a Dalí”. A similar case is Giorgio de
Chirico who, on the one hand, as a famous artist, forged “early de Chiricos”,
on the other hand denied authorship of works that were held de Chiricos by
museums and private collections.
In the case of Van Meegeren and Dalí’s signed canvases, it is quite easy to de-
termine, starting from the traditional theoretic framework that we are dealing
with forged works. In the twentieth century, however, we meet phenomena
that strongly question the idea of authorship. Roland Barthes’s meme-sus-
picious expression – the death of the Author – points out a complex pheno­
menon: the authors are starting to abandon their works. The aesthetics of gen-
ius is beginning to be exhausted by the middle of the twentieth century, and
the author (and their intention) is not surrounded by such respect as in the 19th
century. We can observe several signs of this shift.

26
Martin Heidegger, A műalkotás eredete (The ciety (Selected Papers, vol. 4), Braziller, New
Origin of the Work of Art), Európa Könyvki- York 1994.
adó, Budapest 1988, pp. 57–58.
28
27 Meyer Schapiro, “The Still Life as a Personal
Meyer Schapiro, “Further Notes on Heidegger Object” (1968), in: M. Schapiro, Theory and
and van Gogh”, in: Meyer Schapiro, Theory Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist, and Society.
and Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist, and So-
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One such sign is the idea promoted by surrealists of automatic writing (or
drawing), through which the subconscious speaks directly, without the control
of the ego. The theory of genius always emphasised that remainder through
which the workings of genius differs from the usual, rational workings of
people, that irrational remainder that is needed for a genius to create a master-
piece. From the surrealist point of view, however, the irrational, subconscious
element is not a remainder, but the first motor of creation, and the process of
creation puts the artist’s personality within brackets. Although it was charac-
teristic of surrealist artists to have a strong artistic consciousness and to work
consciously on their genius image (e.g. the following sentence of Dalí is often
quoted: “Every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure:
that of being Salvador Dalí”), regardless, the use of automatic writing and
drawing indicates the author’s withdrawal from behind their work.
The genre of the ready-made points in the same direction: here the author
does not create an object, but lifts it from its surroundings, and this may be
the minimal gesture that we can call creation – the minimality of authorship.
Traditionally the author left their “mark” on the work of art: e.g. it is hard to
confuse Rembrandt’s style with Gauguin’s. In ready-made the author does not
want to see his “mark” on the work of art. The situation is often the same with
some works of conceptual art: Joseph Kossuth’s One and Three Chairs does
not carry any specific perceptual properties, Robert Barry’s All the Things I
Know but of Which I am not at the Moment Thinking – 1:36 PM June 15. 1969
also lacks the mark of the author’s hands – what Marcel Duchamp mockingly
called “la pate” (paws).
We can interpret similarly the structurally unfinished (using Umberto Eco’s
expression – “works in movement”29) or interactive works: here the author
denounces their privilege to decide what will be the work’s final and un-
changeable form, moreover, the final form of the work will remain a mystery
to them. The work comes out of the author’s hands as a possibility, and lives
its own life independent of the author.
In the cases discussed so far, the author voluntarily retires from behind their
work. The action of appropriation, however, happens without consulting the
author, and the identity of the work is defined by two kinds of authorship: that
of the original creator, and that of the artist appropriating it.
Elaine Sturtevant, known as the “copying artist” exclusively created precise
copies of other artists’ works, what’s more, of such artists that she started cop-
ying even before they became famous: Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Frank
Stella. It is rather difficult to establish the identity of a work Elaine Sturtevant
painted of Andy Warhol’s serigraphy depicting a flower where he used Pa-
tricia Caulfield photographer’s work (without asking the permission of the
photographer – this resulted in a copyright lawsuit). Also, it is quite difficult
to distinguish between Frank Stella’s painting of strictly geometric, parallel
black strips dating from his black period, and Elaine Sturtevant’s copy made
of it. They are not different in a perceptually relevant way; still, one is a paint-
ing by Stella, the other by Elaine Sturtevant.
The oeuvre of appropriating artist Sherrie Levine is worrying in the same
way, especially her “After Walker Evans” series. Walker Evans was a famous
photographer who travelled America in the thirties and took very well-known
sociophotos. Sherrie Levine photographed these from catalogues in the sev-
enties, and exhibited them under her own name with the above mentioned
title. Here again we meet two works that are perceptually only slightly dif-
ferent, but that are still different, namely, on the basis of authorship. Sherrie
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Levine’s works are often interpreted as criticism of the concepts of authorship

