Georg Simmel: Essays on Art and Aesthetics

ISBN: 022662093X

Author: Simmel, Georg

Condition: New

Georg Simmel is one of the most original German thinkers of the twentieth century and is considered a founding architect of the modern discipline of sociology. Ranging over fundamental questions of the relationship of self and society, his influential writings on money, modernity, and the metropolis continue to provoke debate today.Fascinated by the relationship between culture, society, and economic life, Simmel took an interest in myriad phenomena of aesthetics and the arts. A friend of writers and artists such as Auguste Rodin, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Stefan George, he wrote dozens of pieces engaging with topics such as the work of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Rodin, Japanese art, naturalism and symbolism, Goethe, art for arts sake, art exhibitions, and the aesthetics of the picture frame.This is the first collection to bring together Simmels finest writing on art and aesthetics, and many of the items appear in English in this volume for the first time. The more than forty essays show the protean breadth of Simmels reflections, covering landscape painting, portraiture, sculpture, poetry, theater, form, style, and representation. An extensive introduction by Austin Harrington gives an overview of Simmels themes and elucidates the significance of his work for the many theorists who would be inspired by his ideas.Something of an outsider to the formal academic world of his day, Simmel wrote creatively with the flair of an essayist. This expansive collection of translations preserves the narrative ease of Simmels prose and will be a vital source for readers with an interest in Simmels trailblazing ideas in modern European philosophy, sociology, and cultural theory.