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Crônica de uma Morte Anunciada: a Morte da Arte segundo Charles Baudelaire; published at Revista A! (2014) [Paper (in Portuguese)]

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to identify which factors would have led to the death of Art History. Firstly, the axes by which Art History, institutionalized in the 18th century, has formed its narrative are mapped in a historical perspective. A common feature of all aesthetic movements is the strong presence of an Identity (collective aesthetic and intellectual unity) among artists. To understand the difference between Modernism and pre-modern arts leading to the Death of Art History, one must analyze the aesthetic theory of Baudelaire, in which Beauty is separated into an eternal and immutable part – which can be put in analogy with technique – and the transitory part concerning different times – which is analogous to content. In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, however, a crisis of art as representation begins, and, as a consequence, its departure from life. Art moves on to seek purity, and through the Vanguards artists converge in the Platonic/Enlightenment project of moving out of the cave (representation) towards light (purity). Art becomes grounded by avant-garde identities and aesthetic innovation through increasing technical innovation – all that is unique to each art form – and devaluation of content. The research into innovation, however, begins to get exhausted in the 50s, and the Platonic/Enlightenment project loses credibility after two World Wars. Therefore, on one hand, purity in art is practically achieved, and on the other, the historical metanarrative of progress discredited. Thus contemporaneity arises with a rapprochement with life and a reframing of Identity, leaving the collective unity behind to become the individual unity of the artist without aesthetic and intellectual affiliations. From this point, the metanarrative of Art History opens space for individual micronarratives of artists today.