Ae10. Recognizability condition not required for art
There is something below, but it is currently invisible to non-editors.
There is something below, but it is currently invisible to non-editors.
Contra JOY, there can be content to a work independently of subject matter portrayals contained in or represented by the image/paint on canvas. Barnett Newman's work influenced conceptual art in the 1950's and minimalism in the 1960's.
JOY fails to recognize that there can be two ways for artwork to have or contain cognitive content. JOY's exclusive way for art to have cognitive content is via mimesis or pictorial exemplification (it looks like a barn from a distance and this look is accomplished using paint. The second way for an art work to have cognitive value is through its place and significance in art history.
JOY's recognizability condition requires that members of the general public can discern what the painting represents from mere observation and common sense deduction. This is a much too simplistic and naive view of how 20th and 21st century art has progressed in expanding the possibilities for artworks to have cognitive value, if it requires a lowering of the standard to just what ordinary people can perceive in an artwork. Ordinary people do not have appropriate art historical knowledge and awareness to assess the significance or cognitive values contained in an artwork. Marcel Duchamp's urinal likely cannot be appreciated by an uneducated person of common sense, but it has major significance for the Artworld since it helps start the conceptual art movement.