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People all over the world make art and take pleasure in it, and they have done so for millennia. But acknowledging that art is a universal part of human experience leads us to some big questions: Why does it exist? Why do we enjoy it? And how do the world’s different art traditions relate to art and to each other? Art Without Borders is an extraordinary exploration of those questions, a profound and personal meditation on the human hunger for art and a dazzling synthesis of the whole range of inquiry into its significance. Esteemed thinker Ben-Ami Scharfstein’s encyclopedic erudition is here brought to bear on the full breadth of the world of art. He draws on neuroscience and psychology to understand the way we both perceive and conceive of art, including its resistance to verbal exposition. Through examples of work by Indian, Chinese, European, African, and Australianartists, Art Without Borders probes the distinction between accepting a tradition and defying it through innovation, which leads to a consideration of the notion of artistic genius. Continuing in this comparative vein, Scharfstein examines the mutual influence of European and non-European artists. Then, through a comprehensive evaluation of the world’s major art cultures, he shows how all of these individual traditions are gradually, but haltingly, conjoining into a single current of universal art. Finally, he concludes by looking at the ways empathy and intuition can allow members of one culture to appreciate the art of another. Lucid, learned, and incomparably rich in thought and detail, Art Without Borders is a monumental accomplishment, on par with the artistic achievements Scharfstein writes about so lovingly in its pages.
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ART WITHOUT BORDERS
ART WITHOUT BORDERS A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPLORATION OF ART AND HUMANITY BEN-AMI SCHARFSTEIN
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS Chicago and London
BEN-AMI SCHARFSTEIN is professor emeritus of philosophy at Tel-Aviv University. He is the recipient of the State of Israel’s 2005 Israel Prize for Philosophy and is the author of numerous books, including Mystical Experience, A Comparative History of World Philosophy and Religion, Ineffability: The Failure of Words in Philosophy and Religion, and Of Birds, Beasts, and Other Artists: An Essay on the Universality of Art. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2009 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2009 Printed in the United States of America 17
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isbn-13: 978-0-226-73609-9 (cloth) isbn-10: 0-226-73609-1 (cloth) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scharfstein, Ben-Ami, 1919– Art without borders : a philosophical exploration of art and humanity / Ben-Ami Scharfstein. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: 978-0-226-73609-9 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn-10: 0-226-73609-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Art, Comparative. 2. Art— Philosophy. 3. Aesthetics. I. Title. n7428.5.s336 2009 700.1—dc22 2008028289 o The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1992.
To Leonardo da Vinci, because he wanted to know everything about everything, and to Ghela, who alone knows why I chose her as well
CONTENTS
Preface ix Acknowledgments xi Note on Transliteration xiii 1
AN OPEN AESTHETICS 1 Why There Is Art • The Aesthetic Dimension of Life • Being Aware • Seeing • Remembering • Preferring • Forgetting Self • Grasping • Theorizing
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SELFLESS TRA