‘The moral background of the work of art’: ‘character’ in German musical aesthetics, 1780–1850

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Pritchard
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Fine Art ◽  
Musical Aesthetics ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Absolute Music ◽  
Thematic Unity ◽  
Music Aesthetics ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Character Piece

ABSTRACTThe terms ‘character’ and ‘characteristic’ in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries have usually been thought of as having had rather limited significance, often being restricted in application to ‘picturesque’ or ‘realistic’ genres such as the romantic ‘character piece’ or ‘characteristic symphony’. Through a re-examination of Christian Gottfried Körner's 1795 essay ‘On the Representation of Character in Music’ and other contemporary texts, I argue that, on the contrary, these terms are conceptually fundamental to the classical German idealist project of defending music's dignity as a true and morally beneficial fine art. Although persistently misread during the twentieth century as a disguise for concerns with stylistic or thematic unity, the metaphor of ‘character’ was in fact a sophisticated hermeneutic tool and a means of equal discursive engagement for performers, composers and critics. It was only the rise of politically oriented criticism and Wagnerian polemics that undermined the legitimacy of the ‘characteristic’ – a concept that may have a better claim than ‘absolute music’ to be considered the leading idea of the classical and romantic eras in music aesthetics.

„MAGIŠKASIS KAMBARYS“: GYVYBINGA IR PRISITAIKANTI VAISTINĖLĖS TRADICIJA LIETUVOS BAJORŲ NAMUOSE

2018 ◽  
pp. 164-195
Author(s):  
Marius Daraškevičius
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Personal Space ◽  
Community Treatment ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Single Room ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Manor House ◽  
Medicine Cabinet ◽  
Culture Education

The article discusses the causes of emergence and spreading of a still room (Lith. vaistinėlė, Pol. apteczka), the purpose of the room, the location in the house planning structure, relations to other premises, its equipment, as well as the role of a still room in everyday culture. An examination of the case of a single room, the still room, in a noblemen’s home is also aimed at illustrating the changes in home planning in the late eighteenth – early twentieth century: how they adapted to the changing hygiene standards, perception of personal space, involvement of the manor owners in community treatment, and changes in dining and hospitality culture. Keywords: still room, household medicine cabinet, manor house, interior, sczlachta culture, education, dining culture, modernisation, Lithuania.

scholarly journals The use of clay as a medium in contemporary sculpture (1980- 2003)

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Carla Da Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Fine Art ◽  
Significant Shift ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Size Scale ◽  
Contemporary Sculpture ◽  
Clay Materials ◽  
Functional Ceramics

This dissertation investigates the use of clay as a medium in contemporary sculpture made between 1980 and 2003. This research focuses specifically on discussing the artists' (both sculptors and ceramists) different approaches and attitudes to working with clay, from construction, manipulation, firing and glazing techniques through to their personal aesthetics and ideas. This dissertation examines how and why the contemporary sculptor trained in Fine Art is increasingly using clay as a medium in which to work. In addition, the candidate discusses the work of ceramic artists that have moved away from the constraints of earlier, more traditional, functional ceramics and have sought to push the boundaries of clay usage in terms of size, scale, mass and concept. Chapter One presents a broad historical overview of the use of clay in sculpture. This overview illustrates the depth and breadth of the use of clay in the making of sculpture, spanning the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth Century, in order to highlight the significant shift in the use of clay in contemporary sculpture. Chapter Two introduces and discusses a number of contemporary sculptors who work in clay in different ways. Section One examines artists using clay and other materials in the creation of installations. These include Antony Gormley and Andy Goldsworthy. Section Two discusses those artists working with clay in large-scale, including Jun Kaneko and Wilma Cruise. The architectural and environmental use of clay materials is discussed in Section Three; this includes artists John Roloff, who works with the kiln as sculpture and Joyce Kohl, who works with adobe assemblages and steel.

