Art as an End in Itself: An Artistic and Art-Historical Application of the Self-as-an-End Framework

This paper is the third applied paper in the Self-as-an-End theoretical framework. It applies the framework to art and art history, arguing that art history is not a linear progression or succession of styles, but a history of subject-conditions in motion within the dynamics of cultivation and colonization. The paper establishes a two-dimensional structural model for art — integrity (non-instrumentality) and generativity (inspiringness to future others) — yielding a four-quadrant positioning system. It proposes two driving forces for art-historical movement: colonial escape (integrity advancement driven by external pressure) and cultivative growth (generativity advancement driven by internal unfulfillment), with the key asymmetry that cultivation generates direction while escape borrows direction. The paper's central dynamical thesis is that Q1 (flourishing) is not a position that can be stably occupied, but a structural state requiring continuous movement to maintain. Historical case analyses include the medieval three-layer lock-in as the most extreme stagnation case, the Renaissance as verification of the minimum unlocking condition thesis, and algorithmic colonization as the contemporary form of system pursuit. The paper engages with Greenberg, Gombrich, Benjamin, Danto, and Kuhn, and proposes four non-trivial testable predictions. A Chinese-language version of this paper is available from the author.