Book Synopsis
In Art And The Spiritual George Kofas argues that the vision and power of art has diminished in our own day and time and that such a phenomenon has been as a direct consequence of a diminishing of the Sublime within the collective mind of society. Such a cultural phenomenon came about as a result of events in the twentieth century that had a corrosive effect on man’s belief in the Ideal and the Sublime. Consequently a shadow of cynicism has permeated and overwhelmed the culture of our time. As art exists as a component within culture, it also has been affected by a loss of the Ideal. The collective consequence of such events as Hitler’s Holocaust and the Cambodian Genocide, have resulted in a loss of the idea and the Sublime. This in turn has given rise to an agnostic and nihilistic state of mind within culture. Art has echoed such a condition and the result has been an art which lacks any purpose, meaning and which provides no direction for the culture. Consequently much of late twentieth and early twenty-first century art is destitute and embodies the spirit of nihilism pervading society. Such art is, by its very nature, rendered meaningless. In Art And The Spiritual the author directs our attention to the very real possibility of art returning to a purpose-centered Spiritual Ideal.