Machine generated contents note: Introduction: The Rise of Philosophical Art Criticism 1 -- Chapter 1. In the Beginning Was Formalism 17 -- Chapter 2. The Structuralist Adventure 33 -- Chapter 3. The Historicist, Antiessentialist Definition of Art 55 -- Chapter 4. Resentment and Its Discontents 71 -- Chapter 5. The Deconstruction of Structuralism 87 -- Afterword: The Fate of Philosophical Art Criticism 111.
Since the mid-1980s, Arthur C. Danto has been increasingly concerned with the implications of the demise of modernism. Out of the wake of modernist art, Danto discerns the emergence of a radically pluralistic art world. His essays illuminate this novel art world as well as the fate of criticism within it. As a result, Danto has crafted the most compelling philosophy of art criticism since Clement Greenberg. Gregg Horowitz and Tom Huhn analyze the constellation of philosophical and critical (...) elements in Danto's new- Hegelian art theory. In a provocative encounter, they employ themes from Kantian aesthetics to elucidate the continuing persistence of taste in shaping even this most sophisticated philosophy of art. (shrink)
Pandey, V. Introduction.--Kalelkar, K. S. Jainism, a familyhood of all religions.--David, M. D. From Risabha to Mahavira.--Chalil, J. E. Glimpses of Southern Jainism.--Gopani, A. S. Life and culture in Jaina narrative literature, 8th, 9th and 10th century A.D.--Gopani, A. S. Position of women in Jaina literature.--Ranka, R. Evolution of Jaina thought.--Pandey, V. Jaina philosophy and religion.--Shah, C. C. Jainism and modern life.--Sankalia, H. D. The great renunciation.--Shah, U. P. Jaina contribution to Indian art.--Gorakshkar, S. Early metal images of the Jainas.--Bhagwati, (...) U. Bibliographical aids for the study of Jainism. (shrink)
This book presents an innovative analysis of the role of imagination as a central concept in both literary and art criticism. Dee Reynolds brings this approach to bear on works by Rimbaud, Mallarme;, Kandinsky, and Mondrian. It allows her to redefine the relationship between Symbolism and abstract art, and to contribute new methodological perspectives to comparative studies of poetry and painting. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a crucial period in the emergence of new modes of representation, (...) and is currently at the forefront of critical enquiry. This is the first book to examine Symbolism and abstraction in this way, and the first to treat these poets and painters together. It is an original contribution to interdisciplinary scholarship in art history, literary history, and comparative aesthetics. (shrink)
v. 1. Description of the torso in the Belvedere in Rome, Essay on the capacity for the sentiment for the beautiful in art, Reflections on the painting and sculpture of the Greeks -- v. 2. The history of ancient art (vols. I, II) -- v. 3. The history of ancient art (vols. III, IV).
