Deconstructing Art

Modern aesthetics is in as much a quagmire as modern art is.
Since the nineteenth century, there has been no serious attempt at
defining beauty, while the great many of theorists focus their at-
tention on a concocted concept that is foreign and unnatural to
say the least: the aesthetic. Art theory, on the other hand, failed
utterly in its fundamental task when it handed the artist and the
so-called "artworld" a carte blanche -in the form of the institu-
tional theory of art- to decide by themselves what art is and is
not.
This study attempts to fill both niches thus left gaping. The
study is the practical application of a method that we have first
gleaned in On Names, Ideas, and Super Ideas. The method re-
quires that we treat the idea or concept of art as a mental mish-
mash that has resulted from an atypical, messy process of abstrac-
tion, and recognize the fact that the meaning of the word art can-
not be encompassed by a single definition. The only way to de-
fine art is to "break down" this mental mishmash into "compo-
nent" ideas that would have resulted from the process of abstrac-
tion, had it been typical; and provide a definition for each of such
"component" ideas.
The work is divided into five parts.
Parts I and II provide an objective definition of art.
Part III provides an objective definition of beauty.
Part IV provides "guidelines" for judging or appreciating any
work of art.
And Part V provides a rather personal interpretation of what
went on in the arts during the twentieth century.