Rembrandt: An Essay in the Philosophy of Art

by Georg Simmel, Alan Scott (Editor), Helmet Staubmann

First published in 1916 in German, this important work has never been translated into English--until now. Simmel attacks such questions as "What do we see in a work of Art?" and "What do Rembrandt's portraits tell us about human nature?" This is a major work by a major thinker concerning one of the world's most important painters.

Genres: Philosophy, Art

198 pages, Paperback

First published June 6, 1985

About the author

Georg Simmel was a major German sociologist, philosopher, and critic.

Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach laid the foundations for sociological antipositivism, asking 'What is society?' in a direct allusion to Kant's question 'What is nature?', presenting pioneering analyses of social individuality and fragmentation. For Simmel, culture referred to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been objectified in the course of history". Simmel discussed social and cultural phenomena in terms of "forms" and "contents" with a transient relationship; form becoming content, and vice versa, dependent on the context. In this sense he was a forerunner to structuralist styles of reasoning in the social sciences. With his work on the metropolis, Simmel was a precursor of urban sociology, symbolic interactionism and social network analysis. An acquaintance of Max Weber, Simmel wrote on the topic of personal character in a manner reminiscent of the sociological 'ideal type'. He broadly rejected academic standards, however, philosophically covering topics such as emotion and romantic love. Both Simmel and Weber's nonpositivist theory would inform the eclectic critical theory of the Frankfurt School.

Simmel's most famous works today are The Problems of the Philosophy of History (1892), The Philosophy of Money (1907), The Metropolis and Mental Life (1903), Soziologie (1908, inc. The Stranger, The Social Boundary, The Sociology of the Senses, The Sociology of Space, and On The Spatial Projections of Social Forms), and Fundamental Questions of Sociology (1917). He also wrote extensively on the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, as well on art, most notably his book Rembrandt: An Essay in the Philosophy of Art (1916).

Reviews

[Ľubomír Šottník · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esej Rembrandt od sociológa Georga Simmela je čitateľská výzva. Simmel sa svojej tvorbe venoval estetike a umeniu, no týmto dielom sa úplne odklonil od svojej obvyklej tvorby, a napísal úctyhodnú filozofickú reflexiu azda najznámejšieho holandského maliara.
Simmelova interpretácia Rembrandtovej tvorby nie je len subjektívne uvažovanie, ale výsledok systematickej vedeckej práce aj vyše sto rokov po pôvodnom vydaní si len ťažko hľadá konkurenciu.
Minulý rok vyšiel slovenský preklad, tak ak máte blízko k umeniu a filozofii a máte radi čitateľské výzvy, Rembrandta by ste nemali obísť.

Viac v článku: https://dennikn.sk/blog/1577187/umele...

[Molsa Roja(s) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Editat per Casimiro, un llibre que és una joia. He patit, però ha pagat la pena. Un assaig de Simmel sobre la filosofia del retrat, emprant a Rembrandt com a punt a partir del qual revolta la història —i de la pintura també. Enfrontant a l'holandès amb pintors renaixentistes, Simmel ens permet veure les diferències entre els retrats de Da Vinci o les figures de MichelAngelo i els de la primera modernitat; entre la forma, un instant d'eternitat, i l'esdevenir; entre el platonisme i un principi de cartesianisme. Molt interessant, amb diferentes direccions d'estudi i de gran riquesa. Això sí, és dur.

[Santiago Iturbide · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goethe: The history of a human being is his character.

[Alexandra Raffajová · Rating 1 out of 5]

Filozofická esej z roku 1916. Neviem asi niesom úplný fanúšik filozofických esejí, kedy po prečítaní 100 strán stále som sa nič nové nedozvedela.