Why are visual artworks experienced as having intrinsic significance or normative depth? Why are some works of art better able to manifest this significance than others? In his latest book Paul Crowther argues that we can answer these questions only if we have a full analytic definition of visual art. Crowther's approach focuses on the pictorial image, broadly construed to include abstract work and recent conceptually-based idioms. The significance of art depends, however, essentially on the transhistorical nature of the pictorial (...) image, the way in which its illuminative power is extended through historical transformation of the relevant artistic medium. Crowther argues against fashionable forms of cultural relativism, while at the same time showing why it is important that an appreciation of the history of art is integral to aesthetic judgment. (shrink)
Our paper addresses matters such as the distinction between chronological time and the “internal time” (Mikel Dufrenne) of works of art, the possibility that artists may act as future art critics, the alleged unity of classic art versus fragmentary modern approaches and the validity of historical interpretation of works of art. We shall begin by studying the common apprehension of art history and what it entails so that we may afterwards observe the major difficulties that the research in this (...) domain faces. In the second half of the following paper we shall examine how representations are formed within works of art and what is the proper way to analyze them after applying the phenomenological epoché to artistic phenomena. We will finally attempt to offer a clear image on how phenomenological philosophy contributes to the historical research of art. (shrink)
Kant, Art, and Art History is the first systematic study of Kant's reception of and influence on the visual arts and art history. Arguing against Kant's transcendental approach to aesthetic judgment, Cheetham examines five 'moments' of his influence, including the use of Kant's political writings among German-speaking artists and critics in Rome around 1800; the canonized patterns of Kant's reception in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art history, particularly in the work of Wölfflin and Panofsky; and the (...) Kantian language in the criticism of Cubism. He also reassesses Clement Greenberg's famous reliance on Kant. The final chapter focuses on Kant's 'image', both in contemporary and posthumous portraits, with respect to his status as the image of philosophy within a disciplinary hierarchy. In Cheetham's reading, Kant emerges as a figure who has constantly erected and crossed the borders among art, its history, and philosophy. (shrink)
Dilemma one, Between the theoretical concepts and authorial intention -- Dilemma two, Good manners and eristic -- Dilemma three, Between strangeness and familiarity -- Dilemma four, Between scholarly research and faith.
In this volume, the third in his classic series on art theory, Moshe Barasch traces the hidden patterns and interlocking themes in the study of art, from impressionism to abstract art. Barasch details the immense social changes in the creation, presentation, and reception of art which have set the history of art theory on a vertiginous new course: the decreased relevance of workshops and art schools; the replacement of the treatise by the critical review; and the emerging interrelationship between (...) scientific inquiry and artistic theory. The consequent changes in the ways in which critics as well as artists conceptualized paintings and sculptures were radical, marked by an obsession with intense sensory experiences, psychological reflection on the effects of art, and an attraction to the exotic and alien--making for the most exciting and fertile period in the history of art criticism. (shrink)
It is a commonplace now among art historians that to say, with Ruskin, that an artist had an "innocent eye" was to give the artist an empty compliment. It would have been to say that the artist possessed something no one could possess, and that, if we follow E. H. Gombrich, the artist was not part of the history of art. Gombrich's goal was to show that the history of art was constituted by artists "making and matching" as (...) they saw and represented more accurately the objects with which their predecessors were only dimly acquainted. So an artist with an "innocent eye" would stand outside of history, or at least outside of history as Gombrich tells it; the artist's work being irrreconcilable with the works that flanked it before and after. (shrink)
Dismissed as a miserable elitist who condemned popular culture in the name of 'high art', Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) is one of the most provocative and important yet least understood of contemporary thinkers. This book challenges this popular image and re-examines Adorno as a utopian philosopher who believed authentic art could save the world. Adorno Reframed is not only a comprehensive introduction to the reader coming to Adorno for the first time, but also an important re-evaluation of this founder of (...) the Frankfurt School. Using a wealth of concrete illustrations from popular culture, Geoffrey Boucher recasts Adorno as a revolutionary whose subversive irony and profoundly historical aesthetics defended the integrity of the individual against social totality. (shrink)
This collection of essays, on French and francophone prose, poetry, drama, visual art, cinema and thought, assesses guilt and shame in relation to structures of ...