and authenticity. While Sturtevant truly, physically recreates the works, and
her oeuvre can be interpreted as homage to others’ works, as well as contri-
bution to their further existence in their originality and uniqueness, Sherrie
Levine’s and the appropriating artists’ works can be read as critiques of the
concepts working in the artistic world. It is hard to surpass Sherrie Levine
in the questioning of authorship – the American internet artist born in 1977,
Michael Mandiberg, managed to do this. He created an online shop where you
can get original Mandiberg copies of Sherrie Levine’s “After Walker Evans”
series, complete with certificate of originality.30

Conclusion
Although it would be useful to have a theory that would establish the proper-
ties that define works of art, and make their identities unquestionable – unfor-
tunately we do not have such a theory.
For the generic thesis – i.e. the decision of “what a work of art is”, that we
could boil down to one definition or art theory – we cannot find a theory that
is acceptable from every point of view. We can conclude that the century long
monopoly of the mimetic theory was over by the 19th century, and competing
theories have appeared (art is expression, art is a form, the work of art is an
artefact that is worth assessing, etc.). It seems it is impossible to define art, we
can only establish family resemblances between works of art. Maybe we have
to accept that in different areas (art forms, genres, works of art) different vo-
cabularies can more or less be applied, but there is no universal vocabulary.
In the case of the specific thesis the situation is just as colourful and un-
settling. In the first half of the twentieth century we could learn that in the
case of works of art the non-aesthetic properties give the basis for aesthetic
properties, and these form the essence of works of art. At the same time, criti-
cism broke with author-centredness, and the idea of the “intentional fallacy”31
became widely accepted. This kind of approach, which reduces the work’s
identity to its structural properties, and sees the author’s identity irrelevant,
seems to be withdrawing to the benefit of wider contextualism. From the case
of perceptually indistinguishable pairs we find out that perceptual properties
are not enough to define the identity of works of art, and we also need to take
non-perceptual properties into account, for example the author, or the histori-
cal, cultural context.
Artists themselves question one of the most indisputable traits of works of
art – the fact that it is the creation of an author – by using the method of “ap-
propriation”, and the way they deal with the idea of authorship in their works,
and their artistic attitudes. Looking at the problems raised by the question of
the identity of works of art, it may seem that we have reached aporia. I think
we can still state some theses:

29 31
Such works that “are able to assume differ- Monroe Beardsley’s thesis, according to which
ent, unforeseeable and physically not realised the intention of the author is irrelevant from
structures” Umberto Eco, Nyitott mű. Európa the point of view of interpretation
Kiadó, Budapest 2006, p. 87.
30
See: http://www.aftersherrielevine.com/images
A.html. Accessed on July 24, 2010.
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1.  We have to resign the idea that the work of art can be defined based on spe-
cific properties. I find Wittgenstein’s idea of “family resemblances” more
useful, based on which work of art-groups can be identified.
2.  The next challenge we have to face is the mobility of boundaries between
art and non-art, which also means that the identity of the work of art is also
in motion.
3.  Artistic attitudes of modernity question both the identity of the author and
of the work, and we must acknowledge this.
4.  However, the old or newer explanatory models (mimetic, expressionism,
formalism, etc.) must not be rejected: although none of them can be uni-
versalised, each of them fits some groups of works of art.
As noted above, the question of the identity of works of art in contemporary
art is more complicated than ever. The work of art is not a stable object; the
author is not a simply identifiable subject. The whole art-historical context,
the social context, and the process of reception are equally parts of the iden-
tity of a work. The fragmentation of the identity of a work of art is parallel
with the displacements in personal identity, well mirrored by the statement of
Hungarian writer Péter Esterházy about the “I”: the “I” in the post-modern
is “a fiction, where we can be co-authors at most”. Similarly, the author of a
work of art is actually not the defining force in the identity of a work, only
that identity’s co-author.

