1st Edition

Development and the Arts Critical Perspectives

Edited By Margery B. Franklin, Bernard Kaplan Copyright 1994
    272 Pages
    by Routledge

    272 Pages
    by Psychology Press

    This volume's unifying theme is the question: Is a concept of development relevant to art? Bringing together contributions from the perspectives of philosophical aesthetics, psychoanalysis, architecture and design, and the practicing artist, as well as developmental theory in psychology, this volume provides a unique assembly of voices from different disciplines. The twelve chapters span artistic production in childhood, transformations in the work of the individual artist, and historical changes in art, thus establishing a broad canvas for examining how concepts of development are used in relation to the arts.

    The contributors consider specific phenomena and questions against the background of theoretical issues, taking markedly different views on whether change in artistic work can be aptly characterized as development and, if so, what modulations of the concept may be required in light of accompanying assumptions and implications. Given the nature of this discourse, this richly illustrated book should lead to a radical rethinking among those who apply developmental concepts to artistic phenomena and aesthetic movements, and to reconsideration of the role of art in optimal human development within the individual and within social orders.

    Contents: Preface. Introduction. Part I: Concepts of Development in the Domain of the Arts. B. Kaplan, Is the Concept of Development Applicable to Art? H.S. Hein, Is Feminist Art Aesthetically Regressive? L.A. Sass, Psychoanalysis, Romanticism and the Nature of Aesthetic Consciousness--with Reflections on Modernism and Post Modernism. Part II: Artistic Processes in Ontogenesis. D.P. Wolf, Development as the Growth of Repertoires. G. Goldschmidt, Development in Architectural Designing. Part III: Development of the Artist. L. Baskin, Interconnective Evolvements from One Medium to Another. R.S. Liebert, Michelangelo, Early Childhood, and Maternal Imagery: The Sculptor's Relation to Stone. M. Freeman, What Aesthetic Development Is Not: An Inquiry into Pathologies of Postmodern Creation. M.B. Franklin, Narratives of Change and Continuity: Women Artists Reflect on Their Work. Part IV: On Development in the History of Art. S.J. Blatt, Concurrent Conceptual Revolutions in Art and Science. M.W. Wartofsky, Is a Developmental History of Art Possible? S.J. Blatt, Response to Wartofsky.

    Biography

    Franklin, Margery B.; Kaplan, Bernard

    "...This is a significant volume in the development of critical thought regarding the arts. The chapters are scholarly, and they critically examine their subject in a focused manner, encompassing many points of view."
    Contemporary Psychology