Main entry:

Schwartz, Frederic J., 1963-

Title & Author:

Blind spots : critical theory and the history of art in twentieth-century Germany / Frederic J. Schwartz.

Publication:

Description:

xiii, 300 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 254-296) and index.
Fashion: Concepts of style in Wölfflin and Adorno. Cathedrals and shoes. Novelty. The new -- Distraction: Walter Benjamin and the avant-garde. The blur at the centre. Book-space. Excursus I: architecture, photography and the avant-garde. Excursus II: architecture, photography and the baroque. Sight for sore eyes. Distraction. The eye of the expert. Dangerous games -- Nonsimultaneity: Ernst Bloch and Wilhelm Pinder. Enigmas of arrival. History of nonsimultaneity. Philosophy of nonsimultaneity. Styles of nonsimultaneity. Politics of nonsimultaneity -- Mimesis: Physiognomies of art in Kracauer, Sedlmayr, Benjamin and Adorno. Kracauer and Riegl: the problem. Panofsky and Sedlmayr: the options. For Sedlmayr I: his critique. Against Sedlmayr I: bad science. Excursus: Benjamin meets Sedlmayr halfway (but they do not meet). For Sedlmayr II: art historiography as modernism. Against Sedlmayr II: bad poetry, bad philosophy. The visible man. The invisible years. Physiognomies of art and language. Mimic behaviour. The psychophysical problem. Politics as Verhalten: revisiting the expert. Art as Verhaltensweise -- Afterword: Seeing and time/Seeing in time.

Summary:

"Art historians and critics have long found inspiration in the works of Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, Ernst Bloch and Siegfried Kracauer. Indeed, these figures have been crucial to the recent theoretical developments and self-consciousness in the discipline. For their part, the early German critical theorists had a sophisticated sense of the state of the visual arts at the time - from the work of the avant-garde to developments in the academic history of art. This book is the first to focus on the extraordinary symbiosis between critical theory and other discourses of the visual in the first half of the twentieth century.
In four extended case studies, the book traces the way in which central concepts of the aesthetics later termed "Frankfurt School" were deeply rooted in contemporary developments in painting, photography, architecture and films as well as psychology, advertising and the discipline of art history as it was practised by figures such as Heinrich Wolfflin, Erwin Panofsky, Wilhelm Pinder and Hans Sedlmayr. By studying the emergence and importance of the concepts of 'fashion', 'distraction', 'non-simultaneity' and 'mimesis' in the work of the critical theorists, the book traces the shifting intersection between the history of art and the Frankfurt School and seeks to uncover its specific logic.
It argues that artists, art historians and critical theorists were united by a common project: that of exploring those aspects of modernity that could only be revealed by its visual products, of knowing the modern visually."--Jacket.

Resources:
Table of contents
Table of contents
Table of contents
Table of contents
Book review (H-Net)
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description
Rezension
Table of contents
Table of contents

ISBN:

030010829X (cl ; alk. paper)
9780300108293 (cl ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Art Historiography.
Art criticism Germany History 20th century.
Aesthetics, German 20th century.
Frankfurt school of sociology.
Art Historiographie.
Critique d'art Allemagne Histoire 20e siècle.
Esthétique allemande 20e siècle.
École de Francfort (Sociologie)
Aesthetics, German.
Art criticism.
Kritische Theorie
Kunst
Kunstwissenschaft
Germany.
Deutschland

Form/genre:

History.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 249880
Call No.: BIB 179416
Status: Available