Zhang

Undoubtedly, when Duchamp sent Fountain to an exhibition held by the American Independent Artists Association on 19 17, he raised a Duchamp's question in a deviant way, which dealt a blow to "art" and "aesthetics". On the one hand, people marvel at Duchamp's unusual challenging posture and fantastic ideas, on the other hand, they can't help feeling uneasy and suspicious. Some people even say that Duchamp is actually a liar and a rogue. So, as Duchamp's masterpiece, is Spring a work of art? Or a non-artistic work? How should we understand spring? What is the aesthetic significance of spring?

First, spring as a work of art

As we all know, on the one hand, spring is notorious and criticized, on the other hand, it has far-reaching influence and is regarded as a standard. In any case, we can't ignore the existence of springs. In 2007, among the five most influential works of art in the 20th century, Spring ranked first (the specific ranking is as follows: 1. Spring, marcel duchamp,1917; 2. avignon girl, Picasso,1907; 3. Golden Marilyn, andy warhol,1962; 4. guernica, Picasso,1937; 5. The Red Studio, Matisse, 19 1 1 year) fully illustrates its value.

In fact, when we start to discuss spring, we always consciously or unconsciously follow some established aesthetic norms or artistic standards, and we all have an ideal answer about works of art in our hearts. When we regard spring as a work of art, our main concerns will focus on the following aspects.

First, the urinal itself has beautiful elements, which can arouse people's aesthetic concern, such as its form (if someone finds that ten water holes are arranged beautifully, does it mean "perfection"? Some people think that its shape is like the Guanyin statue in China. Its color and texture, especially in the contemporary social context, are the product of commodity aesthetics (today's bathroom products have become an art more and more), but we need to remind us that these beauties in spring are not its core content and fundamental theme, but spring reveals something else to us.

Secondly, the urinal in spring is no longer called urinal. Duchamp signed it and named it the Spring, making it a "ready-made product". This "naming" is meaningful, and it leaves a huge space for interpretation. In a sense, art is an act of discovery, an act of naming and a unique act of creation. In the history of art, Duchamp first discovered and created a fountain with urinal as its content, which made it of extraordinary value. If someone repeats Duchamp's behavior and works after Duchamp, it will only be meaningless copying.

Thirdly, from the appearance, there is not much difference between the ordinary urinal and the spring, but the former is just an ordinary article, a product of machine production, with daily functions, just a household utensil necessary for daily life, and will not bring people special aesthetic significance and artistic value; The latter is divorced from daily life and regarded as a work of art, thus "creating new ideas", stimulating people's thinking, stimulating people's imagination and association, and making people feel surprised, suspicious and even nervous. Just as Duchamp put urinals and fountains in people's minds, his successor Warhol also threw Brillo's box and Brillo's box (exhibited at 1964) to us. "These two things are similar to each other, but they have different meanings and identities." In Arthur Danto's view, "Harvey's box is not as philosophical as Warhol's box, for the same reason. (Arthur C Danto, Wesley Wang: The Abuse of Beauty, Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 2007, p. 12).

Fourthly, "Spring" was sent to an art exhibition (art environment) to be exhibited, forcing people to think from the perspective of "art" in a provocative way. Moreover, the reason why spring can become a work of art is inseparable from Duchamp's identity as an artist. Before Duchamp, the existence of urinals could not bring anything to the development and promotion of art, nor could it bring anything to the renewal of aesthetic concepts; On the contrary, the appearance of Spring has fundamentally changed the concepts of western modern art and aesthetics, and changed the development process of western modern art history.

Second, Spring is a non-artistic work.

Of course, when discussing fountains, many people often study them from the perspective of "convention" and "prejudice", or people often treat them with the aesthetic concept of "convention". For example, regarding the concept of art, the aesthetician Fisher thinks: a. Art is made by hand; B. art is unique; C. Art should look beautiful or beautiful; D. art should express a certain point of view; E. Art should need some skills or techniques (Yu Hong: Introduction to Aesthetic Culture, Higher Education Press, 2006, p. 54). These views basically summarize people's traditional habits and customs about art, so people regard spring as non-art, mainly focusing on the following four points.

1. Works of art should be associated with beauty and should bring people pleasure and enjoyment of beauty. "Spring" takes urinals as the performance object, which is ugly, filthy and unable to be elegant.

