1. Shiner on the apotheosis of art
Shiner – Part IV, The Apotheosis of Art
Chap Art as Redemptive Revelation (Larry Shiner. The Invention of Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
The new view of art as an independent realm
Heinrich Heine – commenting on the followers of Goethe, they “regard art as an independent second world which they rank so highly that all activities of human beings – their religion, their morality – course along below it” (1830).
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2. Shiner on the apotheosis of art
With this new status of art came new institutions & professions
Concert halls
Museums
Art dealers
For some, art replaced religion; for others it was placed on the same level as religion
Art gives one access to a spiritual realm
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3. Shiner on the apotheosis of art
Shelley: Poetry brings “light and fire from those eternal regions where the owl-winged faculty of calculation dare not ever soar.”
Hegel’s “speculative theory of art.”
Clive Bell – the experiences of art are “so valuable That I have been tempted to believe that art might prove the world’s salvation” (1914).
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4. Shiner on the new ideal of the artist & work of art
The common features of this new view of art
Art is an autonomous realm
Art gives access to the spiritual
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5. Shiner on the new ideal of the artist & work of art
Chap. 11 – The Artist: A Sacred Calling
New view of the artist – a spiritual vocation, a seer, a spiritual visionary
William Blake – “A Poet, a Painter, a Musician, an Architect: the Man or Woman who is not one of these is not a Christian. You must leave Father and Mother and House and Lands if they stand in the way of Art” (1820).
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6. Shiner on the new ideal of the artist & work of art
The German Nazarenes ( s) movement & the British Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood ( s)
The model to whom many artists appealed as the apotheosis of this new ideal – Beethoven
Shelley – “Poets are unacknowledged legislators of the world” (“Defense of Poetry”)
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7. Shiner on the new ideal of the artist & work of art
Traits of the ideal artist
Person of creative imagination
Person who is free to create what she wishes
Modeste Mussorgsky – “The Artist is a law unto himself.”
Some artists cultivated the image of the Bohemian
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8. Shiner on the new ideal of the artist & work of art
The true artist is a sufferer, misunderstood by society (203)
Term avant-garde first used in late 19th century to refer to the most advanced art
With the rise in the status of the artist, the image of the artisan (craftsman) declined
Demise of small workshops & traditional skills
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9. Shiner on the new ideal of the artist & work of art
Traits of traditional workshops (206)
Hierarchical
Learned the entire process
Pace of work
Traditional tools & techniques
Cf. to the new factory system
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10. Shiner on the triumph of the aesthetic
chap “Silences: Triumph of the Aesthetic”
Learning the new rules for experiencing art
Emile Zola’s story (1877) of a wedding party’s visit to the Louvre
Museums had become temples, churches
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11. Shiner on the triumph of the aesthetic
New division of theatres into those that performed high art & those that performed popular plays
Similar division of concert halls
Battle for proper behavior continued
Edward Baxter Perry – Audiences must rise above the “mere sensuous pleasure or superficial enjoyment, to a higher Spiritual aesthetic gratification.”
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12. Shiner on the triumph of the aesthetic
The popularity of the idea that there is a special aesthetic faculty or distinct features of aesthetic experience
Proper aesthetic distance
Disinterested (vs utilitarian)
Contemplative attitude
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13. Shiner on the triumph of the aesthetic
With the rise of the aesthetic went the decline of beauty
Beauty to closely aligned with mimeticism
And too closely associated with prettiness
The problem of art & society
Wilde, Gautier, & Whistler vs Tolstoy, Ruskin & Courbet
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14. Shiner on the triumph of the aesthetic
Why did this issue emerge at this time?
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