Art and identity: A reply to Stopford

Abstract

Richard Stopford, in criticizing my defense of purist restoration, attributes to me and refutes a metaphysical view I do not have concerning the identity and persistence conditions of an art work. I took for granted the ordinary idea of identity as continuity-in-space-and-time-under-a-sortal-concept, such as statue. I argued that Michelangelo’s Pietà remained the same statue after it was disfigured but that the damage was irreparable. By fixing molded prosthetics to the ruined work of art, the Vatican introduced a macaronic element into one’s aesthetic attitude toward the Pietà by making one attend simultaneously, without any visual guidance as to which is which, to (1) parts of the statue that were completed by Michelangelo’s hand and intended to be a work of art and (2) pieces added in the twentieth century for an different purpose, e.g., to make viewing the statue less disconcerting than a recognition of the damage would demand. An integral restoration, in contrast, allows one both to envision the art work as created and to grieve for what has been lost.