Madeleine Schechter • Semiotics and Art Theory

Madeleine Schechter • Semiotics and Art Theory

Between Autonomism and Contextualism
This book explores the intricate relationships between modernism and postmodernism, or autonomism and contextualism. The limits between these modes are not distinct boundaries; rather, they are open-ended thresholds. The book argues for the persistence of the aesthetic in art theory, understood in a broad, not a purely formalist, sense. In this respect, Romanticism appears to be a bridge between modernism and postmodernism, focusing on art as an aesthetic entity that embodies its meaning. This has two-fold relevance for the modern theory of art: first, it provides continuity through the differences between autonomous (modernist) and contextualist (poststructuralist) philosophies of art; and second, it marks the shift in paradigm that is a return to the aesthetic, which can be described as a journey from autonomism to contextualism and back.

Königshausen & Neumann, Paperback, english, 184 pages, "Mängelexemplar"-Stempel auf der Buchunterseite, Mängelexemplar-stamp on the book bottom