2. Artwork should be a unique product created by a few talented superman artists, but Spring is not like this. It is a machine product and can be mass-produced.

3. Works of art should have special significance and unique appeal, and can create a novel "image world", while "spring" is simple and straightforward, just an ordinary object.

Art should come from life, but at the same time art is higher than life. "Ready-made products" like "spring" seem to have no profound connotation and everyone can get it.

Third, "paradoxical thinking": another way to understand spring

The above discussion about whether The Spring is a work of art or beauty has not actually solved Duchamp's "difficult problem". In our view, Duchamp's "difficult problem" is actually an ideological revolution, which points directly at the traditional artistic theory and aesthetic standards, forcing people to rethink the concepts of "art" and "aesthetics", thus opening a new road of art and aesthetics, which at least shows that:

1. Art is not equal to beauty-art can be ugly or other fine arts.

In Duchamp's view, traditional art is always understood as something of aesthetic pleasure, and art seems to have a natural connection with beauty. Spring challenges this traditional idea. Does the fountain show beauty? Does beauty explain the meaning of spring? Obviously not. In fact, the concepts of "art" and "beauty" have long been the goals of artists and art historians. Art historian H Reid once pointed out: "We have many misunderstandings about art, mainly because we lack consistency when using the words' art' and' beauty'. ..... In the specific case that art is not beautiful, this assumption of confusing beauty with art will often inadvertently hinder normal aesthetic activities. In fact, art is not necessarily equal to beauty. This point does not need to be reiterated. " (H. Reid: the true meaning of art, translated by Wang Keping, Renmin University of China Press, 2004, p. 4) And the aesthetician Wilsch directly attributed the "non-beauty" caused by excessive aestheticization in contemporary society to the confusion and abuse of the two concepts of "beauty" and "art". Traditional art overemphasizes the beauty of art.

2. Art is not equal to sensibility-art can be rational thinking, a way of "asking questions" or an almost abstract concept.

In the traditional aesthetic concept and art theory, art is first of all perceptual and material existence (color, shape, sound, etc. ), resort to art forms and people's aesthetic senses, and then make people have aesthetic experience. But Quan abandons this point, and it points directly to the field of people's ideas, just like the "heading" in Zen. As Arthur Danto said, Duchamp's "ready-made products" are intended to "prove the most extreme separation between aesthetics and art", and he produced "art without aesthetics" and "replacing sensibility with intellectuality". The significance of fountain lies in breaking the rules and liberating art from the bondage of matter and materials, thus creating more possibilities for art; Art can no longer be confined to "form", but directly think.

3. Art is not a handmade product-it can be a machine product; Art is not "creation"-it can be a "ready-made product".

In the traditional aesthetic concept and art theory, art has always been regarded as the product of the artist's hand-making, which requires the artist's long-term efforts and even "creation". It is a typical creative behavior of "making something out of nothing", which embodies the artist's personality, talent and hard work, so it is often unique and unrepeatable. For example, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is like this. Duchamp's "off-the-shelf products" all come from existing things in life, even things produced in batches by machines. It's just the artist's "deformation" and "reset", such as "bicycle wheel", which puts an ordinary article (bicycle wheel) upside down on another ordinary article (wooden stool), thus becoming a "work". Duchamp said cunningly, "It is very gratifying to feel the rotation of the wheel." He prefers the appearance of this work to the actual function of the wheel. Indeed, Duchamp's "ready-made goods" creation is actually abandoning or suspending the practical function of the original things, thus gaining different meanings.

4. Spring has greatly changed the development process of western art history. It opens up a brand-new post-modern art road, and it "repairs" and "reconstructs" the relationship between art and life. It shows that art and life are not diametrically opposed. Art can be life and life can also be art. In Ortega's view, modern art has a distinct tendency of "dehumanization". It no longer pursues the harmonious, quiet and realistic aesthetic effect of classical art, but strengthens the boundary between art and life, emphasizing that art is above, above and beyond life. For example, Picasso's Weeping Woman and avignon's Girl are the most typical examples, and the female images in these works are no longer gentle, beautiful and realistic. Postmodern art, on the other hand, abandons this concept and emphasizes the "life" of art, or the "artistry" of life, thus bridging the gap between life and art, such as "what makes today's family so warm and special" (pop art) and "carving a fetus" (installation art).

