Art Without Borders

by Scharfstein, Ben-Ami

• ISBN13: 9780226736099
• ISBN10: 0226736091
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-04-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

People all over the world make art and take pleasure in it, and they have done so for millennia. But acknowledging that art is a universal part of human experience leads us to some big questions: Why does it exist? Why do we enjoy it? And how do the world's different art traditions relate to art and to each other? Art Without Bordersis an extraordinary exploration of those questions, a profound and personal meditation on the human hunger for art and a dazzling synthesis of the whole range of inquiry into its significance. Esteemed thinker Ben-Ami Scharfstein's encyclopedic erudition is here brought to bear on the full breadth of the world of art. He draws on neuroscience and psychology to understand the way we both perceive and conceive of art, including its resistance to verbal exposition. Through examples of work by Indian, Chinese, European, African, and Australianartists,Art Without Bordersprobes the distinction between accepting a tradition and defying it through innovation, which leads to a consideration of the notion of artistic genius. Continuing in this comparative vein, Scharfstein examines the mutual influence of European and non-European artists. Then, through a comprehensive evaluation of the world's major art cultures, he shows how all of these individual traditions are gradually, but haltingly, conjoining into a single current of universal art. Finally, he concludes by looking at the ways empathy and intuition can allow members of one culture to appreciate the art of another. Lucid, learned, and incomparably rich in thought and detail,Art Without Bordersis a monumental accomplishment, on par with the artistic achievements Scharfstein writes about so lovingly in its pages.

Author Biography

Ben-Ami Scharfstein is professor emeritus of philosophy at Tel Aviv University. He is the author of numerous books, including Mystical Experience, A Comparative History of World Philosophy, Ineffability: The Failure of Words in Philosophy and Religion, and Of Birds, Beasts, and Other Artists: An Essay on the Universality of Art.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Note on Transliteration	p. xiii
An Open Aesthetics	p. 1
Why There Is Art
The Aesthetic Dimension of Life
Being Aware
Seeing
Remembering
Preferring
Forgetting Self
Grasping
Theorizing
Selfless Tradition	p. 73
Tradition, Traditionalism
Problems Anthropologists Encounter and Create
The Anthropology of Art
Ceremonial Celebrations of Life
Memory Preserved
Authenticity
Ephebism
Four Symbolic Images
From Apprentices to Masters
Exacting Rules
Classicism and Archaism
Chinese Connoisseur, Archaist, Collector
Creative Copying from the Chinese Past
Classicism in European Art
Creative Copying from the European Past
The Ideal of the Anonymous Craftsman
The Metaphysical Ideal
Egocentric Innovation	p. 181
Egocentricity against Tradition
Inspiration, Heroism, and Uniqueness
Islamic Hero-Artists
Hero-Artists of the European Renaissance
"Genius"
Genius, Melancholy, Madness
The Romantic/Egocentric Artist
Chinese Romantic/Egocentric Amateurs
Indian Romantic/Egocentric Artists
"Primitive" Romantic/Egocentric Artists
African Artists' Creative Egocentricity
All Alike, All Different
Intersecting Worlds and Identities	p. 264
Creative Chaos
The Camera's Liberating Light
Historical Relativity
The Encompassing Influence of Japan
Gauguin and Other Savages
European Borrowing
Japanese and Chinese Borrowing
The Excessive Past of Chinese and Western Art
Symbolic Deaths and Erasures of the Past
Modern "Primitives": Creating and Debating Identities
The Common Universe of Aesthetic Discourse	p. 360
Human Perceptual and Emotional Responses
Old and New Criteria of Judgment
Fame and Price
Diminishing the Subjectivity of Judgment
Local Art and Universal Art
Judging Art Fairly
Fusion, Oscillation, Realism, Equilibrium, Beauty
The Snow Woman as a Universal Paradigm
The West: Intimations of Neoplatonism
Africa: Statue-like Beauty and Goodness and Clarity
India: Depersonalized Emotion
China: Reverberations of the Life-Breath
Japan: Beauty Tempered by Regret
The Common Universe of Aesthetic Discourse
Final Thoughts
Notes	p. 439
Index	p. 521
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