Book

Maarten Doorman

The Future of Art

Over vooruitgang in de kunst

A challenging and original contribution to the contemporary artistical and philosophical debate

In this stimulating philosophical essay, Maarten Doorman goes against prevailing trends to argue that, in the arts at least, a belief in progress is still relevant and perhaps essential. The radical freedoms of post-modern permissiveness have had a crippling effect. More than ever before, art is in danger of becoming meaningless. The only way a work of art can acquire meaning is through its context, and the concept of progress is ideally suited as the primary criterion for establishing that context.

Doorman admits that it is no longer possible to echo the classical avant-garde and see progress as surpassing and ‘improving’ that which has gone before. Hegel provided the classical formulation of this concept of history, but Doorman traces the ideas behind it further back to the late seventeenth century and La Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes. By the late twentieth century, this way of thinking has led to a climate of artistic stagnation in which exhausted avant-garde movements replace each other at ever-decreasing intervals.

Doorman believes that progress can guide art in a very different way. He sees the history of art as a process of constant accumulation. A painting like Velazquez’s Las Meninas does not disappear when Picasso paints a new version of it. Both canvases comment on each other and this doubling enriches the meaning of each. These increasingly complex interrelationships lead to progress in both the sensibility of the observer and the significance of the works of art. This eloquent essay is the first step to a solution for the indifference that bogs down postmodernism. Enlivened by a host of historical examples, the book is a challenging and original contribution to the contemporary art debate.

Steeds mooier contains an erudite and well-written analysis of an issue that satisfies all the criteria for ongoing discussion and is worthy of that discussion.

Vrij Nederland

His book is much more than a provocation (…) In the most stimulating passages he endeavours to show clearly how valuable the notion of progress can still be.

de Volkskrant

A wealth of inspiration.

Het Parool

Translations

Maarten Doorman

Professor Maarten Doorman (b. 1957) is a philosopher and writer. He teaches the philosophy of culture at Maastricht University and is Endowed Professor of History of German Culture at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He has contributed to the national newspapers NRC, de Volkskrant and the weekly De

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Details

Steeds mooier. Over vooruitgang in de kunst (1994). Non-fiction, 304 pages.
Copies sold: 2,500

With illustrations, notes and references

Publisher

Prometheus

Herengracht 540
NL - 1017 CG Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 624 19 34
Fax: +31 20 622 54 61

E-mail:
[email protected]
Website:
https://www.uitgeverijprometh…

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