The Artist, the true and the just

On the esthetics of the Enlightenment

This book takes a position on the challenges and aims of works of art in terms of truth and morality: it responds, by a detour through the Age of Enlightenment, to contemporary issues on the idea of the moral perfection of the individual. (S. Cavell, M. Nussbaum, S. Laugier). The Age of Enlightenment placed emotions, affects and feelings at the heart of artistic creation, inspired by the conviction of the efficiency of the esthetic education of man, of a sensitive education by the sensitive, in this case by works of art.
Does truth have a meaning in artistic terms? Is our need for art related to our conviction that it makes us better and helps us to understand the world better? The autonomy of a work of art, the freedom of the creator, the devaluation of all esthetic standards in the name of a global turn which constrains us to relativism, today makes this affirmation difficult.  And the sincerity of the author cannot be an argument, as it could be biased. Can criticism claim to be truth? There are several possible interpretations of a work of art, several interpretations which hit home, in the sense that one says of a voice that it is clear and of a piece of clothing that it fits well.
From a few case studies, Danièle Cohn returns to the idea of an end for art (A. Danto) and proposes to base artistic and esthetic judgment on accuracy.

The author

Philosopher Danièle Cohn holds the Chair of Esthetics at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. She has published notably: La Lyre d’Orphée. Goethe and aesthetics (Flammarion, 1999) and Anselm Kiefer. Ateliers (Éditions du Regard, 2012). She edited in French Écrits d’esthétique by W. Dilthey, Hercule à la croisée des chemins by E. Panofsky, Sur l’origine de l’activité esthétique and Aphorismes both by K. Fiedler. She directs the collection “Æsthetica” published by Rue d’Ulm and was the curator of the exhibition, “From Germany, 1800-1939, from Friedrich to Beckmann” at the Louvre in 2013.

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