This book provides a clear and informed account of aesthetic and callistic concepts as they occur in the works of Plato and Aristotle. The author illustrates their ideas on art and beauty by close ref
This book provides a clear and informed account of aesthetic and callistic concepts as they occur in the works of Plato and Aristotle. The author illustrates their ideas on art and beauty by close ref
After more than ten years teaching ancient Greek history and philosophy at University College, Oxford, the British philosopher and political theorist Bernard Bosanquet (1848–1923) resigned from his post to spend more time writing. He was particularly interested in contemporary social theory, but he was also concerned with philosophical questions about art and aesthetics. In this area, Bosanquet had been influenced by William Morris (1834–96) and John Ruskin (1819–1900), as well as the German philosopher Hegel (1770–1831), and their ideas underlie this book, published in 1892. Bosanquet considered aesthetic theory to be a branch of philosophy, and this work focuses on the evolution of theories about beauty. He begins by considering influential ancient Greek and Roman concepts before seeking out the aesthetic consciousness of the middle ages. The latter part of the book is concerned with theories from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophers.
Repetition and symmetry are the fundamental aesthetic principles underlying the shape and decoration of ancient Athenian vases. This book is the first comprehensive study of the role of repetition beyond its aesthetic value, and as part of a code that conveys meaning to the viewer. Relying on the theoretical background provided through information theory and narratology, Ann Steiner uncovers the different kinds of meaning that painters created through the use of repetition. Using the reading of painted verbal inscriptions as a springboard, she demonstrates how repetition of imagery in multiple fields of a vase can create narration, paradigm, exploration of perceptual and ideological points of view, and parody. Steiner shows how the results of repetition on Archaic Athenian vases reiterate the activities of the elite symposion and the broader cultural values of the elite Athenians. She provides an entirely new way to read ancient Athenian vases.
Repetition and symmetry are the fundamental aesthetic principles underlying the shape and decoration of ancient Athenian vases. This book is the first comprehensive study of the role of repetition beyond its aesthetic value, and as part of a code that conveys meaning to the viewer. Relying on the theoretical background provided through information theory and narratology, Ann Steiner uncovers the different kinds of meaning that painters created through the use of repetition. Using the reading of painted verbal inscriptions as a springboard, she demonstrates how repetition of imagery in multiple fields of a vase can create narration, paradigm, exploration of perceptual and ideological points of view, and parody. Steiner shows how the results of repetition on Archaic Athenian vases reiterate the activities of the elite symposion and the broader cultural values of the elite Athenians. She provides an entirely new way to read ancient Athenian vases.
This book sets out to clarify the nature of the aesthetic as a category within the theory of historical materialism. It opens with an analysis of Marx’s brief discussion of Greek art in the Grundrisse
This book offers a resolution of the paradox posed by the pleasure of tragedy by returning to its earliest articulations in archaic Greek poetry and its subsequent emergence as a philosophical problem in Plato's Republic. Socrates' claim that tragic poetry satisfies our 'hunger for tears' hearkens back to archaic conceptions of both poetry and mourning that suggest a common source of pleasure in the human appetite for heightened forms of emotional distress. By unearthing a psychosomatic model of aesthetic engagement implicit in archaic poetry and philosophically elaborated by Plato, this volume not only sheds new light on the Republic's notorious indictment of poetry, but also identifies rationally and ethically disinterested sources of value in our pursuit of aesthetic states. In doing so the book resolves an intractable paradox in aesthetic theory and human psychology: the appeal of painful emotions.
This book offers a resolution of the paradox posed by the pleasure of tragedy by returning to its earliest articulations in archaic Greek poetry and its subsequent emergence as a philosophical problem in Plato's Republic. Socrates' claim that tragic poetry satisfies our 'hunger for tears' hearkens back to archaic conceptions of both poetry and mourning that suggest a common source of pleasure in the human appetite for heightened forms of emotional distress. By unearthing a psychosomatic model of aesthetic engagement implicit in archaic poetry and philosophically elaborated by Plato, this volume not only sheds new light on the Republic's notorious indictment of poetry, but also identifies rationally and ethically disinterested sources of value in our pursuit of aesthetic states. In doing so the book resolves an intractable paradox in aesthetic theory and human psychology: the appeal of painful emotions.
