Twelve thought-provoking Arthur C. Danto essays collected here, five essays addressing history and the philosophy of art, including The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art, Symbolic Expression and the Self, and Art After the End of Art. Also included are seven essays where Danto takes on the role of art critic and speaks to specific artists and works of art, such as Red Grooms and the Whitney Biennial. For the purpose of my review, I will focus on one of his later types of essays –The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Below are direct Danto quotes along with my comments.

“Monuments commemorate the memorable and embody the myths of beginnings. Memorials ritualize remembrance and mark the reality of ends. The memorial is a special precinct, extruded from life, a segregated enclave where we honor the dead.” ----------- I would extend this definition of memorial to include an honoring of all the men and women who participated in the event, in this case, all the men and women who participated in the Vietnam War.

“Among the specifications for the memorial’s commission was the stipulation that it show the names of all the U.S. dead and missing and that it make no political statement about the war." ---------- As Danto notes, “making no political statement” is a tall order since no matter how a monument is designed, there is an underlying philosophy, either explicit or implicit, about the event being memorialized. Case in point: when the design by Maya Ying Lin, an Asian-American from Ohio who was a student at Yale University at the time, was first made public, many people strongly objected, calling it things like “a wailing wall for liberals,” or “a degrading ditch.”

“The reflecting walls constituted the Veterans Memorial at the time of its dedication, but before they were in place a concession was made to a faction that demanded figurative realism instead of what it perceived as an abstract monument to the liberal establishment. Thus the bronze servicemen.” --------Again, many objected to the wall, including a good number of Vietnam War veterans. These people wanted a memorial they could directly relate to, with realistic depiction of soldiers, similar to numerous Civil War memorials like the one in front of the Winston County Courthouse in Double Springs, Alabama or those in the Vicksburg Military Park in Mississippi. A very legitimate objection – if that’s what people want, especially those men and women who actually served in the Vietnam War, their tastes and values should be honored.

“Those walls could have stood on their own, artistically, but the bronze group could not have. As a piece of free-standing sculpture it is intrinsically banal. But they are greatly enhanced by their relationship to the great walls. In a way, the harmonization of their presence in the triangle generated by the walls is a monument to the triumph of political compromise rather than a memorial to artistic strife.” ----------- Actually, I don’t see the sculpture as banal at all; rather, I think those three soldiers have a real power, their expressions containing elements of shock, their informality as if returning together to camp after a battle, the detail of their weapons, uniforms, equipment. But I do agree with Danto that the presence of the sculpture of three bronze soldiers is greatly enhanced by its position up on a hill facing the wall.



“A third stipulation for the memorial was that it harmonize with its surroundings. It does more: it integrates the two structures it points to into a moral landscape. Because the two wings form an angle, the Veterans Memorial together with the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial compose a large triangle, with the long reflecting pool as a segment of the base.” ---------- This is true. Anyone paying a visit to the memorial will see a real beauty in the placement of the wall and how its two wings link to the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. As Danto states further on in his essay: “It has been accepted by the nation at large, which did not even know it wanted such a memorial. It is now one of the sites most visited in the capital.”



“If you know someone who was killed, an attendant from the National Park Service will help you locate his or her name. They are all listed alphabetically in directories near the site. Most photograph the name, but many take rubbings of it on pamphlets handed out by the Park Service. You can borrow a ladder to reach the top names. The highest panels are about ten feet high.” ----------- I recall reading Bobbie Ann Mason’s novel In Country where a mom of a killed soldier steps up on a ladder at the memorial and touches the name of her fallen son. Very, very moving. Lastly, a personal note. When I visited the memorial on a sunny April morning some years ago, I was the sole visitor. I located the name of a kid I played baseball with when his family would come down from Bayonne, New Jersey to my shore town of Beachwood, New Jersey. His name was Jackie Folger. Again, moving experience. Link: http://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/16600/JOHN-V-FOLGER

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Twelve thought-provoking Arthur C. Danto essays collected here, five essays addressing history and the philosophy of art, including The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art, Symbolic Expression and the Self, and Art After the End of Art. Also included are seven essays where Danto takes on the role of art critic and speaks to specific artists and works of art, such as Red Grooms and the Whitney Biennial. For the purpose of my review, I will focus on one of his later types of essays –The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Below are direct Danto quotes along with my comments.

“Monuments commemorate the memorable and embody the myths of beginnings. Memorials ritualize remembrance and mark the reality of ends. The memorial is a special precinct, extruded from life, a segregated enclave where we honor the dead.” ----------- I would extend this definition of memorial to include an honoring of all the men and women who participated in the event, in this case, all the men and women who participated in the Vietnam War.

“Among the specifications for the memorial’s commission was the stipulation that it show the names of all the U.S. dead and missing and that it make no political statement about the war." ---------- As Danto notes, “making no political statement” is a tall order since no matter how a monument is designed, there is an underlying philosophy, either explicit or implicit, about the event being memorialized. Case in point: when the design by Maya Ying Lin, an Asian-American from Ohio who was a student at Yale University at the time, was first made public, many people strongly objected, calling it things like “a wailing wall for liberals,” or “a degrading ditch.”

“The reflecting walls constituted the Veterans Memorial at the time of its dedication, but before they were in place a concession was made to a faction that demanded figurative realism instead of what it perceived as an abstract monument to the liberal establishment. Thus the bronze servicemen.” --------Again, many objected to the wall, including a good number of Vietnam War veterans. These people wanted a memorial they could directly relate to, with realistic depiction of soldiers, similar to numerous Civil War memorials like the one in front of the Winston County Courthouse in Double Springs, Alabama or those in the Vicksburg Military Park in Mississippi. A very legitimate objection – if that’s what people want, especially those men and women who actually served in the Vietnam War, their tastes and values should be honored.

“Those walls could have stood on their own, artistically, but the bronze group could not have. As a piece of free-standing sculpture it is intrinsically banal. But they are greatly enhanced by their relationship to the great walls. In a way, the harmonization of their presence in the triangle generated by the walls is a monument to the triumph of political compromise rather than a memorial to artistic strife.” ----------- Actually, I don’t see the sculpture as banal at all; rather, I think those three soldiers have a real power, their expressions containing elements of shock, their informality as if returning together to camp after a battle, the detail of their weapons, uniforms, equipment. But I do agree with Danto that the presence of the sculpture of three bronze soldiers is greatly enhanced by its position up on a hill facing the wall.

“A third stipulation for the memorial was that it harmonize with its surroundings. It does more: it integrates the two structures it points to into a moral landscape. Because the two wings form an angle, the Veterans Memorial together with the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial compose a large triangle, with the long reflecting pool as a segment of the base.” ---------- This is true. Anyone paying a visit to the memorial will see a real beauty in the placement of the wall and how its two wings link to the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. As Danto states further on in his essay: “It has been accepted by the nation at large, which did not even know it wanted such a memorial. It is now one of the sites most visited in the capital.”

“If you know someone who was killed, an attendant from the National Park Service will help you locate his or her name. They are all listed alphabetically in directories near the site. Most photograph the name, but many take rubbings of it on pamphlets handed out by the Park Service. You can borrow a ladder to reach the top names. The highest panels are about ten feet high.” ----------- I recall reading Bobbie Ann Mason’s novel In Country where a mom of a killed soldier steps up on a ladder at the memorial and touches the name of her fallen son. Very, very moving. Lastly, a personal note. When I visited the memorial on a sunny April morning some years ago, I was the sole visitor. I located the name of a kid I played baseball with when his family would come down from Bayonne, New Jersey to my shore town of Beachwood, New Jersey. His name was Jackie Folger. Again, moving experience. ( )