scholarly journals The Imperceptibility of Style in Danto's Theory of Art: Metaphor and the Artist's Knowledge

CounterText ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 366-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Work Of Art ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Aesthetic Style ◽  
Artistic Interpretation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Artistic Theory ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Mind

Arthur Danto's analytic theory of art relies on a form of artistic interpretation that requires access to the art theoretical concepts of the artworld, ‘an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld’. Art, in what Danto refers to as post-history, has become theoretical, yet it is here contended that his explanation of the artist's creative style lacks a theoretical dimension. This article examines Danto's account of style in light of the role the artistic metaphor plays in the interpretation of the artwork, arguing that it is unable to account for the metaphorical power he claims is embedded within the work of art. An artist's style issues from a unique perspective, the way an artist inhabits a specific spot in history. Though each person has such a perspective, when applied aesthetically, it is the key to the articulation of a unique historical meaning in the work of art. At the same time, artists' knowledge of their contribution remains cut off from this perspective, for they are unaware of their self-manifestation of the historical concept of style. This article makes the case that Danto's notion of style, based on Sartre's notion of being-for-itself, cannot fulfil the role he allots it in his theory because, at some level, artists must apprehend their style to create a work of art capable of functioning critically as a countertext. It is only through the apprehension of their style, and dialogical activity that takes place between the artist and the beholders, that the unseen body of artworld theory is formed. Without this, when oriented to the aesthetic, style provides no concept or theory for the mind to behold. This article presents an alternative approach to style that recognizes the role of theory in the creation of metaphor, which would circumvent this problem.

Music and the Body in the History of Medicine

2018 ◽  
pp. 332-348
Author(s):  
James Kennaway
Keyword(s):  
Music Therapy ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
The Body ◽  
Scientific Racism ◽  
Nervous Stimulation ◽  
Positivist Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Mind

This chapter sets out the ways that changing medical ideas of listening have influenced thinking on music, in ways that go much deeper than the sometimes-marginalized phenomenon of music therapy. After setting out the role of medicine and the body in the cosmological speculation and humoral conceptions of the body from antiquity until the seventeenth century, it examines the way that medical ideas of listening as nervous stimulation have been used to explain the aesthetic, emotional, moral, therapeutic, and even pathological power of music. It then considers how these ideas developed in the nineteenth century in the context of idealist aesthetics and positivist science, including not only anatomy and psychiatry but also gynecology, phrenology, and “scientific racism.” Finally, it looks at changing thinking on music, the body, and the mind from Sigmund Freud to contemporary neuroscience.

Idleness and Freedom in Michel de Montaigne’s “Essays”

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-202
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Spiritual Quest ◽  
Guiding Principle ◽  
Sextus Empiricus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship

The article advances a hypothesis about the composition of Michel de Montaigne’s Essays. Specialists in the intellectual history of the Renaissance have long considered the relationship among Montaigne’s thematically heterogeneous thoughts, which unfold unpredictably and often seen to contradict each other. The waywardness of those reflections over the years was a way for Montaigne to construct a self-portrait. Spontaneity of thought is the essence of the person depicted and an experimental literary technique that was unprecedented in its time and has still not been surpassed. Montaigne often writes about freedom of reflection and regards it as an extremely important topic. There have been many attempts to interpret the haphazardness of the Essays as the guiding principle in their composition. According to one such interpretation, the spontaneous digressions and readiness to take up very different philosophical notions is a form of of varietas and distinguo, which Montaigne understood in the context of Renaissance philosophy. Another interpretation argues that the Essays employ the rhetorical techniques of Renaissance legal commentary. A third opinion regards the Essays as an example of sprezzatura, a calculated negligence that calls attention to the aesthetic character of Montaigne’s writing. The author of the article argues for a different interpretation that is based on the concept of idleness to which Montaigne assigned great significance. He had a keen appreciation of the role of otium in the culture of ancient Rome and regarded leisure as an inner spiritual quest for self-knowledge. According to Montaigne, idleness permits self-directedness, and it is an ideal form in which to practice the freedom of thought that brings about consistency in writing, living and reality, in all of which Montaigne finds one general property - complete inconstancy. Socratic self-knowledge, a skepticism derived from Pyrrho of Elis and Sextus Empiricus, and a rejection of the conventions of traditional rhetoric that was similar to Seneca’s critique of it were all brought to bear on the concept of idleness and made Montaigne’s intellectual and literary experimentation in the Essays possible.

Fracturismul în câmpul literar românesc

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Mihnea Bâlici
Keyword(s):  
Social Reality ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Literary Expression ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Priority ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Revolutionary History ◽  
Contemporary Author

Fracturism proved to be the “spearhead” of the 2000 generation. The first and by far the most radical literary group formed after 1989, this promotion became the cultural expression of a difficult context in the post-revolutionary history of Romania. The aim of this study is to analyze the origin, the function and the effects of the Fracturist ideas proposed by Marius Ianuș and Dumitru Crudu in 1998. Most literary interpretations failed to capture the specificity of this promotion. This is due to the fact that the aesthetic program was never a priority for the Fracturists. It can be emphasized that Fracturism appeared in a specific set of historical, political, social, institutional and cultural circumstances. The present analysis aims to clarify the complex links between the difficult post-communist transition, the crisis of the Romanian literary field and the ostentatious literary expression of the new authors. In this regard, a certain performative dimension of fracturism can be theorized: the poets and prose writers of the new millennium will militate against a distressing social reality by changing the very role of the contemporary author.

