On judging works of visual art PDF
Preview On judging works of visual art
rrr^« On Judging Works of Visual Art CONRAD FIEDLER On Judging Works of Visual Art TRANSLATED BY HENRY SCHAEFER-SIMMERN AND FULMER MOOD. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HENRY SCHAEFER-SIMMERN UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley, Los Angeles, London UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA O UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, LTD. LONDON,ENGLAND COPYRIGHT, 1949, 1957, BY THE REGENTS OF TFIE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SECOND EDITION, REVISED CALIFORNIA LIBRARY REPRINT SERIES? EDITION 1978 (with corrections) isbn: 0-520-03597-6 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION I The first edition of this book sold out faster than I expected—though it took eight years. The treatise is not an easy one to read and digest. Moreover, at the time this translation first appeared, the modern artist and his public were showing little interest in such ideas as Fiedler grappled with. I hardly dared look forward to the possibility of a sec¬ ond edition. Nevertheless, in circles where doors are kept open to thoughtful inquiry into the nature and meaning of art, and where it is understood that “art can only be one and the same thing, whatever name is given to it,” Fiedler has certainly contributed to the understand¬ ing of art and of art’s relationship to life. I am espe¬ cially thankful to Sir Herbert Read for having turned to Fiedler for “the basic theory” of his Charges Eliot Norton Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1953 and published in his book Icon and Idea: The Function of Art in the Development of Human Con- Cvd vi Preface sciousness (Harvard University Press) in 1955. He opens his discussion as follows: “ ‘Artistic activity begins when man finds himself face to face with the visible world as with something immensely enigmatical.... In the creation of a work of art, man engages in a struggle with nature not for his physical but for his mental existence.’ “These words were written in 1876 by Conrad Fiedler, whose importance as a philosopher of art is now beginning to be recognized outside Germany. Fiedler was an amateur of the arts and a friend of the most original artists of his time, such as Hans von Marees and Adolph Hildebrand. His fragmentary writings express, in my opinion, a profound under¬ standing of the nature of art. “At any rate, it is from Fiedler that I have taken the basic theory of this book—the theory that art has been, and still is, the essential instrument in the devel¬ opment of human consciousness. The significance of art, Fiedler held, lies in the fact that it is the particular form of activity by which man not only tries to bring the visible world into his consciousness, but even is forced to the attempt by his very nature. Such an activity, Fiedler adds, is not fortuitous, but necessary; its products are not secondary or superfluous, but ab-
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