The wild man within : an image in Western thought from the Renaissance to romanticism

Author / Creator

Dudley, Edward J, author

Available as

Online

Summary

It is a commonplace that from the Renaissance to about the nineteenth century the function of art was thought to be the mirroring of life.¹ Art, men said, held up a mirror to nature, or reality. Ar...

It is a commonplace that from the Renaissance to about the nineteenth century the function of art was thought to be the mirroring of life.¹ Art, men said, held up a mirror to nature, or reality. Art imitated reality, what is, except that what is was often defined for artistic purposes in terms of an idealized reality. Art was expected to show that kings were kingly, heroes were heroic, lovers were distracted, and nature was ordered by a providential plan. Nature was, then, imitated in a guise understood by Europeans of the civilized, upper classes in a hierarchical society.

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