A Theory of Art

by Berger, Karol

• ISBN13: 9780195128604
• ISBN10: 0195128605
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

What, if anything, has art to do with the rest of our lives, and in particular with those ethical and political issues that matter to us most? Will art created today be likely to play a role in our lives as profound as that of the best art of the past? A Theory of Art shifts the focus of aesthetics from the traditional debate of "what is art?" to the engaging question of "what is art for?" Skillfully describing the social and historical situation of art today, author Karol Berger argues that music exemplifies the current condition of art in a radical, acute, and revealing fashion. He also uniquely combines aesthetics with poetics and hermeneutics. Offering a careful synthesis of a wide breadth of scholarship from art history, musicology, literary studies, political philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics, and written in a clear, accessible style, this book will appeal to anyone with a serious interest in the arts.

Author Biography

Karol Berger is Osgood Hooker Professor in Fine Arts at Stanford University.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Function and Value of Art	p. 3
Aesthetics: The Ends of Artworks	p. 13
Aesthetics I. The Nature of Art	p. 15
The Media of Culture	p. 15
Visual Media	p. 19
Music	p. 28
Language	p. 39
Works and Performances, Originals and Copies	p. 52
Representations and Arguments	p. 57
Aesthetics II. The Uses of Art	p. 65
The Ethical Life	p. 65
Art and History	p. 75
Art and Philosophy	p. 80
Art, Religion, and the State	p. 90
Pleasure	p. 99
Aesthetics III. The Genealogy of Modern European Art Music	p. 108
Social Practices and Their Histories	p. 111
Functional and Autonomous Music	p. 115
The Rise of Mimetic Music	p. 120
The Rise of Abstract Music	p. 133
The Cold War of Mimesis and Abstraction	p. 139
The Significance of Abstraction	p. 152
Poetics and Hermeneutics: The Contents and Interpretation of Artworks	p. 163
Poetics I. Diegesis and Mimesis: The Poetic Modes and the Matter of Artistic Presentation	p. 165
The Voices	p. 166
The Modes in Painting and Music	p. 170
The Author, Implied and Real, Dead and Alive	p. 184
Poetics II. Narrative and Lyric: The Poetic Forms and the Object of Artistic Presentation	p. 189
Narrative and Lyric	p. 190
The Forms in Painting and Music	p. 196
Action and Passion	p. 202
Hermeneutics. Interpretation and Its Validity	p. 213
Interpretation: Metaphor and Metonymy	p. 213
Validity: Persuasion and Legitimacy	p. 227
Epilogue: The Power of Taste	p. 235
Notes	p. 245
Selected Bibliography	p. 269
Index	p. 277
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