Epilogue

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Emison
Keyword(s):  
Sound Recording ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Changing Role

The span of this book is roughly that of directors who had started out in silent pictures reaching the end of their careers, including their transitions to color. The introduction of sound recording and color both transformed filmmaking, not least its cost. Misgivings were voiced early on about the moral effect of the new art, even as censorship was deplored. Mannerism as an art-historical concept was being developed to supplement that of Renaissance naturalism even as filmmakers were trying to reconcile the realism to which photography might seem suited with the artificiality it also enabled. Although studying the history of film inevitably dredges up evidence of racism, sexism, and other prejudices, the history of film, like the history of art, is too complex and has long been too deeply engrained in our cultural lives for historians to choose to be ignorant of once admired works we may now in part or thoroughly deplore, as well as minor yet elucidating works that may likewise be problematic, at least in part. The supposition that respect is the default response to any work of art underestimates the changing role of laughter and other forms of active disregard, particularly during the last century.

Τὸ καλόν as a Criterion for Judging Innovation (τὸ καινόν) in Greek Musical Pedagogy

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-32
Author(s):  
Antonietta Gostoli
Keyword(s):  
Lyric Poetry ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
And Training

Abstract The Pseudo-Plutarchan De musica provides us with the oldest history of Greek lyric poetry from pre-Homeric epic poetry to the lyric poetry of the fourth century BC. Importantly, the work also contains an evaluation of the role of music in the process of educating and training citizens. Pseudo-Plutarch (Aristoxenus) considers the καλόν in the aesthetic and ethical sense, which makes it incompatible with the καινόν dictated by the new poetic and musical season.

scholarly journals CREATION OF A SPIRITUAL ATMOSPHERE OF A SACRED SPACE

2021 ◽  
pp. 16-27
Author(s):  
Liliia Gnatiuk
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
General Situation ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Constant Feature ◽  
Human Thinking ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Art And Architecture

The article analyzes the history of changes in the role of art and the meaning of the symbol in the formation of the sacred space of architecture, which is presented through the consideration of the symbolic understanding of material forms and objects in the traditional and modernist representation. The historical development of the concept of symbol and its representation in art and architecture is presented. The development of the aesthetic category of "beauty" in historical development is represented. Three theories of understanding the concepts of the symbol are considered: "traditional", "hegelian" and "cashier", which in the twentieth century had almost the same influence. The source of origin and interpretation of the content of the symbol in the sacred space is presented. The role of a person (artist and recipient) is analyzed, which is to read the revealed symbols and write them in language, myths or art in a way accessible to human resources. The phenomenon of perception in certain visible figures of objects is an expression of a more general situation, an expression of a certain type of views or collective beliefs. Symbols pointing out not to the sacred reality, but to certain intellectual tendencies, social situations or expressions of culture are singled out. Contradictions in the perception of sacred space and reading the symbolism of its content are considered. Religion, art, science, language are presented as forms of human thinking about reality with forms of epistemologically understandable symbol. The need to take into account the relationship between certain forms and messages that are transmitted through them in the formation of sacred space. There is also an attempt to adapt the principles of modernism to the needs of the formation of sacred space based on the concept of "seven plans" by Rudolf Schwartz, in which after the suspension of historical knowledge seeks the essence of the phenomenon, understood as its constant feature.

scholarly journals Curating the Fieldwork Playlist

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Kieran Fenby-Hulse
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technologies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Voice

In this essay, I consider the music that has been chosen as part of the previous essays in this collection. I attempt to understand what this assemblage of musical tracks, this anthropology playlist, might tell us about fieldwork as a research practice. The chapter examines this history of the digital playlist before going on to analyse the varied musical contributions from curatorial, musicological, and anthropological perspetives. I argue that the playlist asks us to reflect on the field of anthropology and to consider the role of the voice, the body, the mind with anthropology, as well as the role digital technologies, ethics, and the relationship between indviduals and the community.

scholarly journals HUMBERTO RIVAS, DESDE LO ROMÁNTICO Y LO SINIESTRO. HUMBERTO RIVAS FROM THE ROMANTIC AND THE SINISTER.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Antonio Aristizábal
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Photographic Image ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
Initial Hypothesis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Inner World ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Siglo Xx ◽  
Eugenio Trias

