Art in Crisis: The Lost Center

by Sedlmayr,Hans

• ISBN13: 9781412806077
• ISBN10: 1412806070
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2006-11-15
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The history of art from the early nineteenth century onward is commonly viewed as a succession of conflicts between innovatory and established styles that culminated in the formalism and aesthetic autonomy of high modernism. In Art and Crisis, first published in 1948, Hans Sedlmayr argues that the aesthetic disjunctures of modern art signify more than matters of style and point to much deeper processes of cultural and religious disintegration.

Author Biography

Hans Sedlmayr (1896-1984) was a founding member of the New Vienna School of art historians

Table of Contents

Transaction Introduction	xiii
Introduction	1	(1)
The Theme	1	(4)
Limitations of the Thesis	5	(4)
Part One SYMPTOMS
New Master Problems	9	(51)
The Withering of the old Composite Works of Art	11	(3)
The Landscape Garden	14	(6)
The Architectural Monument	20	(7)
The Museum	27	(5)
Utilitarian and Domestic Architecture	32	(3)
Domestic Building	35	(3)
The Theatre	38	(9)
The Exhibition	47	(7)
Theatre and Exhibition	54	(1)
The House of the Machine	54	(4)
Summary	58	(2)
The Search for a Lost Style	60	(19)
All Tasks claim Equality of Status	62	(3)
The Egalitarianism of the first Architecture of the Revolution	65	(1)
Stylistic Compromise: Neo-Hellenism and Neo-Gothic	66	(2)
Pluralism of Styles	68	(2)
The Neo-Renaissance as a total Restoration	70	(2)
The Rise of Technical Architecture	72	(1)
Egalitarianism of the Second Revolution: The New Building	73	(2)
Reaction: Neo-Classicism as a Mask	75	(1)
The Beginnings of a new Pluralism	76	(1)
Party Warfare of Style in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries	77	(2)
The Isolation of the Arts	79	(16)
The 'Pure' Garden	80	(1)
Autonomous Architecture	80	(2)
Pure Sculpture	82	(1)
The Art of the Line Drawing	83	(1)
The Art of Pure Drawing and the Silhouette	83	(1)
Pure Painting	84	(1)
Extrusion from Painting of the Element of Architecture	85	(1)
Pictures confined to the purely visible	86	(1)
'Absolute Painting', 'Absolute Drawing' and 'Absolute Sculpture'	87	(1)
By-products of the Picture's disintegration	87	(1)
The Death of the Composite Work of Art	88	(1)
The Death of Iconology	89	(2)
The Death of the Ornament	91	(1)
The Dissolution of the Boundaries of Art	92	(3)
The Attack on Architecture	95	(17)
The Garden Revolution, the Dethronement of Architecture	95	(1)
Artificial Ruins	96	(1)
The First (Unconscious) Revolution against Architecture	97	(5)
The Revolution continues underground	102	(1)
The Revolt of the Ornament against Architecture	102	(2)
The Second Revolution against Architecture: The Denial of the Earth Base	104	(4)
Unstable Architecture	108	(1)
The Abolition of Architecture	109	(3)
The Significance of the Fragment	112	(4)
The Torso	113	(3)
Chaos Unleashed	116	(31)
The Revolution in Painting	116	(1)
The Demons (Goya)	117	(4)
The Desolation of Man (C. D. Friedrich)	121	(3)
Man Distorted (The Caricature)	124	(3)
The Meaninglessness of the World (Grandville)	127	(2)
Pure Seeing (Cezanne)	129	(6)
Unfettered Painting and Chaos	135	(6)
The Chaos of Total Decay	141	(6)
Part Two DIAGNOSIS AND PROGRESS OF THE DISEASE
'Analogia Morbi'	147	(23)
The Loss of the Mean	152	(1)
The Flight from Humanism	153	(3)
Away from Man	156	(4)
Descent to the Inorganic	160	(5)
Descent to the Chaotic	165	(2)
'Analogia Morbi'	167	(3)
'Autonomous' Man	170	(7)
The Problem of Causes	170	(1)
The Disturbance is Total	171	(2)
Autonomous Art and Autonomous Man	173	(2)
Structure of the Disturbance	175	(2)
At the Origins of the Present	177	(7)
Deism and its Consequences	177	(1)
The Pantheism of Holderlin	178	(3)
Anti-theism	181	(1)
Causes of the Disturbance	181	(3)
Precursors of Modern Art	184	(12)
Demonism and the Late Romanesque	184	(2)
Bosch and the Kingdom of Hell	186	(3)
Mannerism and the Nearness of Death	189	(3)
Bruegel and the Degradation of Man	192	(2)
Summary	194	(2)
The Three Artistic Revolutions of the Eighteenth Century	196	(6)
Rococo	197	(2)
England's Role	199	(1)
French Revolution	200	(1)
Summary	200	(2)
From the Liberation of Art to the Negation of Art	202	(9)
The Course of the Disease	203	(1)
First Phase (1770--1830)	204	(1)
Second Phase (1830--1840)	205	(1)
Third Phase (1840--1885)	205	(1)
Fourth Phase (Latent from 1885, Overt since 1900)	206	(1)
The Agents of the Process	206	(1)
The Present	207	(4)
Part Three TOWARDS A PROGNOSIS AND A FINAL JUDGEMENT
An Evaluation of the Epoch	211	(5)
Towards an Evaluation of Modern Art	216	(8)
Artistic Standards	216	(5)
In Defence of the Extremists	221	(3)
Modern Art as the Fourth Phase of Western Art	224	(12)
First Phase: God---Temporal Rule; Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque (550--1150)	225	(3)
Second Phase: God Incarnate; 'Gothic' (1140--1470)	228	(2)
Third Phase: The God-Man and Man the God; Renaissance and Baroque (1470--1750)	230	(4)
Gothic and Renaissance-Baroque	234	(1)
Fourth Phase: Autonomous Man; The Modern Age (1750--?)	234	(2)
Today as the Turning Point in the History of Man	236	(7)
The Ageing of Civilization	236	(2)
Dehumanization	238	(2)
World-wide Diffusion	240	(1)
Future Possibilities	241	(2)
Prognosis	243	(11)
The Position in the Field of Art	245	(3)
The Position in the Field of Material Culture	248	(3)
The Position in the Intellectual Field	251	(1)
The Spiritual	252	(2)
Postscript	254	(9)
Four Ways of Considering Art	256	(7)
Index of Persons	263