Philosophers on Art from Kant to the Postmodernists

Growing interest in the relation between Continental aesthetics and visual studies makes this book essential reading, presenting texts which have not yet been available in such a comprehensive form. It is therefore indispensable for both introductory courses on aesthetics and advanced seminars on art theory. -- Kalliopi Nikolopoulou, State University of New York, Buffalo The selection of texts in Christopher Kul-Want's anthology is excellent. It covers all the necessary ground, while including some very nice, unexpected additions, such as selections from Georges Bataille and Jean-Luc Nancy. -- Michael Newman, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Here, for the first time, Christopher Kul-Want brings together twenty-five texts on art written by twenty philosophers. Covering the Enlightenment to postmodernism, these essays draw on Continental philosophy and aesthetics, the Marxist intellectual tradition, and psychoanalytic theory, and each is accompanied by an overview and interpretation. The volume features Martin Heidegger on Van Gogh's shoes and the meaning of the Greek temple; Georges Bataille on Salvador Dali's The Lugubrious Game; Theodor W. Adorno on capitalism and collage; Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes on the uncanny nature of photography; Sigmund Freud on Leonardo Da Vinci and his interpreters; Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva on the paintings of Holbein; Freud's postmodern critic, Gilles Deleuze on the visceral paintings of Francis Bacon; and Giorgio Agamben on the twin traditions of the Duchampian ready-made and Pop Art. Kul-Want elucidates these texts with essays on aesthetics, from Hegel and Nietzsche to Badiou and Ranciere, demonstrating how philosophy adopted a new orientation toward aesthetic experience and subjectivity in the wake of Kant's powerful legacy.