Berger, Karol - A Theory of Art

This philosophical theory of art, addressed to anyone with a serious interest in the arts, has three main objectives: to shift the focus of aesthetics from the question What is art?; to describe the social and historical situation of art today; and to combine aesthetics with poetics and hermeneutics. A distinctive feature of the book is its argument that music exemplifies the current condition of art in a particularly revealing fashion.

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CONTENTS

Prologue. The Function and value of art
Part I.Aesthetics: the end of artworks
1. Aesthetics I. The nature of art
2. Aesthetics II. The uses of art
3. Aesthetics III. The genealogy of modern European art music
Part II.Poetics and hermeneutics: the contents and interpretation of artworks
4. Poetics I. Diegesis and mimesis: the poetic modes and the matter of artistic presentation
5. Poetics II. Narrative and lyric: the poetic forms and the object of artistic presentation
6. Hermenetics. Interpretation and its validity
Epilogue. The power of taste
Notes