The notion of beauty as a point of transit between the sensuous and the ideal is well-established in the history of Western philosophy. Describing this transition and seeking to rethink the ways in which humans understand the things they find beautiful in life, Harry Underwood's The Experience of Beauty comes at the notion of beauty through the insights of major but distinctively individual philosophers and artists. In seven essays and a dialogue, Underwood considers the principal instances of beauty as it reveals itself in everyday experience, as a concept in the mind of the philosopher, as the artist's vision, and as the shining image of the ideal. Considering the perspectives of many notable figures in the Western canon of philosophy and literature for whom beauty and the imagination have mattered, including Plato, Nietzsche, Auden, Coleridge, Proust, and Iris Murdoch, Underwood draws out a rounded sense of beauty. It is shown to be, on one view, inherent in a perceptible order and, on another, to be an expression of the will to confer meaning on a meaningless world. In art, beauty reveals itself to be both perceived and created, and a world-disclosing, truth-relaying force. As a final matter, Underwood asks what it means to embrace your own vision of beauty and apply it to your life's work. A quietly provocative meditation on the mystery of beauty, this collection of essays contends that beauty serves life as an inspiration, not merely as an ornament.--$cProvided by publisher.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Description conventions
- rda
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 111/.85
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 23
- Distributor
- Canadian Electronic Library (Firm),
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- ISBN
- 9780773599826 9780773548015
- LCCN
- BH39
- LCCN Item number
- U53 2016eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xiv, 183 pages)
- Published in
- Ottawa, Ontario
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)kck00237039 (OCoLC)956441062 (CaOOCEL)451701
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- Contents 8
- Preface 10
- Acknowledgments 16
- 1 The Experience of Beauty 20
- 2 Platonic Desire 46
- 3 Nietzsche’s Artist and His Thinker 72
- 4 A Dialogue on Truth, Love, Beauty, and Art 96
- 5 Seeing and Making in Art 107
- 6 On Truth in Art 128
- 7 Proust’s Vision 142
- 8 The Beauty Within 158
- Notes 180
- Some Further Reading 188
- Index 190
- A 190
- B 191
- C 192
- D 192
- E 193
- F 193
- G 193
- H 194
- I 194
- J 194
- K 194
- L 194
- M 195
- N 196
- O 196
- P 196
- Q 198
- R 198
- S 198
- T 199
- U 199
- V 199
- W 199
