Art and Anarchy

by Edgar Wind, Duckworth Company Staff, Duckworth Co., Ltd.

Will works of the imagination ever regain the power they once had to challenge and mould society and the individual? This was the question posed by Edgar Wind's influential Reith Lectures delivered in 1960 and later expanded into his book Art and Anarchy. The book examines the various forces that have fashioned the modern view of the art, from mechanization and fear of intellect to connoisseurship and--perhaps the fundamental weakness of our age--the dispassionate acceptance of art. In the course of his discussion, Wind surveyed a wide range of topics in the history of painting, literature, music, and the plastic arts from the Renaissance to modern times.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Politics, Philosophy

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Edgar Wind was a German-born British interdisciplinary art historian, specializing in iconology in the Renaissance era. He was a member of the school of art historians associated with Aby Warburg and the Warburg Institute as well as the first Professor of art history at Oxford University. He is most well known for his research in allegory and the use of pagan mythology during the 15th and 16th centuries, and for his book on the subject, Pagan Mysteries of the Renaissance.

Reviews

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit warbling, but who isn't prey to the songbird erudition of the grand old lecture? Wind is the eccentric genius of the house, pottering around with oddly vivacious eyes and, just when you think you've got him pigeonholed at a conservative gust of wind emitting from you know not where, he turns everything around with a sly trick and you realize he's got the whole thing figured out.

Ok, or: an old school art critic in the line of someone like Aby Warburg or, in a latterday descendent, Daniel Heller-Roazen. These are transcribed lectures with heavy notes that range from classical scholarship and philosophy to the likes of Croce or Robbe-Grillet, and if you find them and all these names strike your fancy then get while the getting's good is what I say.

[jabuticaba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scorrevole e godibile a livelli insperati

[Jorge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me gustaron unos capítulos más que otros pero creo que algunas notas a pie de imagen son demasiado extensas y caen en un bonus informativo o anécdota lo cual en ocasiones uno disfruta pero en otras te hace perder el hilo, por lo demas buen libro.

[Natasha Uzdensky]

Too much art, not enough anarchy

[Tudor · Rating 4 out of 5]

an interesting argument but one that is essential a conservative reaction against art, i would post my review, but my prof considered it too much of a polemic

[Roger Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book offers some insight into aesthetic discourse in the mid twentieth century. Easy to read BBC lectures from 1960 that tepidly hint at wilder things to come.