Marcel Duchamp once asked whether it is possible to make something that is not a work of art. This question returns over and over in modernist culture, where there are no longer any authoritative criteria for what can be identified (or excluded) as a work of art. As William Carlos Williams says, “A poem can be made of anything,” even newspaper clippings.At this point, art turns into philosophy, all art is now conceptual art, and the manifesto becomes the distinctive genre (...) of modernism. This book takes seriously this transformation of art into philosophy, focusing upon the systematic interest that so many European philosophers take in modernism. Among the philosophers Gerald Bruns discusses are Theodor W. Adorno, Maurice Blanchot, Arthur Danto, Stanley Cavell, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean-Luc Nancy, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, and Emmanuel Levinas.As Bruns demonstrates, the difficulty of much modern and contemporary poetry can be summarized in the idea that a poem is made of words, not of any of the things that we use words to produce: meanings, concepts, propositions, narratives, or expressions of feeling. Many modernist poets have argued that in poetry language is no longer a form of mediation but a reality to be explored and experienced in its own right. But what sort of experience, philosophically, might this be? The problem of the materiality or hermetic character of poetic language inevitably leads to questions of how philosophy itself is to be written and what sort of communitydefines the work of art—or, for that matter, the work of philosophy.In this provocative study, Bruns answers that the culture of modernism is a kind of anarchist community, where the work of art is apt to be as much an event or experience—or, indeed, an alternative form of life—as a formal object. In modern writing, philosophy and poetry fold into one another. In this book, Bruns helps us to see how. (shrink)
The goal of this paper is methodological. It offers a comprehensive mapping of the theoretical positions on the ethical criticism of art, correcting omissions and inadequacies in the conceptual framework adopted in the current debate. Three principles are recommended as general guidelines: ethical amenability, basic value pluralism, and relativity to ethical dimension. Hence a taxonomy distinguishing between different versions of autonomism, moralism, and immoralism is established, by reference to criteria that are different from what emerging in the current literature. (...) The mapping is then proved capable of (1) locating the various theories that have been proposed so far and clarifying such theories’ real commitments, (2) having the correct relationship with actual art making and art criticism practices, and (3) showing the real weight of the alleged counter-example to a moralist position of a work that succeeds artistically because of its immorality. (shrink)
This paper explores the dialogue between Collingwood and Guido de Ruggiero on art and art criticism. The sense of identity of these two activities, it will be argued, can be understood only if one considers the criticism of living art: The art of one who also creates, who through a critical process transforms an outline into a work of art. Thus understood a work of art belongs to the life of the spirit, if considered from the dimension of (...) becoming. Only by reliving the past can it be transformed, yet this requires an understanding of the map of human experience. This is what constitutes specular phenomenology, a phenomenology reflected in the mirror of art and scientific analysis. (shrink)
Introduction: Fielding Derrida -- Jacques Derrida's early writings : alongside skepticism, phenomenology -- Analytic philosophy, and literary criticism -- Deconstruction as skepticism -- Derrida, Husserl, and the commentators : a developmental approach -- A transcendental sense of death : Derrida and the philosophy of language -- Literary theory's languages : the deconstruction of sense vs. the deconstruction of reference -- Jacques Derrida and the problem of philosophical and political modernity -- Jacob Klein and Jacques Derrida : the problem of (...) modernity -- Jacob Klein and Jacques Derrida : historicism and history in two interpretations of Husserl's late writings -- Derrida's contribution to phenomenology : a problem of no species -- Foretellese : futures of Derrida and Marx. (shrink)
This book is an important and original contribution to the philosophy of art that bridges the disciplines of philosophy and art. It engages with a long-standing debate about what it is that bestows the designation 'art' on an artwork. Tiffany Sutton shows how the history of art should influence the classification of visual art. She considers the various theories that have been put forward to define the nature of the artwork and then offers her own set of classificatory norms. (...) Amongst the critical questions that are addressed in the process are: how important is patronage in the contemporary visual arts, and what lends conceptual art its specific aura? (shrink)
Spatial Turns brings together essays that apply a spatial analysis to German literature and other media and engages with specifically German theorizations of ...
Rediscovering Aesthetics brings together prominent international voices from art history, philosophy and artistic practice who reflect on current notions, ...
Musical values -- Back to Beethoven -- A state of crisis? -- An imaginary object -- A matter of representation -- Music and the academy -- Music and gender.
Placing readings of early modern painting and literature in conversation with psychoanalytic theory and assemblage theory, this book argues that, far from isolating its sufferers, melancholy brings people together.