scholarly journals Idealism and the Aesthetics of Instrumental Music at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 387-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Evan Bonds
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Musical Thought ◽  
Absolute Music ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Aesthetic Principle

The growing aesthetic prestige of instrumental music in the last decades of the eighteenth century was driven not so much by changes in the musical repertory as by the resurgence of idealism as an aesthetic principle applicable to all the arts. This new outlook, as articulated by such writers as Winckelmann, Moritz, Kant, Schiller, Herder, Fichte, and Schelling, posited the work of art as a reflection of an abstract ideal, rather than as a means by which a beholder could be moved. Through idealism, the work of art became a vehicle by which to sense the realm of the spiritual and the infinite, and the inherently abstract nature of instrumental music allowed this art to offer a particularly powerful glimpse of that realm. Idealism thus provided the essential framework for the revaluation of instrumental music in the writings of Wackenroder, Tieck, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and others around the turn of the century. While this new approach to instrumental music has certain points of similarity with the later concept of "absolute" music, it is significant that Eduard Hanslick expunged several key passages advocating idealist thought when he revised both the first and second editions of his treatise Vom Musikalisch-Schönen. The concept of "absolute" music, although real enough in the mid-nineteenth century, is fundamentally anachronistic when applied to the musical thought and works of the decades around 1800.

Decadent aesthetics and Richard Marsh’s The Mystery of Philip Bennion’s Death

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Orrells
Keyword(s):  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Fine Art ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Commodification Of Culture ◽  
Music Hall ◽  
Decadent Aesthetics ◽  
Mystery Novel

Richard Marsh’s fiction made a significant contribution to the arguments that circulated during the 1890s about aesthetics and the commodification of culture. The plots of sensational popular novels and the sights and sounds of the music hall were all deemed unworthy, addiction-inducing forces by cultural commentators at the time. This chapter focuses on The Mystery of Philip Bennion’s Death (1892/1897), a murder-mystery novel in which a work of art – a poisoned Renaissance cabinet – apparently kills its owner, a collector of curios: the dangers of art could hardly be more pressing. Marsh’s novel looks back on a century of writers who have associated fine art with crime, from De Quincey’s provocation that murder could be a fine art to Pater’s and Wilde’s interest in the aesthetics of transgression and the entertaining nature of murder. This chapter explores how Marsh's writing was at the heart of 1890s debates about collecting, aestheticism and decadence.

Introduction

Forms of Life ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-74
Author(s):  
Andreas Gailus
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
German Culture ◽  
Temporal Specificity ◽  
Late Eighteenth

The introduction situates the book within the context of contemporary debates about life, spells out the relevance of Ludwig Wittgenstein's later thought to the argument, and explains how literature provides access to the political interiority of human life unavailable to contemporary theories of biopolitics. It also motivates the geographical and temporal specificity of the book, arguing that German culture from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century developed an expanded conception of life as the dynamic drive toward form. It suggests that this dynamic process of formation was seen by many in the German tradition as fundamental not merely to metabolic and bodily life, but equally to the vital processes of aesthetic, psychic, and socio-political phenomena.

Boulez, Pierre (1925-2016)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Personal Development ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Going Public ◽  
Concert Music ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
Pierre Boulez ◽  
History Of ◽  
Listening Habits

French composer Pierre Boulez was one of the most influential composers of the second half of the twentieth century. His personal development mirrored the history of Western concert music. An essential figure in the history of artistic modernism, he was perceived as a leader of the musical avant-garde since 1945. In addition, through his international career as a conductor, he sought to change the listening habits of the concert-going public by initiating them, through concerts and recordings, into the classics of modernism from the first half of the twentieth century (Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Webern, Bartók, Berg, etc.). From serialism, open forms, the interface between instrument and machine, the concern with perceptibility, Boulez’s catalog forms a rich and varied corpus. Although Boulez dispensed with total serialism after a brief but decisive period, his concern with the formal unity of a work of art remained a central concern throughout his career.

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