theory of art

He operates under a theory of art he calls “Superflat,” which refers to the relationship of two-dimensional imagery in manga and anime to historical Japanese painting, as well as to what he sees as a lack of distinction — or a flattening — between high and low art in Japanese culture.

Any theory of art history that stops you from enjoying a painting this good should be laughed out of the lecture hall.

Still, both evolution and socialism remain extremely live propositions; Ross’ book and his extraordinary scholarship amply suggest that any anxiety over the survival of Wagnerism as a sensibility and theory of art, independent of its creator, is misplaced as well.

Geary devotes several pages to the Russian formalist theory of art as “defamiliarization”: By making the habitual and familiar seem strange, great works open our eyes, blinded by routine, and allow us to see the world afresh.

Even as he speaks of the Fayum painters in their particularity, this is as close as Berger comes to a universal theory of art: To examine a work is to insert oneself into a chain of glances, a chain in which one is always seeing oneself being seen.