The Use and Abuse of Art (The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts) - Hardcover

Barzun, Jacques

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691099030 ISBN 13: 9780691099033

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1974

Synopsis

The lecturer traces the historical development of attitudes toward the arts over the past 150 years, suggesting that the present is a period of cultural liquidation, nothing less than the ending of the modern age that began with the Renaissance.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"When an extremely intellectual, extremely experienced, extremely wise man shares his thoughts with others, the result seizes the imagination at once. Such is the effect of these essays, a series given as lectures at the National Gallery in 1973. Mr. Barzun examines art as religion, as destroyer, as redeemer, and in relation to what he calls "its temper, science", but never forgets the basic essential. As he says, "the last word on art should indeed be: mystery. But that need not stop any of us from dealing with it as if we understood more than we can". And how good it is to have one's mind stretched to that understanding of "more.""--Virginia Quarterly Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1974
• ISBN 10: 0691099030
• ISBN 13: 9780691099033
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 150