Palabras clave:Fotografía, estética, Humberto Rivas, Rafael Argullol, Eugenio Trías.Keywords: Photography, esthetic, Humberto Rivas, Rafael Argullol, Eugenio Trías.Resumen:El siguiente artículo busca dar una lectura a la obra del fotógrafo Humberto Rivas, Premio Nacional de Fotografía y unos de los mayores exponentes de la fotografía española de finales del siglo XX. Se parte de la convicción de que hace falta ubicar a Humberto Rivas en una tradición de pensamiento estético, ya que las distintas lecturas que existen sobre su trabajo, aunque importantes, no han  dejado de ser lecturas impresionistas que no han reflexionado en profundidad sobre su obra. Este artículo trata de ver a Rivas a partir de unas categorías estéticas. Para ello se remite a las reflexiones de Rafael Argullol para distinguir aquello propio del artista romántico, y a las aportaciones filosóficas de Eugenio Trías acerca de lo siniestro en la obra de arte, y las vincula a la obra de Humberto Rivas. La hipótesis inicial es de que Rivas no se sentía como un fotógrafo que atrapa momentos o documenta acontecimientos, sino como un creador, y su obra es resultado de un artista que se repliega sobre sí mismo con la intención de producir una imagen reflejo de su mundo interior, la cual se puede explicar desde la mente del artista romántico, aunque el contexto no sea el romanticismo. Por último, aunque el artículo hable sobre Humberto Rivas, también es una manera de construir un relato entre la imagen fotográfica y distintos valores estéticos que hacen parte la historia del arte. Abstract:The following article seeks to give a reading to the work of photographer Humberto Rivas, National Photography Prize and one of the greatest exponents of Spanish photography at the end of the 20th century. It is based on the conviction that it is necessary to locate Humberto Rivas in a translation of aesthetic thought, since the different readings that exist on his work, although important, have not ceased to be Impressionist readings that have not reflected in depth on his work . This article tries to see Rivas from some aesthetic categories. For this he refers to the reflections of Rafael Argullol to distinguish that of the romantic artist and the philosophical contributions of Eugenio Trías about the sinister in the work of art, and links them to the work of Humberto Rivas. The initial hypothesis is that Rivas did not feel like a photographer who catches moments or documents events, but as a creator, and his work is the result of an artist who recoils on himself with the intention of producing a reflex image of Its inner world, which can be explained, from the mind of the romantic artist although the context is not romanticism. Finally, although the article talks about Humberto Rivas, it is also a way to build a narrative between the photographic image and the values ​​that have served to interpret painting or sculpture in the history of art.

scholarly journals “Natural” in the philosophical and moralistic literature of the XVII century

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-45
Author(s):  
Nataliya Vladimirovna Zaуtseva
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
External Reality ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
Xviii Century ◽  
Xvii Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Tradition ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Aesthetic Ideal

In philosophy, “natural” is viewed as an ontological characteristic of the objects of internal and external reality along with the concept of “artificial”. However, in the XVII century, the philosophical and moralistic literature undergoes aestheticization. Numerous appeals of the writers, moralists and philosopher, as well as dialogues and arguments on the topic of “natural” indicate that this was of crucial importance for the aesthetic thought of the XVII century. The answer to the question ‘what natural is’ has become the cornerstone of the new gallant aesthetics, and in behavior was associated with fluency and aristocratic inattention, which are opposed to pomposity and affectation. In art, “natural” was perceived as a desire to purge from the Baroque ostentation. In literature, it is the result of hard work on the language that allows achieving lightness and fluency. Ultimately, in the philosophical thought, “natural” is perceived as the correspondence with truth. Until the present, the question of aestheticization of the “natural” did not draw the attention of Russian researchers. This is partly explained by the historical tradition. Russia enters the European philosophical thought only in the Era of Enlightenment in the XVIII century; thus, the XVII century seems somewhat archaic on the background of the topical issues. However, the XVII century is the advent of the history of modern philosophical and aesthetic thought, and creates the foundation of modern European mentality. This period marks the formation of the new aesthetic ideal, new aesthetic norms, and the system for assessing the work of art, which assign an important role to the “natural”.

A Cultural History of Memory in the Eighteenth Century

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Age Of Revolution ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic

The Cultural History of Memory in the Eighteenth Century places in sharp relief the contrast between inspiring ideas that heralded an auspicious future and immemorial traditions that cherished a vanishing past. Waxing large during that era was the European Enlightenment, with its projects for reform and optimistic forecasts about the prospect of making a better world. Heritage was reframed, as martyrs for the cause of religious liberty and heroes for the promotion of the arts and sciences were enshrined in a new pantheon. They served as icons marking a pathway toward a presumed destiny, amid high hopes that reason would triumph over superstition to guide the course of human affairs. Such sentiments gave reformers a new sense of collective identity as an imagined community acting in the name of progress. Against this backdrop, this volume addresses a variety of themes in memory’s multi-faceted domain, among them mnemonic schemes in the transition from theist to scientific cosmologies; memory remodeled in the making of print culture; memory’s newfound resources for introspection; politics reimagined for the modern age; the nature of tradition reconceived; the aesthetics of nostalgia for an aristocracy clinging to a tenuous identity; the lure of far-away places; trauma in an age of revolution; and the emerging divide between history and collective memory. Along the way, contributors address such topics as the idea of nation in early modern politics; the aesthetic vision of Hubert Robert in his garden landscapes; the transforming effects of the interaction between mind and its mnemonic satellites in print media; Shakespeare remembered and commemorated; the role of memory in the redesign of historiography; the mediation of high and popular culture through literature; soul-searching in female autobiography; and commemorative practices during the French Revolution.

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