The Critical Imagination

The Critical Imagination
ISBN-10
0199661790
ISBN-13
9780199661794
Category
Art
Pages
192
Language
English
Published
2013-04-11
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Author
James Grant

Description

The Critical Imagination is a study of metaphor, imaginativeness, and criticism of the arts. Since the eighteenth century, many philosophers have argued that appreciating art is rewarding because it involves responding imaginatively to a work. Literary works can be interpreted in many ways; architecture can be seen as stately, meditative, or forbidding; and sensitive descriptions of art are often colourful metaphors. Engaging with art, like creating it,seems to offer great scope for imagination. Hume, Kant, Oscar Wilde, Roger Scruton, and others have defended variations on this attractive idea. In this book, James Grant critically examines it. He explains therole imaginativeness plays in criticism, and goes on to explore why imaginative metaphors are so common in art criticism.

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