Language:
English
Year of publication:
2010
Titel der Quelle:
Jewish Dimensions in Modern Visual Culture
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2010) 19-50
Keywords:
Sorel, Georges, Criticism and interpretation
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
;
Art criticism History 20th century
;
Aesthetics Political aspects
Abstract:
An earlier version was presented at the conference "L'Affaire Dreyfus cent ans après", Jerusalem, 1994. Analyzes the writings of Sorel (1847-1922) on culture and the arts in his native France. Sorel's theory called upon a revolutionary elite to galvanize the creative will and spirit of activism latent among the masses by abandoning rational argumentation. His correlation of revolutionary violence with creativity has drawn the attention of art historians studying the "aestheticization of politics", especially in regard to his influence on artists who sympathized with fascism. Sorel and his allies in his journal "L'Indépendance" (1911-1913) fabricated an image of the Jew as the epitome of decadence in French society. He viewed the Jew as a sterile intellectual who is incapable of creativity. Reveals how Sorel disdained the cosmopolitanism of the Jews and accused them of homogenizing society, thereby voiding it of vitality. Comments on Sorel's criticism of Julien Benda and Henri Bergson, whom he viewed as symbols of Jewish pretensions to universalist rationalism.
Note:
A shorter version appeared as "The Jew as anti-artist; Georges Sorel, anti-Semitism, and the aesthetics of class consciousness" in the "Oxford Art Journal" 20,1 (1997) 50-67.
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