It is often argued that a study of the history of philosophy is not itself philosophical. Philosophy, it is claimed, is an active, productive enterprise, whereas history is taken to be imitative and therefore passive. My aim in this paper is to argue against this view of the history of philosophy. First, I describe a famous criticism of historians of philosophy—Kant’s critique of the “spirit of imitation.” I claim that the source of this criticism is (...) the received view of mimesis. Since the received view has been widely discredited, I propose a different one—one that sees imitation not as passive but as active. Finally, I suggest that adopting this new view of mimesis demands that we rethink what it means for a history of philosophy to be true. And I propose that the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer might help us to do so. (shrink)
Abstract In this essay I trace the role of history in the philosophy of art from the early twentieth century to the present, beginning with the rejection of history by formalists like Clive Bell. I then attempt to show how the arguments of people like Morris Weitz and Arthur Danto led to a re-appreciation of history by philosophers of art such as Richard Wollheim, Jerrold Levinson, Robert Stecker and others.
This article takes its shape from a recent conference at the School of Visual Arts in NYC on the theme, 'Tradition and the New: Educating the Artist for the Millennium'. Central to the way the conference was advertised and described was an implicit tendency to view tradition as wholly separate from the new. While the conference did not itself make a theoretical argument for the opposition of tradition and the new, Arthur Danto's recent elaboration of a thesis of the 'end (...) of art' does provide such a theoretical underpinning for the opposition that the conference seemed to presuppose. Danto's thesis of the end of art offers a compelling view of 'what' and 'where' art is today, but it also has troubling implications for how our relation to the past is configured and, in Danto's view of art's having come to an end, for what it means that we are now living in 'post-historical' times. That is, as a compelling contemporary reading of the history of art, Danto's thesis seems to be more implicated in the very modernist project that he, in other ways, seeks to move effectively beyond. This article, then, explores the problem of counterposing tradition and the new, specifically, in Danto's thesis, but also more generally. In the first part of the article, I present Danto's end of art thesis. Next, I will offer a counterweight to this tendency to separate tradition and the new by examining the concept of 'effective history', focussing here on the writing of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Gadamer's insights, which I will link to Nietzsche, provide a way of moving beyond some of the problematic implications of Danto's thesis, and also illuminate some of the ethical dimensions at stake. In concluding, I will look at some contemporary examples where the notion of effective history can be productively applied. Key Words: art theory • effective history • end of art • hermeneutics • modernism • tradition. (shrink)
From the late-fifteenth century onwards, scholars across Europe began to write books about how to read and evaluate histories. These pioneering works - which often take surprisingly modern-sounding positions - grew from complex early modern debates about law, religion, and classical scholarship. In this book, based on the Trevelyan Lectures of 2005, Anthony Grafton explains why so many of these works were written, why they attained so much insight - and why, in the centuries that followed, most scholars gradually forgot (...) that they had existed. Elegant and accessible, What Was History? is a deliberate evocation of E. H. Carr’s celebrated and icononclastic Trevelyan Lectures on What Is History?, and will appeal to a broad readership of students, scholars and historical enthusiasts. Anthony Grafton is one of the most celebrated historians writing in English today, and What Was History? is a powerful and imaginative exploration of some central themes in the history of European ideas. (shrink)
After an initial period of popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, André Malraux’s works on the theory of art, "The Voices of Silence" and "The Metamorphosis of the Gods", lapsed into relative obscurity. A major factor in this fall from grace was the frosty reception given to these works by a number of leading art historians, including E.H. Gombrich, who accused Malraux of an irresponsible approach to art history and of "reckless inaccuracies". This essay examines a representative sample of (...) the art historians' arguments and contends that they reveal serious misreadings of Malraux’s texts and a recurring tendency to confuse matters of interpretation with matters of fact. The article suggests that the charge of irresponsibility might well be levelled at the critics themselves, and that the myth of Malraux as guilty of ‘reckless inaccuracies’ needs to be debunked. (shrink)
