Thomas Crombez

The murder of art. It sounds like the title of a thriller. That is exactly what the history of aesthetics is. Western philosophical tradition begins with a condemnation of art. The Greek philosopher Plato banished artists and poets from his ideal society. All they could produce were false shadow images. In contrast, from the eighteenth century onwards, art was also glorified by numerous thinkers. According to the Romantics, art was the bearer of a truth that escaped the concepts of philosophy. The murder of art, or the glorification of art. In both cases, art functioned as a challenge to philosophy. This book traces the history of aesthetics. At the same time, it provides a cross section of the history of philosophy.

A Historical Introduction to Aesthetics

The Murder of Art

Luk Van den Dries

Jelle Koopmans

Frank J. Peeters

Karel Vanhaesebrouck

Overzicht van de Westerse theatergeschiedenis met aandacht voor de sociale betekenis en de maatschappelijke status van het theater, afgesloten met een bespreking van een aantal Vlaamse theatermakers.

een westerse geschiedenis

Theater

Arthur Cools

Johan Taels

Rosa Slegers

Ask for the tragic and Europe will answer. Leaving behind the philosophers’ enthusiasm of the nineteenth century, ‘tragedy’ and ‘the tragic’ now seem little more than vague containers. However, it appears that we still discover a tragic essence in our personal lives. This book wants to open a contemporary philosophical perspective on the tragic.

The Locus of Tragedy

Ideological heterogeneity in mass plays in Flanders and the Netherlands In many European countries mass theatre was a widespread expression of ‘community art’ which became increasingly popular shortly before the First World War. From Max Reinhardt’s lavish open-air spectacles to socialist workers’ Laienspiel (lay theatre), theatre visionaries focused on ever larger groups for entertainment as well as political agitation. Despite wide research on the Soviet and German cases, examples from the Low Countries have hardly been examined. However, mass plays in Flanders and the Netherlands had a distinctive character, displaying an ideological heterogeneity not seen elsewhere. Mass Theatre in Interwar Europe studies this peculiar phenomenon of the Low Countries in its European context and sheds light on the broader framework of mass movements in the interwar period.

Flanders and the Netherlands in an International Perspective

Mass Theatre in Interwar Europe

What does it mean to violate the law on a theatrical stage? This is the central question in the following examination of modern theatre, beginning with the avant-garde, but also including the contemporary and iconoclastic work of the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio. For the historical avant-garde, art could be the gateway to a new and liberated reality. But then all of existing reality first had to be demolished, and its laws consistently violated. Ultimately, this transgressive programme ends in discouragement and self-sabotage. Such an 'anti-theatre' has been explored most extensively in the writings of the French director and essayist Antonin Artaud. A careful exploration of Artaud's work, emphasizing his actual theatrical productions, shows that this paradox does not necessarily lead to a dead end. Generalized transgression may lead to a theatre that belongs more to philosophy than to art itself.

Thomas Crombez

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