The Best of What You May Have Missed

themusedialogue — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 13:33:12 +0000

We continue our year in review today, reposting our second issue: Chamber Music. Chamber music is a fascinating case in the arts. It is type of performance that brings art into intimate settings and encourages personal involvement. At the same time, it is an older art form that now faces a new age of changing tastes and changing technology. Read on for some fascinating writing on the arts, brought to you with pleasure by The Muse Dialogue.

Click here to view the table of contents for Vol. 1, No. 2: Chamber Music

Aesthetic Judgment and the Modern Era

themusedialogue — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:35:26 +0000

Bartolomeo Cristofori, Grand Piano. Florence, Italy 1720 (Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art)

by Andrew Swensen

In our era of fascination with technology, it only seems natural that our art would reflect what has become the spirit of the age. It is interesting to watch how innovations in the hard sciences become innovations in the humanities. Robotics, software engineering, digital information storage and retrieval have all become tools of the trade for artists. Yet this contemporary situation has a couple of traps, and we would be wise to not substitute our infatuation with the new for our continuing pursuit of great art.

Andrew Swensen discusses the age of innovation and argues for keeping our eyes on aesthetic judgment when art meets new technology. Click here to read the full text of the article.