A succinct philosophical discussion on the history and development of aesthetics.
Brutus (Important Nonsense, 2012) presents a slim, concise volume covering a broad history of aesthetics ranging from the ancient philosophers to the postmodern era.
Brutus supplies an excellent, thorough introduction to the philosophy of art. He draws upon a variety of sources across the ages, including both Eastern and Western thinkers. The author rightly notes that conversations surrounding aesthetics and art can be difficult from the start, given the various opinions on whether it’s a subject that should even be broached. Despite these difficulties and differences, Brutus uses a clear, readable style that renders this complex topic accessible. This is not surprising since he spends a fair amount of time analyzing the barriers the human language can present when attempting to grasp such a historically ungraspable concept. His selection of quotes demonstrates how even famously articulate people have trouble finding “the right words to express the urgent things we want to say.” Perhaps the author’s experience as a teacher enables him to condense so many big ideas into such tightly worded paragraphs. This may also explain his uncharacteristically passionate commentary on the efforts of totalitarian societies to restrict and reduce art to mere propaganda, especially through education. He notes, “Much of what passes for ‘education’ in human history is more accurately described as mind control by means of physical and psychological torture.” Brutus includes several pages of quotes and commentaries from those who did find the right words to express the urgent things they wanted to say about the age-old questions about art, and all of them provide rich ideas to ponder.
A succinct philosophical discussion on the history and development of aesthetics.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2012
ISBN: 978-1470167035
Page Count: 126
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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