Bakhtin and the Visual Arts

This 1995 volume assesses the relevance of Mikhail Bakhtin's ideas as they relate to the visual arts.

Deborah J. Haynes (Author)

9780521473927, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 November 1995

238 pages, 29 b/w illus.
26.1 x 18.3 x 2 cm, 0.86 kg

Review of the hardback: 'Haynes has raised enough questions here to confirm that the work of the Bakhtin circle will provide one crucial resource for a more satisfactory understanding of the artist and the related but distinct problem of social action.' Oxford Art Journal

Bakhtin and the Visual Arts assesses the relevance of Mikhail Bakhtin's ideas as they relate to painting and sculpture. First published in the 1960s, Bakhtin's writings introduced the concepts of carnival and dialogue or dialogism, which have had significant impact in such diverse fields as literature and literary theory, philosophy, theology, biology and psychology. In his four early aesthetic essays, written between 1919 and 1926, and before he began to focus on linguistic and literary categories, Bakhtin worked on a larger philosophy of creativity, which was never completed. Deborah Haynes's in-depth 1995 study of his aesthetics, especially his theory of creativity, analyses its applicability to contemporary art theory and criticism. The author argues that Bakhtin, with such categories as answerability, outsideness and unfinalizability, offers a conceptual basis for interpreting the moral dimensions of creative activity.

Part I. Context: 1. Introduction
2. Bakhtin's historical and intellectual milieu
Part II. Bakhtin's Theory of Creativity: 3. Answerability
4. Outsideness
5. Un/finalizability
Part III. The Usefuleness of Bakhtin's Aesthetics: 6. Interpreting works of art
7. Bakhtin and postmodern art theory.

Subject Areas: History of art & design styles: from c 1900 - [ACX]