Georg Simmel: Rembrandt: An Essay in the Philosophy of Art / Edition 1

by Alan Scott, Helmut Staubmann

Overview

First published in 1916 in German, this important work has never been translated into English—until now. Simmel attacks such questions as "What do we see in a work of Art?" and "What do Rembrandt's portraits tell us about human nature?" This is a major work by a major thinker concerning one of the world's most important painters.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415926690
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/06/2005
Pages:	198
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Georg Simmel (1858-1918) was a German sociologist of high regard. His most famous work, which Routledge also publishes, is The Philosophy of Money.
Alan Scott is Professor and Helmut Staubmann is Associate Professor, both in the Department of Sociology at the University of Innsbruck, Austria.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	vii
	Translators' Note	ix
	Editors' Introduction	xi
	Simmel's Preface to the First Edition of 1916	1
Chapter 1	The Expression of Inner Life	5
	Continuity of Life and the Movement of Expression	5
	Being and Becoming in a Portrait	8
	The Series of Portraits and Drawings	11
	Reserve and Openness of the Portrait Figure	13
	The Circle in the Depiction of a Person	16
	The Animation of the Portrait	20
	Subjective Realism and the Self-Portrait	24
	Artistic Procreation	27
	Life's Past in the Painting	32
	The Representation of Movement	38
	The Unity of the Composition	42
	Clarity and Detailing	47
	Life and Form	51
Chapter 2	Individualization and the General	61
	Type and Representation	61
	Two Conceptions of Life	66
	Notes on the Individuality of Form and on Pantheism	68
	Death	70
	Character	79
	Beauty and Perfection	81
	The Individuality of the Renaissance and of Rembrandt	87
	Types of Generality	91
	The Art of Old Age	96
	The Aspatial Gaze	98
	Mood	100
	Human Fate and the Heraclitean Cosmos	101
Chapter 3	Religious Art	111
	Objective and Subjective Religion in Art	111
	Piety	113
	Concrete Existence and Religious Life	118
	The Type of Unity in the Religious Paintings	122
	Individual Religiosity, Mystique, and Calvinism	124
	Inner Quality [Seelenhaftigkeit]	130
	Religious-Artistic Creation	132
	Light: Its Individuality and Immanence	135
	Excursus: What Do We See in a Work of Art?	142
	Dogmatic Contents	151
	In Conclusion	155
	The Capacity to Create and to Fashion	155
	Antitheses in Art	160
Appendix	Works of Art Mentioned in the Text with Their Dates and Current Locations	163
	Notes	167
	References from Editors' Introduction and Notes	173
	Index of Names and Works	175