A Special Research Project
Understanding the Signs of Our Times:
Philosophical and Theological Perspectives
Seminar II: Aesthetics
Guardini's Aesthetics
April 2 and 9, 2022
The Creative Origin of the World View (Weltanschauung)
Heidegger's writings such as Ursprung des Kunstwerkes"
("Origin of the Work of Art") and "Was heißt Denken?" ("What
is called Thinking?") will be compared with Guardini’s
discourse on "Über das Wesen des Kunstwerks" ("About the
essence of the work of art") to explain the meaning of
knowing itself. Guardini, like Heidegger, uses the image of
the tree to approach the mystery of knowing the world and
thus also the work of art. It is plausible, then, to derive
from these considerations a triadic structure in which the
various forms of thinking can be ordered within a structure
in which, according to Guardini, the artist, the work, and
the viewer relate to each other as in a dynamic triangle in
which the central categories of form, formation, and
transformation are interwoven. We can talk about a religious
epistemology of art characterized upon three aspects: a ,
a , and a which defines a Weltanschauung as a kind of world
encounter. The true ethos of this vision of the world
consists of the "Lauterkeit des Blicks" ("Trans-formation of
the gaze").
Theory of Art and the Theory of Opposition
Guardinis’ Weltanschauung is not about action but rather
involves contemplation and understanding of the task in the
opposition of the world. The
seminar will examine the very early influence of the
philosopher Georg Simmel and the art theorist Heinrich
Wölfflin on Romano Guardini's new life-philosophical view of
art and the world in which he recognized the structure of
his method of oppositions. The basic question is: How did
Guardini, in his engagement with the art theory of Georg
Simmel and Heinrich Wölfflin, take up their
(epistemological) theory of the "opposition of life and
form" and develop it into a "method of opposition of
the living-concrete encounter with God in art" and what does
this method of opposition mean for contemporary epistemology
within art theory, especially in relation to the "encounter
with God in art"?
Two online seminars directed by Yvonne
Dohna Schlobitten will
be conducted on July 7 and 21 (Mondays), 2022. If
you are interested in these online seminars, please fill in
the online application form or
email a brief CV and a letter of motivation to
cua-rvp@cua.edu.
Online Application
