Abstract

A scholarly and imaginative contribution to ethics and aesthetics. The author sees in certain types of abstract art an affectation of austerity which he interprets as compensation in the aesthetic realm for moral lassitude, and a symptom of the decadence which characterizes our age. Decadence is natural and inevitable; in fact, everything is decadence, but in some ages, notably ours, decadence becomes monstrous. The author distinguishes two types of austerity: the limited and rational, and the infinite. Rational austerity is the austerity of the scientist, who denies himself everything but abstract relationships. Through this austerity, the aesthetic and moral realms are joined, in a Platonic fashion; but when this sort of austerity is applied to ethics, it results in a stylized and unproductive ethics. It is necessary to turn to infinite austerity, in which it is seen that the moral "cure" is itself a further "malady," but a malady which is a continuous cure. Even infinite austerity, however, is not enough; in the end, "C'est l'amour qui importe, non l'austérité."--D. S.