5. Art is not the privilege of a few people, it can be owned by the public, or even "everyone can be an artist" in the post-modern context. As a result, art has finally been unveiled, and it no longer has sacred "charm" and has become an ordinary thing in daily life.

At the same time, the discussion of "Spring" also makes us doubt the way of asking "Is the work beautiful" and "Is it a work of art". This judgment of right and wrong is often powerless in the face of works like Spring, which is the limitation of the dual thinking mode. Therefore, we advocate that in the face of a work like Spring, we should suspend the judgment of right and wrong and give up the essence and definition, that is, we should not simply affirm or deny it, but discuss its influence and consequences, value and significance in a paradoxical way with a more open and compatible vision.

Fourth, the issue of "spring" and "the end of art"

19 17, Duchamp challenged "art" in a unique way when he signed the urinal and sent it to the exhibition. What is art? What is a work of art? What is beauty? Is art for people to see or think about? Duchamp seems to have pierced the red line of people's thoughts. He directly misappropriated "ready-made products" in his artistic vision, almost completely destroying people's traditional ideas. Ninety years later, we still seem unable to dispose of the fountain in Duchamp. When many people regard it as a "masterpiece of art" with suspicion, have we ever heard Duchamp's laughter in a certain corner of history? (1962, Duchamp wrote to hans richter and said: "When I found the finished product, I was thinking about the aesthetics of gas and gas ... I threw the bottle holder and urinal in their faces to show my challenge, but now they worship them because of their aesthetic beauty." Duchamp's cross-examination refers to "the end of art"

Arthur Danto, a famous contemporary American art critic, put forward the "conclusion of the end of art", which caused extensive debate and discussion in western academic circles, and some of his important works were translated into Chinese one after another. Chinese versions of Arthur Danto's works include: The End of Art (translated by Ouyang, Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 200 1), After the End of Art-The Boundary between Contemporary Art and History (translated by Wang, Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 2007) and The Abuse of Aesthetics-The Concept of Aesthetics and Art (translated by Wang, Jiangsu). Danto believes that the end of art is actually the liberation of artistic self-consciousness and an ideal state when history enters the post-historical period. In this period, art has become an art in life, organically combined with people's natural existence, rather than alienated from people's life and existence. Danto said many times that the word "art" is actually the product of modern ideas. In other words, what we regard as art today may not be regarded as art in the course of history, but is gradually "constructed" and recognized by people. Therefore, the establishment and development of modern art historiography is actually "a discipline that constructs the understanding of art history through ideas". Danto further divides art history into three historical grand narrative modes: in the first stage, he pursues the accurate reproduction of progressive history; The second stage is modernism, which pursues the purity of art's own media and the purity of art; In the third stage, that is, the post-modernism stage, when art is becoming more and more conceptualized and philosophized as the carrier of visual images, art history has reached the end of resorting to history as a concept, which means the end of art history narration.

In Arthur Danto's view, the real meaning of the end of art means that "a story has ended" and "the end is a narrative, not a narrative theme", which actually means that the narrative of modernist art history is disintegrating. The end of art does not mean that art is dying or about to die, nor does it mean that art is actually "dead" or disappearing, but it means that art is no longer deprived of philosophy, has no necessary connection with aesthetics, and is no longer limited to a whole and grand narrative structure, thus gaining a new possibility and unprecedented liberation and freedom. It seems that Arthur Danto's artistic ending is not as sad and pessimistic as people usually understand, but full of optimism and expectation. In the "post-historical period of art", artistic creation will continue and present complex and diverse characteristics. From a point of view, the contemporary era is a period of information confusion, an absolute aesthetic entropy state (aesthetic diffusion and childhood state), but also an absolute free period. Today, there are no longer any historical boundaries. Anything will do. As Dostoevsky said: Nothing is impossible when God is dead. After the end of art, all kinds of "hoops" added to art have been lifted, and nothing is impossible. In this case, artists "will create works that lack our long-awaited historical importance or significance." When people have understood what art is and what its significance is, the historical stage of art is over. Artists have paved the way for philosophy, and it is time for this task to be finally transferred to philosophers. Obviously, Danto inherited Hegel's final conclusion about art here and brought it into the contemporary realistic situation. Danto clearly pointed out in the book "Touching the Stone into Gold" (198 1): "... with the appearance of Brillo's box, the possibility of (defining art) was effectively closed, and the history of art came to an end to some extent. It didn't stop, but it ended. That is to say, it experienced and reached such a kind of self-consciousness and became its own philosophy to some extent: a state predicted in Hegel's historical philosophy. "From this perspective, the end of artistic historical narrative is not a slogan and declaration of grandstanding, but an inevitable fact.

