Icon and Idea the Function of Art in the Development

The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures

by Herbert Read

Hitherto art has been regarded as a desirable but not essential means of communicating emotions, ideas, and aspirations. In this ground-breaking book the author maintains on the contrary that the aesthetic activity is fundamental rather than peripheral.

Sir Herbert Read describes decisive stages in man’s aesthetic approach to reality. These stages correspond to certain decisive epochs in the history of art—beginning in the Stone Age and continuing to our own time. Each epoch represents a conquest by human consciousness of progressive spheres of existence. In each era the author shows how a new sense of reality is expressed in characteristic works of art.

By approaching universal history from a completely different point of view Sir Herbert has made a significant contribution which in provocative character and scope may well be compared with those of Spengler and Toynbee.

Genres: Art

Paperback

First published December 1, 1955

About the author

Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist poet, and critic of literature and art, also published as Herbert Read.

He was the publisher and editor-in-chief of Jung's collected works in English.

Reviews

[Márcia Figueira · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Esta tesis ha representado a la conciencia humana como un pulpo de dimensiones inimaginables con tentáculos que se extienden constantemente a través de los elementos circundantes, buscando y avanzando por todos lados, sacudiéndose y contrayéndose cuando el peligro se avizora, pero dominando poco a poco su ambiente, aumentado sucesivamente el horizonte de su conocimiento y actividad. En el extremo de cada tentáculo se halla la percepción sensitiva, formadora de imagénes, del artista. Para completar la imagen, debe pensarse que nuestro monstruo sigue una dirección definida, hacia una meta no totalmente avizorada, animado por un instinto que le guía hacia una vida más plena y segura"