THE ARTS OF THE BEAUTIFUL

by Etienne Gilson ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 3, 1965

Aesthetics can be a trying subject, trying for the reader and, no doubt, for the aesthetician himself. Moreover, the whole field is booby-trapped; one false step and there goes another neat theory--the haughty shades, from Aristotle to Eliot, looking down at another lost insight. The trouble is finding criteria which are both solid and malleable. Professor Gilson, the noted Catholic philosopher, in this essay written with great finesse and some passion, begins by attacking the notion that art is ""a kind of knowledge,"" claiming that the art which makes things (ars artefaciens) is art's true essence, rather than the things which art makes (ars artefacta). He continues with a formidable display of technical hairsplitting, presenting and reinterpreting Plato and Aristotle, refining certain literary concepts from Goethe to Valery, touching on the radical romanticism of Wagner or Nietzsche, relating each to the distinctions involved between knowing, doing and making as these in turn related to a work of art per se. His argument, while extremely particularized, is very difficult to sum up. For one thing, his approach is scholastic or Thomistic, yet his sensibility views art as an autonomous pleasure- wholeness, perfection, unity, radiance: these are the touchstones. At the end, however, he states: ""And art should be at its best when the cause to be served is religion."" His fine and learned work demands careful consideration, even though, as he himself acknowledges, history ""suggests that artists carried out their work all the more successfully"" when disinterested in any philosophy of art.

Pub Date: May 3, 1965

ISBN: 1564782506

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1965

Categories: NONFICTION