Art Matters

In the face of a great work of art, we so often stand mute, struck dumb. Is this a function-perhaps the first and foremost-of aesthetic experience Or do we lack the words to say what we feel Countering current assumptions that art is valued only according to taste or ideology, Peter de Bolla gives a voice-and vocabulary-to the wonder art can inspire. Working toward a better understanding of what it is to be profoundly moved by a work of art, he forces us to reconsider the importance of art works and the singular nature and value of our experience of them.In many ways a "practical aesthetics," Art Matters proceeds by way of example. Through chapters attending to three works of art-Barnett Newman's painting Vir Heroicus Sublimis, pianist Glenn Gould's second recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, and William Wordsworth's poem "We Are Seven"-de Bolla plots a personal history of aesthetic experience that opens up the general forms of art appreciation. His book invites us to a closer encounter with art, and to a deeper appreciation and clearer expression of what such an encounter might hold.
Author: de Bolla, Peter

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Binding: Hardcover

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0674006496

ISBN-13: 9780674006492