by Elyse Graham Clive Bell’s theories of art shaped themselves under two major influences. One was the ethical philosopher G.E. Moore‘s defense of his field: for a set of things to shelter under one class, they must have a common property—in the case of ethics, goodness—which must really exist. 1 Bell, who like all art… Continue Reading Art
Tag: Elyse Graham
Sylvia Beach
by Elyse Graham During the nineteen-twenties, the literary capital of the United States was a bookstore on the Left Bank in Paris, on an alleyway off the Boulevard St. Germain. The store was called Shakespeare and Company; out front hung a shingle bearing a portrait of the Bard. The front windows displayed rows of covers… Continue Reading Sylvia Beach
The Renaissance
1 Reading Pater for his ideas is like reading Wordsworth for his philosophy; what ideas he does have he took from others who expressed them better.1 His principal merit is style. His prose effectively impersonates the emotional center of his thought: the ecstasy to be felt before certain works of art, which then presents a… Continue Reading The Renaissance
Walter Pater
by Elyse Graham 1. Born in a slum in the East End of London in 1839, Walter Pater was the son of a professional family barely hanging on to the middle class.^1 When Pater was two, his father, a general practitioner, died suddenly of a brain hemmorhage. His uncle, who shared the family’s medical practice… Continue Reading Walter Pater
An Essay in Aesthetics
by Elyse Graham An early but significant article by Roger Fry, an art critic in the Bloomsbury Group, “An Essay in Aesthetics” (April 1909) attempts to describe what art is and why it matters. 1 Because Fry lived in a spirit of openness to new ideas (with attendant intellectual restlessness), it would be unfair to… Continue Reading An Essay in Aesthetics
Clive Bell
by Elyse Graham Clive Bell’s theories of art shaped themselves under two major influences. One was the ethical philosopher G.E. Moore’s defense of his field: for a set of things to shelter under one class, they must have a common property—in the case of ethics, goodness—which must really exist. 1 Bell, who like all art… Continue Reading Clive Bell
De Profundis
by Elyse Graham First published in 1905 by an arrangement between Oscar Wilde and Robert Ross, who visited Wilde at Reading and later became his literary executor, De Profundis was written in prison over three months in 1897. It is a curious document: part apologia, part aesthetic discourse, part religious testimonial, part retort to religion,… Continue Reading De Profundis
Oscar Wilde
by Elyse Graham Born in Dublin in 1854, Oscar Wilde was the son of prominent and affluent parents; when he was nine, his father received a knighthood. Wilde’s social class would be strongly determining not only of his targets for satire, but of a casual extravagance in matters of romance that would contribute to his… Continue Reading Oscar Wilde
The Guermantes Way
By Elyse Graham The Guermantes Way presents a troubling portrait of levity in the face of great loss. Proust began work on the version we know today of the third volume in his series after the outbreak of fighting in 1914, when Paris had all but shut down and the future of Europe looked grim.… Continue Reading The Guermantes Way
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower
By Elyse Graham In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (1919) tells a story of separation and emergence. The first half enacts the shifting perspectives of social initiation. The narrator, resuming his portrayal of his younger self at a point several years past the conclusion of the previous volume, dissects the cold sociability and… Continue Reading In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower