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The Reith Lectures

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The Reith Lectures: Edgar Wind - Art and Anarchy: Art and Anarchy: Our Present Discontents

The Fear of Knowledge

13/11/1960

Art and Anarchy: Our Present Discontents

Edgar Wind - Art and Anarchy

BBC Radio 4 - The Reith Lectures, Edgar Wind - Art and Anarchy, Art and Anarchy: Our Present Discontents

Edgar Wind explores why creative inspiration has been described as a 'divine madness'.

Edgar Wind explores why creative inspiration has been described as a 'divine madness' in his first lecture entitled 'Our Present Discontents'. 

This year's lecturer is the first and current Professor of Art History at Oxford University, Edgar Wind. The German-born British professor specialises in iconology in the Renaissance era, and has lectured widely, including at University College London and the University of Chicago. He was Deputy Director of the Warburg Institute, and is most well-known for his research in allegory. He explored pagan mythology during the 15th and 16th centuries in his book Pagan Mysteries of the Renaissance. 

In his Reith Series entitled 'Art and Anarchy', Edgar Wind explores the concepts of creative energies produced through turmoil. In his first lecture entitled 'Our Present Discontents', he explores Plato's idea that art is a 'divine madness of inspiration'. He compares historic perspectives of art with more contemporary attitudes in order to understand the relationship we have with art. Have we made art superfluous by widening our artistic horizons? Have we become immune to art?

The Reith Lectures: Edgar Wind - Art and Anarchy

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Art historian Edgar Wind explores the effect of turmoil on creativity.

Edgar Wind, the first Professor of Art History at Oxford University, examines why and how great art is often produced in turbulent circumstances.

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Art and Anarchy: Our Present Discontents

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