Abstract

In Aesthetic Legacies, Lucian Krukowski traces the influence of three nineteenth-century theories of art through twentieth-century modernism and into the postmodernist present. Following the theories of Kant, Schopenhauer, and Hegel, Krukowski first discusses how each philosopher locates the aesthetic within the framework of the philosophical system. He then identifies each theory through a dominant theme and traces the transformations of these themes into later thought and practice. The Kantian legacy originates in the theme of beauty and continues through an examination of aesthetic taste into the modernist concern with artistic form. Schopenhauer's legacy moves from the dynamics of will into the themes of creative expression and artistic intentionality. Hegel's identification of art as a symbol of spirit's evolution is traced through the themes of artistic progress and cultural criticism. Krukowski interprets late modernism as a period in which the continuing transformation of aesthetic themes is arrested and congeals into dogma. This precipitates the reaction we now call postmodernism. The author first examines postmodernism through its various rejections of modernist dogma and, in the book's concluding section, evokes the alternative ideologies and practices that characterize present-day art.