"The Renaissance discovery of nature was an invention of nineteenth-century liberalism which played off the Renaissance delight in nature against the Middle Ages, in order to strike a blow at the romantic philosophy of history. For when Burckhardt says that the ‘discovery of the world and of man’was an achievement of the Renaissance, this thesis is, at the same time, an attack on romantic reaction and an attempt to ward off the propaganda designed to spread the romantic view of medieval culture. The doctrine of the spontaneous naturalism of the Renaissance comes from the same source as the theory that the fight against the spirit of authority and hierarchy, the ideal of freedom of thought and freedom of conscience, the emancipation of the individual and the principle of democracy, are achievements of the fifteenth century. In all this the light of the modern age is contrasted with the darkness of the Middle Ages."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Chapter 1. The Concept of the Renaissance
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arnold_Hauser_(art_historian)
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Arnold Hauser (art historian)
Arnold Hauser (8 May 1892, Timişoara, Romania – 28 January 1978, Budapest) was a Hungarian art historian and prominent marxist in his field. He wrote on the influence of change in social structures on art.
34 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Arnold Hauser (art historian) →
Related Quotes
"... "folk art" signifies the poetical, musical, and pictorial activities of those strata of the population which are …"
"We do not exactly know the sociological reason for reverence for the past; it may be rooted in tribal and family soli…"
"But the most remarkable thing about prehistoric naturalism is not that it is older than the geometric style, which ma…"
"The partial absorption of art by domestic industry and by domestic female crafts, that is to say, the fusion of artis…"
"The end of the Neolithic age betokens almost as universal a re-orientation of life, almost as profound a revolution o…"
"If the resistances in one direction are impossible to overcome, then the artist’s invention and powers of expression …"
"The stereotyped style of cultic representations was well known as early as the Neolithic age, but the stiffly ceremon…"
"The traditional picture of the blind old singer of Chios is largely made up of memories that go back to the time when…"
"In spite of the growing differences of income, the ever-increasing concentration of capital and the steady increase o…"
"Folk-art signifies the poetical, musical and pictorial activities of those strata of the population which are uneduca…"