Jean Delville's La Mission de l'Art: Hegelian Echoes in fin-de-siècle Idealism

2007 ◽  
Vol 11 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 330-372
Author(s):  
Brendan Cole

AbstractJean Delville was not only a gifted painter, but also a prolific author, poet and polemicist. He is unique amongst his artistic contemporaries for having written extensively on the subject of Idealism in art. Idealist philosophy, as an intellectual influence, was fairly pervasive amongst contemporary non-realist authors, poets and painters; the core nineteenth-century influence in this regard was the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer. Delville, however, took a different path, particularly in his seminal book, La Mission de l'Art, and his various polemical essays on the subject, which reflect, rather, key ideas derived from the writings of the German Idealist, G.W.F. Hegel. Hegel's influence on late-nineteenth century non-realist art is understated in the literature. This paper analyses the main ideas of Delville's La Mission de l'Art in the context of Hegelian Idealism. It focuses on key areas of this tradition, specifically with regard to the nature of the Idea and the Ideal, the relation of the Ideal to the natural world, the relation between the Idea and the notion of Beauty and the special role of the artist in revealing the Idea in physical form.

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-88
Author(s):  
Ainul Fithriyah

The variety of thoughts about the optimal attainment of human self and the satisfaction of human life is what may have made Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1868) deny all worldly phenomena. He saw that the world was full of suffering. Humans, as the supreme product of the basic activities of the world, are in fact the most unfortunate creatures. Therefore, humans will be able to achieve happiness when they are able to kill passions and cravings. Studies on the optimal achievement of humans and the meaning of human life from the two figures above, are still important and beneficial to do. Because the concept of the ideal human being is a model and example for us that we can emulate or maybe we can make it happen if we feel fit and believe in the truth. But the question might arise, is it still relevant to study the thoughts of long-dead figures such as Ibn Arabi and Neitzsche? in the opinion of the author, the study of their thinking is still relevant. Because in their thoughts are contained eternal pearls, and because of the peculiarity of each thought. This is evident if we pay attention today, where the thoughts of the two figures are still the subject of study in various countries, both in the West and the East. The works that examine Nietzsche's thoughts about the Ubermensch man include the work of Chairul Arifin, entitled The will to power: Briedrich Nietzsche. This book discusses Nietzsche's views on human beings and his anti-theism. These two thoughts are then connected by the author of this book with Nietzsche's main thought, namely the will to power. And in one of its chapters, the book also examines the concept of Ubermensch Nietzsche. Another work that addresses Nietzsche and Nietzsche's main ideas, including Ubermensch in a separate chapter is Nietzsche by St Sunardi. Besides that, there are other books. Of the books mentioned above and others to the best of the author's knowledge, there has never been found a work that specifically compares Ibn Arabi's insan kamil concept and Nietzsche's Ubermensch concept.


2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Dewi Jones

John Lloyd Williams was an authority on the arctic-alpine flora of Snowdonia during the late nineteenth century when plant collecting was at its height, but unlike other botanists and plant collectors he did not fully pursue the fashionable trend of forming a complete herbarium. His diligent plant-hunting in a comparatively little explored part of Snowdonia led to his discovering a new site for the rare Killarney fern (Trichomanes speciosum), a feat which was considered a major achievement at the time. For most part of the nineteenth century plant distribution, classification and forming herbaria, had been paramount in the learning of botany in Britain resulting in little attention being made to other aspects of the subject. However, towards the end of the century many botanists turned their attention to studying plant physiology, a subject which had advanced significantly in German laboratories. Rivalry between botanists working on similar projects became inevitable in the race to be first in print as Lloyd Williams soon realized when undertaking his major study on the cytology of marine algae.


Modern Italy ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 405-419
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Bruner

In 1886 the Abyssinian chief Debeb became a public figure in Italy as a rapacious colonial bandit. However, over the next five years he acquired additional public personas, even contradictory ones: as a condottiero ally, a ladies’ man, a traitor, a young Abyssinian aristocrat and pretender to an ancient throne, a chivalrous warrior, and a figure representing the frontier and an Africa mysterious and hidden to Europeans. Upon his 1891 death in combat, he was the subject of conflicting Italian press obituaries. For some commentators, Debeb exemplified treacherous and deceitful African character, an explanation for Italy's colonial disappointments and defeats. However, other commentators clothed him in a romanticised mystique and found in him martial and even chivalrous traits to admire and emulate. To this extent his persona blurred the line demarcating the African ‘other’. Although he first appeared to Italians as a bandit, the notion of the bandit as a folk hero (the ‘noble robber’ or ‘social bandit’, Hobsbawm) does not fit his case. A more fruitful approach is to consider his multi-faceted public persona as reflecting the ongoing Italian debate over ‘national character’ (Patriarca). In the figure of Debeb, public debates over colonialism and ‘national character’ merged, with each contributing to the other.


2006 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine D Watson

This article contributes to the literature on the history of medico-legal practice by using a survey of 535 poisoning cases to examine the emergence of forensic toxicological expertise in nineteenth-century English criminal trials. In emphasizing chemical expertise, it seeks both to expand upon a limited literature on the history of the subject, and to offer a contrast to studies of criminal poisoning that have tended to focus primarily on medical expertise. Poisoning itself is a topic of abiding interest to historians of forensic medicine and science because (together with insanity) it long tended to attract the greatest attention (and often confrontation) in criminal proceedings. In looking at a wide number of cases, however, it becomes apparent that few aroused true medico-legal controversy. Rather, the evidence from several hundred cases tried as felonies during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries indicates that prior to the 1830s few presented any opportunity for “a battle of experts”. While Ian Burney and Tal Golan have shown that this was certainly not the case during the mid and late nineteenth century, this paper goes further by dividing the period under study into three distinct phases in order to show how expert testimony (and experts themselves) changed during the course of the century, and why this process opened a door to the potential for formalized controversy.


