The search for a democratic aesthetics
Subtitle: Robert Rauschenberg, Walker Evans, William Carlos Williams
By: Alexander Leicht
Series: American studies -- Volume 214; American studies (Munich, Germany) -- v. 214.
Publisher: Universitätsverlag Winter
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Heidelberg
Language: eng
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9783825359485
Subjects: Modernism (Art); Modernism (Literature); Democracy and the arts; History; Criticism and interpretation; American Painting; Artistic Photography; American poetry; Modern Arts
Other titles: Robert Rauschenberg, Walker Evans, William Carlos Williams
Description: "If democracy were an artwork, what would it look like? -Starting from this question and examining the work of three crucial figures from 20th century American painting, photography, and poetry, this monograph proposes a specific way of conceptualising the link between democracy and aesthetics. The book argues that a democratic aesthetics can be properly understood by interpreting a number of formal features of artworks as metaphors for particular key elements of democracy as it is framed in important strands of democratic theory. For example, a certain kind of loose collage coposition can be seen to stand in a metaphorical relationshiop with the structure of a pluralist democratic polity. Systematically developed, this account helps better to udnerstand the democratic quality of individual artworks, and also makes plausible how aesthetics can contribute to the discourse of democratice society."
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.