Ph.D. Roni Grén is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku, Finland. His topics of research have been centered on modern art theory and French culture. Formerly, he has written a book on Georges Bataille's writings on art, and is currently working on research entitled "Prehistory and Modernism."

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1 The Exceptionality of the Human Spirit

The Human Exception

Natural Aesthetics

Origin and Language

Nature Created in Man's Image

To Have and Have Not

Part 2 The Animal and the Image

Introduction: Discourse and Imagicity

Condillac and Animal Imagination

Rousseau and the Noble Visual

Diderot's Suspicion

A Concluding Note

Part 3 Art and Evolution

Introduction: Darwin's Century

The Subjective and the Objective

The Crisis of Symbolism and the Violent Other

Evolution of the Species and the Creative Sentiment

Nietzsche

Part 4 The Poetic Lie

The Primitive Origin of Art

Gaze and the Invisible

The World of Abstraction and the Revolution of the Beasts

Dream, Debauchery, Myth

Part 5 Conclusion: The Modern Other

Animalization of Art

The Formalist World of Creation

The Surrealist Solutions

The Animal Itself

Afterword

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1 The Exceptionality of the Human Spirit

The Human Exception

Natural Aesthetics

Origin and Language

Nature Created in Man's Image

To Have and Have Not

Part 2 The Animal and the Image

Introduction: Discourse and Imagicity

Condillac and Animal Imagination

Rousseau and the Noble Visual

Diderot's Suspicion

A Concluding Note

Part 3 Art and Evolution

Introduction: Darwin's Century

The Subjective and the Objective

The Crisis of Symbolism and the Violent Other

Evolution of the Species and the Creative Sentiment

Nietzsche

Part 4 The Poetic Lie

The Primitive Origin of Art

Gaze and the Invisible

The World of Abstraction and the Revolution of the Beasts

Dream, Debauchery, Myth

Part 5 Conclusion: The Modern Other

Animalization of Art

The Formalist World of Creation

The Surrealist Solutions

The Animal Itself

Afterword

Bibliography

Index