Aesthetics and the Sociology of Art

Janet Wolff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000376760
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

First published in 1983, Aesthetics and the Sociology of Art provides a lucid account of two divergent tendencies in the study of aesthetics. At the one extreme, traditional aestheticians have assumed that art and literature are wholly independent, following only the laws and inspirations of artists and artistic movements, and that the question of aesthetic value is accordingly unproblematic. At the other extreme, some sociologists have treated works of art as no more than manifestations of the socio-economic circumstances which produce them, arguing that aesthetic value is therefore entirely relative matter. Janet Wolff shows how both the extreme positions are untenable, and argues convincingly that we must accept that the conceptions and criteria of aesthetic value are socially constructed and inevitably ideological, while stopping short of the reductionist alternative which fails to recognise the irreducible questions of pleasure and of aesthetic discourse.

This book provides an invaluably clear guide both to old debates and to otherwise obscure modern controversies, which will be welcomed both by students and scholars in the sociology of art, in aesthetics, in art history, and in literary criticism.

Index

Aesthetic attitude, aesthetic disposition 12, 18, 19–20, 36, 47, 73–7, 79; aesthetic experience 12, 21, 27, 29, 30, 31, 35, 43, 60, 67, 68, 72, 73, 74, 79, 105, 107; aesthetic judgement 11, 12, 17, 19, 20, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 34, 38, 44, 60, 62, 65, 106; aesthetic value, aesthetic evaluation 11, 14, 17, 20, 21, 22, 26, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 58, 59, 62, 65, 67, 68, 72, 76, 79, 90, 95, 105, 106, 107; popular aesthetic 20, 36–7; sociological aesthetics 14, 26, 44, 46, 68, 77, 80, 90, 105–8; sociological critique of aesthetics 11–26, 27, 31, 37, 38, 48; Soviet aesthetics 22; aesthetic neutrality 106; aesthetic ideology 24

Althusser, L. 38, 44–6, 57–8

André, C. 48

Art as ideology 23, 31, 44; abstract art, non-representational art, non-figurative art 23, 24, 48, 66; Greek art 23; history of art 12, 16, 18, 23, 28–9, 31, 83, 93, 105, 107; nineteenthcentury art 18; phenomenology of art 18, 73–8, 79, 8...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• The Sociological Critique of Aesthetics
• Sociology versus Aesthetics
• Political and Aesthetic Value
• The Nature of the Aesthetic
• The Specificity of Art
• Towards a Sociological Aesthetics
• Bibliography
• Index