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This book examines the importance of the animal in modern art theory, using classic texts of modern aesthetics and texts written by modern artists to explore the influence of the human-animal relationship on nineteenth and twentieth century artists and art theorists. The book is unique due to its focus on the concept of the animal, rather than on images of animals, and it aims towards a theoretical account of the connections between the notions of art and animality in the modern age. Roni Grén's book spans various disciplines, such as art theory, art history, animal studies, modernism, postmodernism, posthumanism, philosophy, and aesthetics.
List of contents
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1 The Exceptionality of the Human Spirit
The Human Exception
Natural Aesthetics
Origin and Language
Nature Created in Man's Image
To Have and Have Not
Part 2 The Animal and the Image
Introduction: Discourse and Imagicity
Condillac and Animal Imagination
Rousseau and the Noble Visual
Diderot's Suspicion
A Concluding Note
Part 3 Art and Evolution
Introduction: Darwin's Century
The Subjective and the Objective
The Crisis of Symbolism and the Violent Other
Evolution of the Species and the Creative Sentiment
Nietzsche
Part 4 The Poetic Lie
The Primitive Origin of Art
Gaze and the Invisible
The World of Abstraction and the Revolution of the Beasts
Dream, Debauchery, Myth
Part 5 Conclusion: The Modern Other
Animalization of Art
The Formalist World of Creation
The Surrealist Solutions
The Animal Itself
Afterword
Bibliography
Index
Table of Contents
List of FiguresAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart 1 The Exceptionality of the Human SpiritThe Human Exception
Natural Aesthetics
Origin and Language
Nature Created in Man's Image
To Have and Have Not
Part 2 The Animal and the ImageIntroduction: Discourse and Imagicity
Condillac and Animal Imagination
Rousseau and the Noble Visual
Diderot's Suspicion
A Concluding Note
Part 3 Art and EvolutionIntroduction: Darwin's Century
The Subjective and the Objective
The Crisis of Symbolism and the Violent Other
Evolution of the Species and the Creative Sentiment
Nietzsche
Part 4 The Poetic LieThe Primitive Origin of Art
Gaze and the Invisible
The World of Abstraction and the Revolution of the Beasts
Dream, Debauchery, Myth
Part 5 Conclusion: The Modern OtherAnimalization of Art
The Formalist World of Creation
The Surrealist Solutions
The Animal Itself
AfterwordBibliographyIndex
About the author
Ph.D. Roni Grén is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku, Finland. His topics of research have been centered on modern art theory and French culture. Formerly, he has written a book on Georges Bataille's writings on art, and is currently working on research entitled "Prehistory and Modernism."
Summary
This book examines the importance of the animal in modern art theory. It focuses on the conceptual connections between the notions of art and animality in art theory between the 1750s and 1950s, and clarifies the status of the animal under modernity.
