What, if anything, has art to do with the rest of our lives? Addressing anyone with serious interest in the arts, this book examines the situation of art today and shifts the focus of aesthetics from the question of What is art? to the question What is art for?

Prologue. The Function and value of art Part I.Aesthetics: the end of artworks 1. Aesthetics I. The nature of art 2. Aesthetics II. The uses of art 3. Aesthetics III. The genealogy of modern European art music Part II.Poetics and hermeneutics: the contents and interpretation of artworks 4. Poetics I. Diegesis and mimesis: the poetic modes and the matter of artistic presentation 5. Poetics II. Narrative and lyric: the poetic forms and the object of artistic presentation 6. Hermenetics. Interpretation and its validity Epilogue. The power of taste Notes

Karol BergerOsgood Hooker Professor of Fine Arts, Stanford University

"Berger's goal in this book is to explain how art functions, and what is its purpose. By doing so, he hopes to provide a framework in which political debates (as well as philosophical ones) about the meaning and importance of art can become more fruitful....The book reveals an author of formidable intellectual power and erudition."--he Trenton Times |k No