Art and Poetry - Maritain, Jacques

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Résumé :
Originally titled Fronti?res de la po?sie (1935), This book by Jacques Maritain, whose philosophical writings read as interestingly as a novel, will be welcomed by all who are seeking a better understanding of the art of our time. The book delves into Maritain's thoughts on the nature and subjectivity of art and poetry. As a philosopher, Maritain attempts to define the two concepts, describing art and poetry as virtues, and as primarily concerned with beauty. Rather than focus on aesthetic theory, Maritain examines the concepts at a more tangible level, including a discussion of how they are made. The principles established with such precision and brilliance in his earlier work Art and Scholasticism, which has had such a deep influence on contemporary artists, are successfully put to the test in illuminating the creative works of such diverse artists as Rouault, Marc Chagall, Gino Sevirini, and Arthur Lourie. Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher and political thinker. He was born in Paris in 1882, where he spent most of his life. His father was a prominent lawyer and his mother the daughter of a statesman. He attended the Sorbonne to study philosophy and natural science, and after marrying, he and his wife converted to Catholicism. It was after this he became a well-known scholar of St. Thomas Aquinas and Thomistic philosophy. He published widely on philosophical and political thought, and by the 1930s, he was an established thinker in the Catholic community. After the outbreak of WWII, Maritain relocated to the United States, where he taught at Princeton University and Columbia University. Later in life, he and his wife returned to France, where he continued to write and study Catholic scholarship until his death in 1973.

Biographie:
Jacques Maritain was born in Paris in 1882 and studied at the Sorbonne, where he met his future wife, Raissa; both entered the Catholic Church under the influence of Leon Bloy in 1906. He became professor at the Institut Catholique de Paris in 1914, and in 1948 he was appointed professor of philosophy at Princeton University. He also taught at the Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, the University of Chicago, and the University of Notre Dame. After World War II, he accepted the post of French ambassador to the Vatican, and headed the French delegation to UNESCO.