Could it be argued that most aesthetic concepts are theological ones in disguise.
Is art a secular version of the Almighty.
Yes, the work of the artist creating objects which existed entirely for their own sake, free of the vulgar taint of utility. Independence and glorious pointlessness, a foretaste of utopia in its very uselessness.
From Baudelaire to Yeats, the work of art was believed to reconcile the sensuous and the spiritual, or the concrete and the universal. It embodied a kind of mini-Incarnation (a person who embodies in the flesh a deity, Yipes!)
To be stunningly off-handed and casual Art is perfectly capable of saving us. Nietzsche fires a warning shot over our optimism and hope, 'We embrace art, lest we ask why?'
It was no accident that this exalted vision of art grew stronger with the advent of industrial capitalism. The artwork was the enemy of industrial production because it was an example of creativity rather than manufacture. That it was fast becoming just another market commodity made this all the more poignant. If you wanted an example of non-alienated labour, you looked to the poet or painter. The work of art itself could be seen as a peaceable utopian commonwealth, its various elements blended into unity without violence to their particularity. Like the good society, it combined freedom and community.
As the Romantics would assert the aesthetic was the last refuge of mystery in a drably rationalist world, that was emerging in the industrial revolution.Those who found the divinity of Christ hard to accept could turn to Donne or Beckett instead.
Like God, poems and symphonies existed just for the hell of it. As the idea of God was gradually ousted, art was on hand to fill his shoes. Like him, it was a repository of absolute value. Like him, too, it was transcendent, universal, unified, all-seeing and all-sympathetic
However much the artist recycled himself as a secular priest, art could not hold a candle to religion. But art at least had the advantage of indubitably existing, which was more than could be said for the Supreme Being.
However there is a manifest difference, God’s act of creation is from nothing, which can scarcely be said of Jane Eyre, for like cooking and carpentry art requires raw materials.
cooking or carpentry, art requires raw materials
Is art a secular version of the Almighty.
Yes, the work of the artist creating objects which existed entirely for their own sake, free of the vulgar taint of utility. Independence and glorious pointlessness, a foretaste of utopia in its very uselessness.
From Baudelaire to Yeats, the work of art was believed to reconcile the sensuous and the spiritual, or the concrete and the universal. It embodied a kind of mini-Incarnation (a person who embodies in the flesh a deity, Yipes!)
To be stunningly off-handed and casual Art is perfectly capable of saving us. Nietzsche fires a warning shot over our optimism and hope, 'We embrace art, lest we ask why?'
It was no accident that this exalted vision of art grew stronger with the advent of industrial capitalism. The artwork was the enemy of industrial production because it was an example of creativity rather than manufacture. That it was fast becoming just another market commodity made this all the more poignant. If you wanted an example of non-alienated labour, you looked to the poet or painter. The work of art itself could be seen as a peaceable utopian commonwealth, its various elements blended into unity without violence to their particularity. Like the good society, it combined freedom and community.
As the Romantics would assert the aesthetic was the last refuge of mystery in a drably rationalist world, that was emerging in the industrial revolution.Those who found the divinity of Christ hard to accept could turn to Donne or Beckett instead.
Like God, poems and symphonies existed just for the hell of it. As the idea of God was gradually ousted, art was on hand to fill his shoes. Like him, it was a repository of absolute value. Like him, too, it was transcendent, universal, unified, all-seeing and all-sympathetic
However much the artist recycled himself as a secular priest, art could not hold a candle to religion. But art at least had the advantage of indubitably existing, which was more than could be said for the Supreme Being.
However there is a manifest difference, God’s act of creation is from nothing, which can scarcely be said of Jane Eyre, for like cooking and carpentry art requires raw materials.
cooking or carpentry, art requires raw materials
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