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In his classic paper 'Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism', Kendall Walton highlights the special sense of contact with their subjects that photographs typically engender and argues that we must postulate photographic transparency in order to explain their capacity to do so. He also downplays the epistemic advantages historically associated with the medium and instead finds the source of our medium-specific appreciation of photographs largely in their transparency. I argue that Walton errs in both these respects. I offer a simpler, deflationary means of explaining the contact phenomenon, one that does not mandate that we see through photographs, and I show how an epistemic advantage associated with the medium can be brought together with this deflationary understanding to yield a two-factor analysis of our experiences in looking at photographs. I conclude with an application of this two-factor approach to an iconic photograph from the modernist canon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Larry Shiner has risen to an impassioned defence against my criticisms of an iconic figure, claiming that I have 'misrepresent[ed] Kristeller's central aim' and therefore missed 'the real shortcomings of Kristeller's essay' and 'obscure[d] substantive issues behind simplistic dichotomies'. These, and a series of disagreements over countless small details, take up the first part of his reply. He then proceeds to summarize his own book's achievements in correcting Kristeller's shortcomings. Shiner acknowledges difficulties in Kristeller's formulations, but accepts their purport and actually expands the reach of Kristeller's thesis. Whatever else one might wish to say about these charges (which are quite impressive as a list but each disputable taken in turn), Shiner remains an unrepentant exponent of Kristeller's views. I realize that dogmas die hard, and it is only to be expected that if one challenges the central tenets of a legacy one will meet with entrenched reactions. Given the word-limit I have been allotted for my counter-reply, I will confine myself to the more substantive issues as these concern Kristeller's arguments, reserving for a possible future occasion any difficulties I may have with Shiner's own theses. My response will take the form of a series of questions followed by my own proposed answers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the contents of Michael Fried's trilogy books about modernism. 'Manet's Modernism'; 'Absorption and Theatricality'; 'Courbet's Realism'; Three aspects of modernism.

Argues that Frank Cizek's teaching of child art before the 1930s should be debated as a modernist practice. Historical background of Cizek's work; Problematics of modernism; Definitions of modernism; Rhythmical forms evolved through a process of spiritual self-discovery; Cizek's teaching method with children.

The article presents the views of the author regarding the vision of modernism of architects and philosophers Adolf Loos, Le Corbusier, and Rudolf Carnap. Discussed are their improvements to previous philosophical and architectural styles and the ways in which they could be replaced with the formal syntax of both linguistic as well as architectural structures. Argued is that perhaps fundamentally, modernism in the syntax of crucial forms is not the expression of the logical construction of the world, but simply the expression of the individual need for straight lines.

The article discusses the interactions between aesthetics and semiotics and the implications of these interactions for the aesthetics of architecture. It states that the task of establishing whether architecture is in itself a semiological system is complicated in no small degree by semiology's own identity problem and the case appears now strong now weak according to which of the provisional definitions is being used to pull it through. It adds that defending an aesthetics of architecture as providing a more valid theoretical instrument than semiotics for the elucidation of its productions, and a sounder basis for the practice of the art, might be taken as a reversion to some deserted position of Modernism.

The article analyzes the Kantian core of artist Clement Greenberg's theory of Modernist painting. It argues that the distinct factor of Greenberg's theory lies in an intellectualist notion of aesthetic value, based on the artist's conception or inspiration. It explores the association of Greenberg's notion of aesthetic value with the outcome of Modernist painting's analogical use of Immanuel Kant's Critical method. It looks at the problems and contradictions that undermine Greenberg's theory of Modernist painting.

The article talks about the philosophical challenges relating to the classification of avant-garde art. The main properties of a paradigm work of art include its creation with the intention of rewarding aesthetic contemplation, its display of value-features, and its originality in the sense of being unique. The necessary conditions in the classification of art are clarified according to the condition on registering art's true diversity and the importance of stipulating conditions that are not normative.

The article discusses the philosophical ideas of Philip Meeson that modernism separates art from history and tradition, and self-expression is opposite to the truth. This is debated in relation to the education of art, focusing on the philosophies of Russian painter and art theorist Wassily Kandinsky, and Swiss painter Paul Klee. Included is the discovery by the author that aesthetics are continuously renewed by various constants of expression, and that there is not only one specific theory of expression, but different methods to the discovery of modern art.