Abstraction and Empathy by Wilhelm Worringer

Abstraction and Empathy by Wilhelm Worringer

Wilhelm Worringer's landmark study in the interpretation of modern art, first published in 1908, has seldom been out of print. Its profound impact not only on art historians and theorists but also for generations of creative writers and intellectuals is almost unprecedented. Starting from the notion that beauty derives from our sense of being able to identify with an object, Worringer argues that representational art produces satisfaction from our objectified delight in the self, reflecting a confidence in the world as it is-as in Renaissance art. By contrast, the urge to abstraction, as exemplified by Egyptian, Byzantine, primitive, or modern expressionist art, articulates a totally different response to the world: it expresses man's insecurity. Thus in historical periods of anxiety and uncertainty, man seeks to abstract objects from their unpredictable state and transform them into absolute, transcendental forms. Abstraction and Empathy also has a sociological dimension, in that the urge to create fixed, abstract, and geometric forms is a response to the modern experience of industrialization and the sense that individual identity is threatened by a hostile mass society. Hilton Kramer's introduction considers the influence of Worringer's thesis and places his book in historical context.

Worringer's little book is an enduring classic-- James Sloan Allen * Arts and Letters *

Wilhelm Worringer (1881–1965) was an art historian who lectured and taught at the universities of Bern, Königsberg, and Halle. Hilton Kramer is editor of The New Criterion.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9781566631778
ISBN 10	1566631777
Titel	Abstraction and Empathy
Autor	Wilhelm Worringer
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Paperback
Verlag	Ivan R Dee, Inc
Erscheinungsjahr	1997-10-01
Seitenanzahl	168
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis	Nicht verfügbar