Georg Simmel is one of the most original German thinkers of the
twentieth century and is considered a founding architect of the
modern discipline of sociology. Ranging over fundamental questions
of the relationship of self and society, his influential writings
on money, modernity, and the metropolis continue to provoke debate
today. Fascinated by the relationship between culture, society, and
economic life, Simmel took an interest in myriad phenomena of
aesthetics and the arts. A friend of writers and artists such as
Auguste Rodin, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Stefan George, he wrote
dozens of pieces engaging with topics such as the work of
Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Rodin, Japanese art, naturalism and
symbolism, Goethe, "art for art's sake", art exhibitions, and the
aesthetics of the picture frame. This is the first collection to
bring together Simmel's finest writing on art and aesthetics, and
many of the items appear in English in this volume for the first
time. The more than forty essays show the protean breadth of
Simmel's reflections, covering landscape painting, portraiture,
sculpture, poetry, theater, form, style, and representation. An
extensive introduction by Austin Harrington gives an overview of
Simmel's themes and elucidates the significance of his work for the
many theorists who would be inspired by his ideas. Something of an
outsider to the formal academic world of his day, Simmel wrote
creatively with the flair of an essayist. This expansive collection
of translations, many of them prepared by the editor, preserves the
narrative ease of Simmel's prose and will be a vital source for
readers with an interest in Simmel's trailblazing ideas in modern
European philosophy, sociology, and cultural theory.
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