The book critically examines the increasing application of evolutionary theory and neuroscience in the interpretation of art. It delves into the benefits and insights gained from integrating biological sciences into art analysis, questioning how these interdisciplinary approaches enhance understanding of artistic expression and its impact on human experience.
The book delves into Nietzsche's engagement with the aesthetic tradition, particularly his interactions with Kant and Hegel. It emphasizes the importance of negation and sublimity in his artistic philosophy, positioning his ideas as a response to modern nihilism. By examining Nietzsche's extensive writings and his critiques of various cultural figures, the text reveals how he challenges contemporary culture through a dialectical approach to aesthetics. This exploration connects Nietzsche's thoughts to the negative dialectics of Theodor Adorno, enriching the discourse on art and modernity.
Nietzsche, Aesthetics and Modernity analyzes Nietzsche's response to the aesthetic tradition, tracing in particular the complex relationship between the work and thought of Nietzsche, Kant, and Hegel. Focusing in particular on the critical role of negation and sublimity in Nietzsche's account of art, it explores his confrontation with modernity and his attempt to posit a revitalized artistic practice as the countermovement to modern nihilism. It also highlights the extent to which Nietzsche counters the culture of his own time with a dialectical notion of aesthetic interpretation and practice.
The art historian Aby M. Warburg and the philosopher Walter Benjamin are widely respected as two of the most significant cultural theorists of the twentieth century. Their common interests in historiography, the function of collective memory, and the relation of modern society to earlier stages of human social existence, were important examples of the attempt to articulate, analyse and represent the experience of modernity. Drawing on a variety of discourses from aesthetics, art history, anthropology and psychology, they presented an account of modernity and human development that represented an important counter to the optimistic belief in progress prevalent amongst their contemporaries. Rarely, however, have the connections between these two thinkers been explored in depth. This volume consists of an exploration of the intellectual relation between them, considering their varying responses to the question of the meaning of modernity, and above all their common legacy for the present.