TEHRAN – The Persian translation of the book “The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: A Philosophy of Art” by Arthur Coleman Danto has been released in the bookstores across the country.

Amir Maziar has translated the book and Gilgamesh Publications has brought it out in 393 pages, Mehr reported.

American art critic and philosopher Arthur C. Danto argues that recent developments in the art world, in particular the production of works of art that cannot be told from ordinary things, make urgent the need for a new theory of art and make plain the factors such a theory can and cannot involve. In the course of constructing such a theory, he seeks to demonstrate the relationship between philosophy and art, as well as the connections that hold between art and social institutions and art history.

The book distinguishes what belongs to artistic theory from what has traditionally been confused with it, namely aesthetic theory and offers as well a systematic account of metaphor, expression, and style, together with an original account of artistic representation. A wealth of examples, drawn especially from recent and contemporary art, illuminate the argument.

Arthur C. Danto (1924 – 2013) was an American art critic, philosopher, and professor at Columbia University. He was best known for having been a long-time art critic for The Nation and for his work in philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of history, though he contributed significantly to a number of fields, including the philosophy of action. 

His interests included thought, feeling, philosophy of art, theories of representation, philosophical psychology, Hegel's aesthetics, and the philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre.

He was the author of numerous books, including “Unnatural Wonders: Essays from the Gap Between Art and Life” and “Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective”.

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