Kate, I'm working on a reply to your inquiry about "Bewty," but this
morning, I reread Worringer's 1908 essay, "Abstraction and Empathy,"
and found a lot in there that we might want to mull over.
In a very short capsule, Worringer says that the familiar art in the
Greco-Roman and Renaissance tradition of naturalistic accuracy and
fidelity was an art of "empathy," one where the viewer felt connected
to the people and scenes depicted--empathy--in contrast to other
cultural traditions that produced flat, often geometrically abstracted
images. The latter, he writes, were inspired by a fear of the natural
world, and the geometricizing and abstracting of the shapes
represented a way for people to hold the fear-inspiring world at a
distance and subordinate it.
I had read this 30+ years ago, and then reread it about 20 years ago.
Without realizing it, I think that some parts of his thesis is infused
in my own assertion that, as I've put it, "Art moralizes nature, and
Nature demoralizes art."
Anyone interested in going a few rounds with Worringer?
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Michael Brady
[email protected]
http://considerthepreposition.blogspot.com/