Author(s):  
Henry A. McGhie

This book explores the life of Henry Dresser (1838–1915), one of the most productive British ornithologists of the mid-late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; it is also an exploration of ornithology during a period when the subject changed dramatically. The book is based on previously unpublished letters, diaries and photographs to provide the first detailed biography of any of the independent industrialist–naturalists who dominated nineteenth century British ornithology. Dresser travelled widely in Europe, New Brunswick and to Texas during the American Civil War before settling down to work in London in the timber and iron trades. He built enormous collections of skins and eggs of birds, many of which came from famous travellers and collectors. These collections formed the basis of over 100 publications on birds including some of the finest and some of the last of the great bird books of the late nineteenth century, combining cutting-edge scientific information with masterpieces of bird illustration. Dresser played a leading role in scientific society and in the early bird conservation movement. His correspondence and diaries reveal the inner workings, motivations, personal relationships and rivalries that existed among the leading ornithologists. This book is aimed at anyone interested in birds, history and natural history, and as a textbook for courses relating to history, history of science and museum studies.


1956 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. F. A. Best

The peculiar problems and difficulties in the way of achieving a national system of elementary education in nineteenth-century England have long been so obvious and notorious that a new attempt at an objective and comprehensive view must seem surprising and rash. My excuse for nevertheless making that attempt is not the discovery of any new material, which, even if it were to become available, could hardly alter the well-known outlines of the harrowing tale as told in the standard histories: nor could much be added to the careful sketch made of the Church's contribution by F. Warre Cornish, or the excellent summary of the educational principles in conflict given by W. F. Connell. To the details of these, and of the distillation of them which appears in the best text-books, I can suggest only one positive amendment. But looking at the matter from the sheltered advantage of one who has not to write a detailed thorough book about it, it seems to me that none of the existing books can do the subject justice, for none of them tells the whole story. If such substantial books as have already been written fail to tell the whole story, it is obvious that a brief article will not succeed in doing so, and I can only aim to suggest something which the ideal complete history must not omit. For more than half a century we have been learning that the issues of Church and State in the Middle Ages can never be understood if Church and State are regarded as susceptible of separate histories. To see them thus is to see two things where men at the time saw but one. Similarly, the problems of Victorian public education cannot properly be understood in their multi-dimensional reality if they are split into categories normal, perhaps, for our own time, but strange to theirs.


Author(s):  
Mark Blacklock

Chapter 4 focuses on the work of Charles Howard Hinton, author of the first Scientific Romances and the least well-known yet most influential theorist of higher space of the late nineteenth century. ‘Hinton was an important mediating figure,’ writes Steven Connor, ‘because, like some of the physical scientists who investigated Spiritualism, his grasp of scientific principles was extensive and subtle.’ Indeed, his work fed into the literature of occult groupings, avant-garde art, Modernist poetry and fiction, and also back into geometry and orthodox science. ‘Cubes’ give a detailed account of Hinton’s work, highlighting his acknowledged and implied sources, Kepler, Kant, and his father, before focusing on his invention of a system of cubes for training the subject in the visualization of higher space. This set of cubes are read as ‘quasi-objects’, things that make fluid the distinction between thinking thing and thing thought on, between mind and material object.


2019 ◽  
pp. 443-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence M. Friedman

This chapter discusses the development of tort law in the second half of the nineteenth century. Tort law experienced its biggest growth spurt in the late nineteenth century. The legal world began to sit up and pay attention. The very first English-language treatise on torts appeared in 1859: Francis Hilliard’s book, The Law of Torts, Or Private Wrongs. Then came Charles G. Addison, Wrongs and Their Remedies in 1860, in England. By 1900, there was an immense literature on the law of torts; Joel Bishop and Thomas M. Cooley had written imposing treatises on the subject; the case law had swollen to heroic proportions. Tort law was a product of the industrial revolution; England here had a head start; problems emerged there first, and so did their tentative legal solutions.


2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlin Donahue Wylie

England's Education Acts in the late nineteenth century made school free and mandatory for all children, filling schools with more and younger students. Visual teaching methods such as blackboard drawing were used to catch young students’ eyes and engage their interest. At the same time, there was high public engagement with natural history and popular science lectures, which built the perception of science as accessible, interesting and useful for people of all social classes. This “science for all” trend along with the new universal education paved the way for nature study, a new school subject based on experiential learning through observation of plants and animals, similar to the popular nineteenth-century pedagogy of object lessons. The many manuals about nature study that were published for teachers in England in the early twentieth century reveal the content, pedagogy, and portrayal of science communicated to young students. Analysis of one manual, Nature teaching on the blackboard (1910), sheds light on typical nature study lessons, including suggested images for teachers to draw on the blackboard. Visual methods of teaching science were not limited to schoolchildren: university lecturers as well as popularizers of science used object lessons and blackboard drawing to educate and entertain their adult audiences. Comparing blackboard teaching of nature study with other educational images and audiences for science explores how multisensory learning and the blackboard brought information about the natural world and engagement with science to the public.


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