The 1960's Reith Lectures and the Writing of Art and Anarchy (1963) by Edgar Wind

• Grant number: 16/10463-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: September 01, 2016
• End date: February 28, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Art Fundamentals and Criticism
• Principal Investigator: Luiz Cesar Marques Filho
• Grantee: Ianick Takaes de Oliveira
• Supervisor: Maurizio Ghelardi
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS), Italy
• Associated to the scholarship: 14/21783-6 - Art and transgression in Edgar Wind: a study on the conceptual armature and reception of Art and Anarchy (1963), BP.MS

Abstract

The 1960's broadcasted BBC Reith Lectures, later published as Art and Anarchy (1963), aimed to criticize the production and reception of art in the modern age. Its essential premise is that modern art, as it forsook its former transcendental ideals, became external to the central needs of men, thus marginalizing itself. Its lecturer, the German philosopher and art historian Edgar Wind (1900-1971), then professor of Art History at Oxford, produced this intellectual discourse with the public debate in mind, amidst the critical decade of 1960. We intend to verify the intellectual percourse of Art and Anarchy's making, the aims of its critique and the contextual elements involved in it. Our goal is to access the bibliographical resources of European academic institutions, and to analyze Wind's archives, in order to frame the lines of thought that coalesced in the book, thus enhancing our comprehension of (1) Wind's later years, (2) the intellectual and historical background behind Art and Anarchy (the lectures and the book) and (3) the public debate that proceeded from it. Finally, we intend to approach the permanence of Wind's critique and its relevance to Art Historiography and Theory.