Drawing on Writing
Wandering through the stacks at the Brooklyn Library the other week I happened on Arthur Danto's 1994 book, Embodied Meanings, a collection of his art criticism from The Nation . As you know, I'm drawn to thinking about how and why pictures matter. I remember feeling intrigued by the title, but I don't exactly remember why I decided to check the book out--maybe there was an essay about some work from the 1980s that caught my attention. In any case, what sticks with me now, weeks after returning it to the library, is Danto's Introduction. In fact, Danto's description of himself as a writer, his background, his intentions and process, his accidental beginning as an art critic, and his candid appraisal of how we come to understand the place and importance of pictures in the first place -- an art-critic's self-criticism -- was so illuminating, so engaging and revealing, that I think it's a must-read in itself. He writes: Let me say in conclusion that I get a lo...