Art and Life in Aestheticism: De-Humanizing and Re-Humanizing Art, the Artist and the Artistic Receptor

Art and Life in Aestheticism examines the relationship between the aesthetic and the human realms over the past two hundred years of aestheticism's genealogy in Europe and the Americas. The chronological and transnational scope permits a consideration of the potential social import of literary and artistic creations that purportedly exist for their own sake. Drawing on and expanding the concept of de-humanization put forth by Jose Ortega y Gasset, contributors determine whether or not the de-humanization of art leads to re-humanization, that is, to a deepened relationship between the aesthetic sphere and the world at large, or between the artist or the artistic receptor and his or her human existence. Although not all contributors locate a corresponding process of rehumanization to match, counter, or accompany aestheticism's dehumanizing impulse, they share in the volume's mission of rethinking the underpinnings of the aestheticism movement and its complex treatment of art and life.