Individuality, everyday life and religious need: lukacsian notes on modern art

Abstract

The paper aims at developing the link between the individual and the religious need. Everyday life is taken as the basis since this is where each subject experiences their praxis. Based on the relationship between daily life experience and its elevation to a higher level of living; thus, the role of religion, science, and art is discussed as an instrument to accomplish that. This paper carries out a bibliographical approach, in which the immanent reading of chapter 16 by Georg Lukács’ Great Aesthetics is chosen to achieve the above-mentioned purpose. In order to make some considerations on the theme, it is debated the relationship between religious needs and art nowadays contrasting its difference with the Renaissance period, for instance. It is imperative to bear in mind that, at the moment, the configuration emanate from the relationship between religion and art have been causing some problematic issues for the artistic complex. As consequences of that, it is difficult for art to maintain its realistic character. As a result, the artistic capacity of developing the necessary determinations of creation is compromised. Therefore, the work of art fails in capturing the features that make it possible to establish human beings and their typical social interactions by the dialectic present in life. The more this effect grows, the more artists try to introduce into their compositions categories that external from the field of art – such as the scientific ones. That causes serious misconceptions when Realism is shaped into the finished work. The outcome of this picture is the increase of obstacles for art to register human self-awareness.

Keywords: Everyday life. Religious need. Individuality. Modern art. Lukács.