How have theoretical orientations in cultural criticism evolved and Essay

How have theoretical orientations in cultural criticism evolved and changed since 1900 Outline challenges facing arts criti - Essay Example In addition, the role of artist is explored and their significance and contribution to the cultural space can be critically analyzed, at some point every consumer of art engages in criticism whether formally or informally (James 1994, p.13). Through criticism, artist can learn from their mistakes and get honest if blunt feedback from critics which will inspire them to improve their output thus generally building up the quality of art produced in the long run. Art criticism has been defined in a variety of ways, Arthur Danto, defines it as the process of analyzing the structure significance and problems in a given work of art by making external and internal comparison to come up with an evaluation of the art. The primary intention of the endeavour has been in the past, and remains to provide rational grounds for the appreciation of artistic works. The exact origin of formal artistic criticism as a genre can be traced back to the 18th century and the first individual to acquire a reput ation of a critic of art was La Font de Saint-Yenne, is renowned for his writing about the salon of 1737 and 47. In the late 19th century, of the artistic expressionism and critics occurred in these salons which were societies made up of artists an critics, many of this were centred around Paris in France as the city acted as one of the centres of art and culture (Eagleton 1984, p.97). However, these salons kept multiplying owing to the dissenting views of different artist and in the dawn of the 19th century a group of young painters and sculptor took over the institution and founded the salon of d’Autumne. They were reacting against what they deemed to be the too conservative approaches of the previous salons and from this salon the salon of modern art emerged. Parisian and other galleries all over the world begun to show Avant grade work and new art dealers such as Daniel Henry Kahnweiler emerged presenting contemporary artists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque as we ll as several other young artists of the time. The early 20th century was an inaugural period where art and culture critics took on retrospective assumptions and generalization of the social cultural evolution; many of the subjective theories of the past were rejected. Throughput the 20th century, critics seem to constantly be in a quest for the relationships between the art created and that which it represents (Lassalle, 1993, p. 1999). One of the preeminent anthropologists of this period was Franz Boaz and some of his students such as Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead who later became some of the leaders of the anthropological rejection of social and classical evolution. Contemporary critics at the time eschewed the previous discriminative and subjective assumptions many of which were based on a distinction between primitive and civilized. Many of the artist works produced from non-western societies especially in Africa was previously not seen as genuine art since the inhabitants we re primitive and uncivilized people. These critics were cognizant of the fact that cultural and artistic progression terminated at a stage of civilization that was not unlike what was happening in modern Europe. Nevertheless, they also noted that the theory presumed communities are distinct entities and did