The Modern System of the Arts
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"The way that only certain activities are classified today as art is a social construction. The art history book The Invention of Art is an art history book which references "The Modern System of the Arts" (1951) by Paul Oskar Kristeller. Larry Shiner finds evidence that the older system of the arts before our modern system (fine art) held art to be any skilled human activity i.e. Ancient Greek society did not possess the term art but techne. Techne can be understood neither as art or craft, the reason being that the distinctions of art and craft are historical products that came later on in human history. Techne included painting, sculpting and music but also; cooking, medicine, horsemanship, geometry, carpentry, prophecy, and farming etc." --Sholem Stein |
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"The Modern System of the Arts" (1951) is an essay by Paul Oskar Kristeller published in Journal of the History of Ideas. It proved to be an influential, much reprinted classic reading in Philosophy of art.