Abstract
The paper is devoted to one of the most important justifications for the relevance of the concept of artistic canon for the theory of aesthetic appreciation of works of art within the framework of Anglo-American aesthetics of the second half of the twentieth century, the concept of categories of art by the American philosopher Kendall L. Walton.
In the text, we focus on a question that Walton should have paid more attention to, namely the explanation of how categories of art arise and consolidate their status. This topic leads us to two theses that partly agree with Walton's approach and partly revise it critically.
The first says that the categories of art that participate in the birth and stability of the artistic canon have a dynamic nature based on a constantly ongoing and changing aesthetic judgment. The second thesis then claims that, from a certain point of view, knowledge of categories and canonically established critical standards can become a burden that blocks the possibility of fresh insight and appreciation of innovative efforts in artistic creation and reception.