Gizela Horvath

Čije cipele?
Identitet u umjetničkim djelima

Sažetak
Problem identiteta u svijetu umjetnosti je važan iz mnogih perspektiva. Ovaj rad ima namjeru
raspraviti identitet umjetničkih djela. Rasprava je izvedena u tri koraka: problem identifikaci-
je predmeta kao umjetničkog djela, problem relevantnih svojstava umjetničkog djela i pitanje
autora kao odlučujuće (ili ne) za identifikaciju umjetničkog djela. Ova pitanja su se otvorila
evolucijom umjetničke prakse i teorije u prošlom stoljeću. Pojava ready-madea destabilizirala
je čvrsti identitet umjetničkog djela te nametnula zadatak odluke o razlici između umjetničkog
djela i njegovog perceptivno identičnog para. Tradicionalna relevantna svojstva izgubila su
svoj značaj u konceptualnoj umjetnosti, stoga moramo odlučiti koja se relevantna svojstva, čak
i danas, pridaju umjetničkim djelima. Konačno, praksa posuđivanja u postmodernoj umjetnosti
dovodi u pitanje pojam umjetnika i smisao izvornog stvaralaštva.
Ključne riječi
identitet umjetničkih djela, definicije umjetnosti, jedinstvenost umjetničkih djela, autorstvo

Gizela Horvath

Wessen Schuhe?
Identität der Kunstwerke

Zusammenfassung
Die Problemstellung der Identität in der Welt der Kunst ist aus allerlei Perspektiven gewichtig.
Dieser Artikel strebt eine Debatte über die Identität der Kunstwerke an. Die Diskussion wird
in drei Schritten aufgebaut: die Frage der Identifizierung eines Objektes als Kunstwerk, das
Problem der relevanten Eigenschaften eines Kunstwerks und letzten Endes die Frage des Autors
SYNTHESIS PHILOSOPHICA
52 (2/2011) pp. (283–297) 297 G. Horvath, Whose Shoes?

als ausschlaggebend (oder nicht) für die Identifizierung des Kunstwerks. Diese Thematik wurde
aufgeworfen gleichlaufend mit der Evolution der Kunstpraxis samt – theorie im vergangenen
Jahrhundert. Die Erscheinung des „Readymades“ hatte die feste Identität des Kunstwerks der
Stabilität beraubt, und es gilt eben, die Kluft zwischen dem Kunstwerk und dessen perzeptiv
identischem Paar zu detektieren. Traditionell bedeutsame perzeptive Charakteristika haben
deren Tragweite in der konzeptuellen Kunst eingebüßt, sodass wir urteilen müssen, welch rele-
vante Eigentümlichkeiten, sogar gegenwärtig, den Kunstwerken beizumessen sind. Im Endeffekt
stellt die Praxis der Aneignung innerhalb der postmodernen Kunst den Begriff des Künstlers
sowie des Sinns der authentischen Schaffung infrage.
Schlüsselwörter
Identität der Kunstwerke, Definitionen der Kunst, Einzigartigkeit der Kunstwerke, Autorschaft

Gizela Horvath

Les chaussures de qui ?

L’identité des oeuvres d’art

Résumé
Le problème de l’identité dans le monde de l’art est pertinent sous de nombreux aspects. Cet
article vise à examiner l’identité de l’oeuvre d’art. L’examen est construit en trois étapes : le
problème d’identification d’un objet en tant qu’oeuvre d’art, le problème des propriétés perti-
nentes d’une oeuvre d’art et la question de l’auteur de l’oeuvre comme décisive (ou pas) pour
l’identification d’une oeuvre d’art. Ces questions se sont posées avec l’évolution de la pratique
artistique et de la théorie de l’art au siècle dernier. L’apparition du “readymade” a déstabilisé
l’identité solide de l’oeuvre d’art de sorte que nous devons maintenant déterminer quelle est
la différence entre une oeuvre d’art et son pendant perceptuellement identique. Les caractéris-
tiques traditionnellement pertinentes ayant perdu leur importance dans l’art conceptuel, nous
devons déterminer quelles sont les caractéristiques pertinentes, même aujourd’hui, des oeuvres
d’art. Enfin, la pratique de l’appropriation dans l’art post-moderne défie la notion d’artiste et
celle du sens de la création authentique.
Mots-clés
identité des oeuvres d’art, définitions de l’art, unicité des oeuvres d’art, paternité