The New Laokoön: A Periodic System of the Arts

The title of this article reflects the author’s attempts to systematize the arts in their present forms, thereby accommodating the series of ‘technical arts’ that are being added to the system of traditional art forms. The author suggests an original method of classifying the arts that makes it possible to simultaneously graph both the expanding ‘universe of the arts’ and the centripetal tendencies that characterize the integrity of the arts system. He discusses the types of interactions that occur between the different kinds of art forms, as well as the inevitability of strengthening synthetic trends in the artistic culture. The author’s analysis of contemporary technical means of audiovisual communication, together with his system of classifying the arts, is conducted in light of S. M. Eisenstein’s conclusions about the dialectical unity of the ‘progressive-regressive’ trends that determine the synergy of thought and feeling in art.