The Abuse of Beauty: Aesthetics and the Concept of Art

In The Abuse of Beauty, art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto explains how the notion of beauty as anathema to art arose and flourished and offers a new way of looking at art and beauty. He draws on the thought of artists, critics, and philosophers such as Rimbaud, Fry, Matisse, and Greenberg, to reposition beauty as one of many modes — along with sexuality, sublimity, disgust, and horror — through which the human sensibility expresses itself. 20 black-and-white illustrations are included.