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Books 165 Inquiries into the Fundamentals of Aesthetics. Stefan Morawski. Foreword by Monroe C. Beardsky. The M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, Mass. and London, England, 1974.408 pp. f17.00. Reviewed by Arnold Berleant* This collection of critical essays by the Polish aesthetician Morawski is impressive in its scope and scholarly detail. He offers richly comprehensive investigations of a considerable range of theoretical issues in aesthetics, informed by an enlightened and flexibleMarxist historicism. Someexplore basic, highly abstract problems that concern philosophers of art, such as the nature of a work of art, criteria of value and of the evaluation of art, the objectivity of aesthetic judgment, expression in art and the significanceof mimesis and realism in the arts. Other essays ponder more specific problems with a strong social and historical component, as in the last third of the book the author examines such matters as the history of the theroetical basis of Socialist Realism, art and society, the functions of art in conditions of alienation, the use of quotation in art and questions of pornography and obscenity in art. The thoroughness with which the author discusses these matters is fully equal to their scope and importance without, as he often observes, entirely exhausting their complexity. Morawski proceeds as on a broad canvas. He characteristically offers a comprehensive typology for the problem under discussion, elucidating each category with numerous clearly described examples, patiently shaping and clarifying the discussion until his own position emerges as a carefully considered, balanced, yet independent stance on the issue. While his predilections are clearly drawn, they appear as tolerant, undogmatic conclusions, responsive to the complexity of the issues and to the history of the arts. He thus effectively avoids slipping into the pitfall of aestheticians of all ideologies and cultures-legislating for artists. Indeed, the breadth of his acquaintance with the arts, including recent and contemporary artists and movements, is outstanding. To treat briefly here specific ideas from a work of such scope and detail would be as much misleading as a disservice. For this reason, someoverall observations must suffice.One may note, in general, that the very comprehensiveness of the author’s treatment has the tendency to obscure the effectivealternatives in many issues. At times the scaffolding of categories he erects to scale a problem takes on a certain unwieldiness. For example, Morawski’s classification of the principal functions of art by using the characters of Orpheus, Prometheus and Philoctetes from Greek mythology seems arbitrary and unclear, both in the categories themselves and in the characters employed to represent them. More basic is his acceptance of the customary division of the aesthetic field into the distinct and separate elements of artist, art object and perceiver, and his insistenceon the necessity for distancing art and keeping the aesthetic clearly demarcated from itspractical and cultural interconnections. This leads him necessarily to assign a high degree of autonomy to works of art and, thus, to encounter difficulties with certain contemporary movements that work directly from the denial of these discontinuities. Indeed, one may claim that the special challenge of present-day aesthetics lies in exposing the many subtle, ineradicable and necessary intertwinings of social, technological and cultural strands amongst the aesthetic. And, indeed, a view of art thoroughly integrated with its surrounding culture requires a theory that will expose and develop those continuities without sacrificing its aesthetic identity. For a scholar as sensitive as Morawski to the social and historical influences on the arts, such a theory would seem to be of particular necessity. Yet, unlike many commentators, he is thoroughly aware of these interconnections and, in opting for an enlightened but essentially traditional aesthetics, he is nonetheless flexible and aware of its inadequacies. Finally, Morawski has a remarkable command of language, but the complexity of his subject matter is matched by the intricacy of his style. This, joined with the excessively personal intrusion of the author into his material, is an inessential difficultyin a work whose substance and scope demand that it be taken seriously. *25, Highfield Road. Glen Cove, NY 11542, U.S.A FormsandTheir Meaning in Western Art. Lincoln Rothschild. A. S. Barnes, Canbury, N. J.. 1976.352 pp.. illus. $15.00. Reviewed by Winifred...

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