If Duchamp is still struggling to explore and ask the proposition of art, then andy warhol has gone further on Duchamp's road. He completely abandoned all prejudices and prejudices, and he made them in his own way. What's the history in his Brillo box? What's the point? What is the value of human nature? Similarly, the golden portrait of Marilyn Monroe (1962) is littered with five photos of Marilyn Monroe, all with yellow hair, red lips and attractive skin color. Except for the slight difference in brightness caused by printing, these portraits of Monroe are almost the same. These Monroe images can be reproduced by themselves without restriction through photographic negatives, becoming a pure symbol and a "quality-free image". What are their meanings and values? Andy warhol's creation is the best embodiment of Danto's art theory, because Warhol is an "artist liberated from the burden of history", and he can create freely in any way he wants, for any purpose he wants, or not. Warhol has created a thrilling and lifeless "world of things" for us, and he even hopes that he can keep making it like a machine. Comparing Van Gogh's pair of peasant shoes with Warhol's diamond dust shoes, we can intuitively see the great difference between them. In Jameson's view, this difference is the difference between modernism and postmodernism. The philosopher Heidegger put forward the concepts of "the earth" and "the world" when analyzing Van Gogh's works, and thought that works of art struggled to survive in the cracks between them. Heidegger said: "From the dark exposure inside the worn-out shoes, the hardships of labor are condensed." In this pair of hard and heavy worn-out farm shoes, the tenacity and slowness of walking in the endless monotonous fields in the cold wind are gathered. Wet and fertile soil is stuck to the shoes. Twilight arrival, this pair of soles strolled on the path of the field. In this shoe, it echoes the silent call of the earth, shows the quiet gift of the earth to mature grain, and symbolizes the hazy hibernation of the earth in the barren fields in winter leisure. This vessel is saturated with anxiety about the stability of bread and silent joy of overcoming poverty, which means trembling in labor pains and trembling near death. This musical instrument belongs to the earth (Del), and it is kept in the peasant woman's world (world). It is because of this preserved ownership that the appliance itself can appear and maintain itself. "This is obviously a poetic utopia, and it is still obsessed with the creation of the' art world'. But we can't see these things in Warhol's diamond dust shoes. It abandons poetry, emotion, thinking and pain, and brings people a fetish-like illusion and euphoria. It is a reappearance of things without time, depth and history, and it shows the signs of post-modern society with "subject death". Post-modern society is a society with "unprecedented standardization, even time flow, and everything is subject to the constant changes of fashion and media" (Jameson). This is exactly what Baudrillard called "an imitation society", which undoubtedly brought a devastating blow to art. Here, the traditional artistic existence has encountered unprecedented impacts and challenges. Of course, Arthur Danto is not as pessimistic and desperate as Adorno and Baudrillard. He hopes to help people understand the present era and its art with his own theoretical construction.

If Duchamp led to the "end of art" through his eccentric artistic practice, then he is undoubtedly a precocious genius, and his great demonstration effect has been well reflected in pop art, performance art, installation art, earth art, concept art and other fields. Until today, his spiritual energy has not been exhausted. Arthur Danto theoretically explained and promoted "the end of art". He showed us the truth of the narrative of art history with a broad vision of a philosopher, which made us suddenly enlightened. After Duchamp, there is nothing wrong with art, it has complete freedom, and some even say that Duchamp provided an "anti-artistic art" and "anti-aesthetic aesthetics"; After Arthur Danto, people realized that even the concepts of "art" and "art history" are only the products of subjective construction, which will inevitably come to an end in a specific historical period. Then, all these show that no matter how the society develops, art will always be open and endless. After the end of art, art has no unique development direction and solid logical chain, no fixed style characteristics and historical structure; After the end of art, art broke through the imprisonment of philosophy, aesthetics and politics, and finally became what it was; After the end of art, the relationship between life and art has been revised, art is no longer far away and mysterious, and even everyone may become an artist.

This paper is the phased achievement of the Western Project 20 15 of the National Social Science Fund, with the project number of15xxxxx023.