PDF The Nature and Function of Art Download
- Author: Leopold Eidlitz
- Publisher:
- ISBN:
- Category : Aesthetics
- Languages : en
- Pages : 530
eBook downloads, eBook resources & eBook authors
Each of the chapters in this volume is a response to theoretical and practical questions regarding the relationship between the art object and language in art history. Accessible to readers of all social science disciplines, the issues discussed challenge the boundaries to thought that some contemporary theorizing sustains.
In this newest book, the author presents a theory of art which is at once universal in its general conception and historically-grounded in its attention to aesthetic practices in diverse cultures. The author argues that especially today art not only enjoys a special king of autonomy but also has important social and political responsibilities.
"This book explores the relation of abstract art to nature. Traditional picturing and sculpture are based on conventions of resemblance between the work and that which it is a representation "of". Abstract works, in contrast, adopt alternative modes of visual representation, or break down and reconfigure the mimetic conventions of pictorial art and sculpture. Obviously this means that abstract art takes many different forms. However, this diversity should not mask some key structural features; these center on two basic relations to nature (understanding nature in the broadest sense to comprise the world of recognisable objects, creatures, organisms, processes, and states of affairs). The first involves abstracting from nature, to give selected aspects of it a new and extremely unfamiliar appearance. The second involves abstract art as the affirmation of a relatively unconstrained natural creativity that issues in new, autonomous forms that are not constrained by mimetic conventions. (Such creativity is often attributed to the power of the unconscious.)The book contains three categories of essays: 1) those on classical modernism (Mondrian, Malevich, Kandinsky, Arp, early American abstraction), 2) those on post-war abstraction (Pollock, Still, Newman, Smithson, Noguchi, Arte Povera, Michaux, postmodern developments), and 3) those of a broader art historical and philosophical scope"--Provided by publisher.
The aim of this book is to provide an account of modernist painting that follows on from the aesthetic theory of Theodor W. Adorno. It offers a materialist account of modernism with detailed discussions of modern aesthetics from Kant to Arthur Danto, Stanley Cavell, and Adorno. It discusses in detail competing accounts of modernism: Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried, Yve-Alain Bois, and Thierry de Duve; and it discusses several painters and artists in detail: Pieter de Hooch, Jackson Pollock, Robert Ryman, Cindy Sherman, and Chaim Soutine. Its central thesis is that modernist painting exemplifies a form of rationality that is an alternative to the instrumental rationality of enlightened modernity. Modernist paintings exemplify how nature and the sociality of meaning can be reconciled.
William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.
Selected Stories of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson: First published in 1900, this book is a collection of short stories by the famous American writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. The book offers insights into Emerson's literary style and philosophy, and showcases his talent for poetic and philosophical writing. Key Aspects of the book "Selected Stories of Ralph Waldo Emerson": Collection of Short Stories: The book is a collection of short stories by Ralph Waldo Emerson, offering readers insights into his literary style and philosophy. Poetic and Philosophical Writing: The book showcases Emerson's talent for poetic and philosophical writing, demonstrating the depth and richness of his literary and intellectual contributions. Celebration of American Literature: The book celebrates the rich tradition of American literature, and showcases the enduring legacy of writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American philosopher, writer, and poet who is known for his contributions to the fields of literature and philosophy. Selected Stories of Ralph Waldo Emerson is a collection of his short stories, and is an important contribution to the field of American literature.
This work by Lithuania's most important philosopher Vasily Sesemann (1884-1963) is a European classic. Having been published in Lithuanian for the first time in 1970 (though written much earlier) it has now finally become accessible to an international public. Sesemann's Aesthetics is not only an extremely useful introduction to the discipline of aesthetics; it also engages in stimulating analyses of a whole range of subjects that remain of interest for the contemporary reader. Sesemann explains in a clear and systematic way almost all problems linked to aesthetic production and perception, providing inquiries into, for example, philosophical problems of space, tectonicity in architecture, and film. Sesemann's personal philosophical vision of aesthetic experience as well as of the ambiguity of aesthetic form makes this book a must for specialists in German and Eastern European interwar philosophy as well as in Russian Formalism.