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learly transfiguration is the dominant religious metaphor that informs Danto’s theory of art. In one place he also employs baptism as a metaphor when speaking of interpretation as a transformative procedure bestowing a new identity on an object. The ordinary thing which has been taken up in the artworld is like the baptizand taken up in“the community of the elect”. Danto speaks here of a “religious analogy”
which will deepen as the analysis proceeds (Danto 1981, 126), yet he does not return, as far as I remember, to this supposed analogy. Solomon and Higgins claim that Danto describes the “‘is’ of aesthetic identification on the model of baptism” (Solomon and Higgins 2012, 182), which is not quite accurate, for it is rather interpretation as “a transformative procedure” that he likens to baptism which bestows a new identity on an object. When a
“transformative procedure”, consisting of what Danto dubs “constitutive interpretation” (Danto 1986, 39–46; Danto 2013c, 187–189), has been performed something becomes a work of art, constitutive interpretation
being “transfigurative”, transforming objects into works of art (Danto 1986, 44). Now this transformation, which in Danto’s view is analogous to baptism, “depends upon the ‘is’ of artistic identification” (Danto 1986, 44–45). It seems therefore that there must first be “artistic identification”
and then constitutive interpretation which transfigures (Danto’s term) the object in question into a work of art (Danto 1986, 41–42); therefore Solomon and Higgins seem to be confused about the relation between interpretation and artistic identification in Danto’s theory. If so, that is perhaps not their fault since Danto’s pronouncements on the matter are far from clear, and may even be contradictory. Danto actually admits that he has not expressed himself very clearly about the notion of interpretation and its role in his theory (Danto 2013c, 187); this admission, however, does not concern the relation between constitutive interpretation and the “is” of artistic identification, which to my mind is obscure. Be that as it may, Solomon and Higgins should not talk about “aesthetic identification” when Danto speaks of “artistic identification” since there is in Danto’s thinking a radical difference between the artistic and the aesthetic, these terms not being synonymous for him (Danto 1986, 30–31; Danto 2003,1–15; Danto 2013a, 47). Solomon and Higgins also perpetuate Danto’s confusions concerning transfiguration and transubstantiation, for they believe that “Danto’s image of the artwork as [. . .] something that is transformed by means of theory, also recalls the doctrine of transubstantiation” (Solomon and Higgins 2012, 182). But Danto does not speak of transubstantiation here, objects are transfigured by theory and constitutive interpretation: “Interpretation in my sense is transfigurative” (Danto 1986, 44). Danto never says that a theory or constitutive interpretation affects the transubstantiation of anything.
As we have seen that is the role of transfiguration in his philosophy of art.
Solomon and Higgins know full well that theory has a transfigurative role in Danto’s theory (Solomon and Higgins 2012, 182), so why bring up the question of transubstantiation without considering the difference between transfiguration and transubstantiation? Since Danto wishes to use religious and theological language in analysing and explaining the arthood of works of art, he would have done better to ponder the possible relevance of the metaphor of transubstantiation for his endeavour. Incidentally baptism as a
metaphor may, in fact, be more apt than any other religious and theological concept. For “[b]aptism imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual sign, the character, which consecrates the baptized person for Christian worship”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church § 1280), without changing the person’s outer appearance. In Dantoesque transfiguration an ordinary object is imprinted with an invisible and indelible spiritual sign, the sign of arthood. Danto has appropriated, as he puts it, the term “transfiguration”
for forging his notion of the transfiguration of the commonplace, his use of “liturgical language is a façon de parler” (Danto 2012, 309). Well, the Feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated in most Christian churches, but talk of the transfiguration is not liturgical, in contrast to words of consecration in rituals of consecration. Also Danto’s references to the transfiguration amount to much more than a façon de parler, it has an important theoretical role to play in his theory of art. The important point, however, is that the uses of metaphors and analogies can be misleading, and even wrong, if they are based on weak or non-existing analogies, and that is the case with Danto’s discourse on the transfiguration of the commonplace. The Catholic notion and practice of consecrating images would have provided a more apt analogy. According to the Rituale Romanum (XI, ch. VII, § 16) an altarpiece has to be consecrated before it merits veneration and becomes capable of channelling the intercessory powers of the represented figures in the painting or sculpture. There is thus a necessary relation between the consecration and the effectiveness of an image. Whereas a religious image is consecrated by a bishop sprinkling it with holy water, perhaps an ordinary everyday object or a pop image is elevated into the Realm of Art by being sprinkled with artistic and philosophical theory. The consecration of pictures and sculptures is an ancient practice in all cultures (Freedberg 1989, ch. 5). It is only in the fifteenth century in Western Europe that paintings and sculptures gradually became de-sacralized assuming new personal, social, political and “aesthetic” functions (Belting [1990] 1994).
Danto’s theory of art is in a sense a secularized version of religious rituals of consecration.