Painting as "EXPLORING" and Related Metaphors in 20th-Century Art Commentary

Abstract

From the beginning of the 20th century onward, art commentators have increasingly employed 2 related conceptual metaphors: PAINTING IS EXPLORING and THE PAINTER IS A MORAL HERO. These, over the course of the century, underwent some remarkable changes. Critics have progressively altered the kinds of fields and goals associated with those metaphors so as to attribute greater significance both to the painter's exploring and heroism. but without any claim of final success in the exploring or linkage of heroism. with conventional public moral norms. Such shifts suggest that, in a time of heightened skepticism about fixed and verifiable, artistic and moral values, many art commentators have felt an increasing need to find metaphors that enable them to conceptualize modem painters as engaged in activities of significant human importance. This is the equivalent of what an 18th- or 19th-century critic might do by praising a painter for making an artistic discovery or supporting the publ...