David Carrier Reflects on Arthur Danto's Multifaceted Career and Their Friendship

Arthur Danto, a philosopher, artist, and critic, taught at Columbia University and authored influential works like The Transfiguration of the Commonplace in 1981. He served as art critic for The Nation until nearly the end of his life. David Carrier, a philosopher and friend, first met Danto around 1966 during graduate studies. Their friendship deepened in the 1970s through correspondence and visits, including a driving tour in Northern Italy in the early 1980s. Danto's woodcuts were rediscovered late in his life, and he wrote only two hours daily, producing a New York Times op-ed in fifty minutes. Carrier notes Danto's lack of interest in having disciples, despite appreciating Carrier's work on comics. Danto disliked Poussin and had differing views on Warhol from Carrier. He described himself as completely Jewish, countering suggestions of Catholic influences in his aesthetics. Danto was known as a happy philosopher, focusing on art and people he admired, with his vision reflected in his second wife Barbara Westman's art. His audiences were divided between philosophers and artists, with art historians less engaged. Carrier recalls their final visit to a Morandi exhibition at the Met, emphasizing Danto's secular view of death as an end.