Betweeen the eye and the mind.

Interchange by Willem de Kooning, 1955

Kant described what he called "free beauty," which existed in things like flowers, seashells, birds, and other natural objects. He also found it in decorative borders, wallpaper, and instrumental music. Danto believes that Kant would feel much the same way about abstract art. While the art critic, Clement Greenberg, had little to say about natural beauty, he did feel like viewers could recognize good art with little to no exposure to art history. Greenberg also believed that a consensus about what was good was possible even if no one could exactly describe what made art good in words.

In a first step away from the views of Enlightenment, Kant introduces the idea of "spirit" as distinguishing true art. That while a work of art might be beautiful and exhibit technical proficiency if it lacks this "spirit," it is defective. Spirit was not something that could be acquired or learned, and there was no remedy for its absence.

The painter Francisco Goya reached a similar conclusion, saying that this is why a less complete, more spontaneous work appeals to us over a more finished piece. This is entirely at odds with the traditional approach that the senses were too easily confused and unreliable. The classical view was that ideas could be grasped by the mind alone. For the first time, an artist was empowered to convey an idea in a sensory way. It was accepted that an image could communicate in a way that mere words failed.

Both Kant and Hegel had nibbled around the edges of this concept. Kant had suggested that some could convey ideas through sensory arrays to the viewer, and Hegel wrote that art does this, "namely by displaying even the highest reality sensuously, bringing it nearer to the senses, to feeling, and to nature's mode of appearance." Kant went on to describe art as striving to go beyond the limits of experience.

Art historian Kirk Varnedoe, in his Mellon Lectures titled "Pictures of Nothing," argued that abstract artists were "meaning-makers, not just image-makers. It's not just that we recognize images...it is that we are constructed to make meaning out of things." This aligns with Kant's second view of art that it consists of making meanings, that humans inherently look past just things and seek the message in what we see.

Some have dubbed this meaning, the "spirit" of the work. Explaining that while a piece might be tasteful, even beautiful, if it lacks spirit, it is defective. To identify with this spirit, the viewer must share some common experience. This shared experience is why, while technically, Warhol's soup cans could have been painted at any time in history, they would not be considered art because they had no context. No one would have recognized any meaning in them. There was no communication between the eye and the mind.

Something is art when it is about something, when it has meaning. Much of what hangs on the walls of galleries today is not necessarily aesthetically pleasing, but it does have the power of meaning and can communicate truth.