The Concept of the Animal and Modern Theories of Art

This book examines the importance of the animal in modern art theory, using classic texts of modern aesthetics and texts written by modern artists to explore the influence of the human-animal relationship on nineteenth and twentieth century artists and art theorists. The book is unique due to its focus on the concept of the animal, rather than on images of animals, and it aims towards a theoretical account of the connections between the notions of art and animality in the modern age. Roni Grén's book spans various disciplines, such as art theory, art history, animal studies, modernism, postmodernism, posthumanism, philosophy, and aesthetics.

Ph.D. Roni Grén is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku, Finland. His topics of research have been centered on modern art theory and French culture. Formerly, he has written a book on Georges Bataille's writings on art, and is currently working on research entitled "Prehistory and Modernism."

Table of Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction Part 1 The Exceptionality of the Human Spirit The Human Exception Natural Aesthetics Origin and Language Nature Created in Man's Image To Have and Have Not Part 2 The Animal and the Image Introduction: Discourse and Imagicity Condillac and Animal Imagination Rousseau and the Noble Visual Diderot's Suspicion A Concluding Note Part 3 Art and Evolution Introduction: Darwin's Century The Subjective and the Objective The Crisis of Symbolism and the Violent Other Evolution of the Species and the Creative Sentiment Nietzsche Part 4 The Poetic Lie The Primitive Origin of Art Gaze and the Invisible The World of Abstraction and the Revolution of the Beasts Dream, Debauchery, Myth Part 5 Conclusion: The Modern Other Animalization of Art The Formalist World of Creation The Surrealist Solutions The Animal Itself Afterword Bibliography Index Table of Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction Part 1 The Exceptionality of the Human Spirit The Human Exception Natural Aesthetics Origin and Language Nature Created in Man's Image To Have and Have Not Part 2 The Animal and the Image Introduction: Discourse and Imagicity Condillac and Animal Imagination Rousseau and the Noble Visual Diderot's Suspicion A Concluding Note Part 3 Art and Evolution Introduction: Darwin's Century The Subjective and the Objective The Crisis of Symbolism and the Violent Other Evolution of the Species and the Creative Sentiment Nietzsche Part 4 The Poetic Lie The Primitive Origin of Art Gaze and the Invisible The World of Abstraction and the Revolution of the Beasts Dream, Debauchery, Myth Part 5 Conclusion: The Modern Other Animalization of Art The Formalist World of Creation The Surrealist Solutions The Animal Itself Afterword Bibliography Index