Aesthetics

The disciplines which deal with the arts, in particular the history of art and musicology, as well as theatre and media studies are, thanks to the dynamics of cultural and social change, facing a variety of new challenges. It is less a matter of a new avant-garde or artistic advances, but rather of a dramatic shift in the context in which these arts flourish. An altered awareness of the contemporary context frequently calls them into question, but it also makes possible a fresh appropriation of their contents and an extension of the canon of problems awaiting a scholarly investigation.

These modern tendencies can be illustrated using the example of the image, which is also the theme of a project area supported by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung. Images have until recently belonged above all to the field of art history, but now - as a result of the electronic revolution - they have acquired an entirely new status. The image has become a universal medium of information, understanding and knowledge that can hardly be assigned to any single discipline, possessing, as it does, instrumental functions.

This example makes clear that the continued use of the "normal" scholarly procedures would result in the blotting out of current problems; the new chances and challenges could not then be made use of. A discussion of the changes taking place is called for, or, - even more important - a discussion of the shifts in the accepted scholarly assumptions which result from this change. All of the fields encompassed by the term "aesthetics" need to make their own contribution to the polyphonic choir of the disciplines by defining more precisely their future role in the cultural context.

The Fritz Thyssen Stiftung supports applications from all areas of the arts and neighbouring fields, but particularly those that deal with basic questions, with clarification of important categories, with interdisciplinary research - in short, with scholarly investigations which are characterized by problem-awareness and a high level of reflection. The Fritz Thyssen Stiftung does not, however, give priority to projects which centre on cataloguing or on new editions.