Beardsley never explicitly responded to this objection, but he wouldn’t be fazed. The objection assumes that if an object is displayed in a museum—a fine arts museum, not a history museum or any other sort of museum—or if an art historian or art critic discusses an object, then it must be a work of art, or at least that there’s very strong reason to think that it’s a work of art. That it’s some reason to think so Beardsley wouldn’t deny; but that it’s necessarily a strong or definitive reason he