Publisher's Synopsis
What kind of energy produces art? Where does it come from? Why does it exist? What is it? These questions already haunted the ancient Greeks. They crept back into philosophy in the eighteenth century, and are still with us. The modern art scene is a vast field with talent in the millions and turnover in the billions. Still, asking or merely talking about those questions often make artists and art lovers alike feel insecure, ill at ease, even do about turns like "It is the emperor's new clothes, but the world wants to be deceived." Carlos Wiggen, philosopher and historian, starts with a dream that spooked Socrates in his death cell, and pursues the elusive phenomenon of art through philosophy, drama and social sciences of our three last centuries. Is the essence of art a vain illusion, an unsolvable enigma, or something quite simple and common that, never the less, we cannot do without?
