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영어

Hans Sedlmayr suggested a methodology to grasp at the origin of art through the research or analysis of its structure in defining the essence of artworks in modern times. Its outcome was in disclosing the Zeitgeist and origin of art by overcoming the limit of Empiricism or Aestheticism. His initial art criticism being formed in this manner, was later transformed into an attempt to research in terms of civilizations. He, in the structure of thought, terms, etc. of his later book, Art in Crisis: The Lost Center, paid a keen attention to grasp at the characteristics of modern civilization, influenced by Spengler's book, The Decline of the West. In particular, he foresaw that modern civilization regarded as being in a state of senility from the standpoint of civilization's history can be apparently revived if accepting Spengler's theory of organism, but saw that it was not accomplished by the aftermath of mechanical civilization. Thus he, borrowing a French Existentialist Nietzsche’s remark, expressed a pessimistic opinion that both modern civilization and modern art are in the state of disease. He, raising the essential theses of modern art such as lost center, dead light, man and nature, etc. on the basis of methodology of artwork's structure analysis and intuitional interpretation, attempted to strongly criticize the absence of spirituality in modern art and to suggest its alternative. He stated a highest value of man's ideal as the origin that modern art can be revived. What he, in comparison of ancient civilization with modern civilization, ancient art with modern art, wished to get from the antiquity was in that man's ideal was never lost even in the state of decline of ancient civilization. But modern civilization of 19th and 20th century lost man's ideal and adulterated amidst a whirl of mechanic civilization. He thought that its cause was in a loss of analogy between man and nature that was survived from the ancient civilization. Analogy, by his definition, was a phenomenon appearing in the art arousing the intimacy between man with adequate measure and God. Thus it was nothing but an expression of the theory of harmony between man and God, or a Neo-platonic aesthetics in pursuit of the harmony of reason with emotion. Another problem of modern art that he raised was autonomy and purity in art. He saw that the unified center of man was lost and was separated from God in modern art, from the result of which the rational, intellectual level of art was disappeared. Autonomous art created autonomous man, which led to a separation of man from God, and deteriorated modern art as having a morbid, dead analogy. However, he negated or denied not the whole modern art, but only one escaped from the tendency of humanization. He finally suggested a possibility of revival of modern art, which was an art with humor and childishness. It was a suggestion of art form that man can lead subjectively beyond the trend of modern art leaned upon technology. In a sense it can be called a movement of recovery of humanity as well as moral rearmament, not a simply new art movement.

한국어

제들마이어는 근대 예술작품의 본질 규정에 있어서 경험주의나 유미주의의 한계를 극복하고 구조연구나 구조분석을 통하여 예술의 근원을 파악하는 방법론을 제시하였다. 후기 저서인 『위기의 예술: 상실된 중심』에서 근대문명의 특성을 파악하면서 쇠퇴해진 근대문명이 슈펭글러의 유기체론에 따르면 재생 가능하겠지만, 기계문명의 여파로 실현되지 못했다고 판단했다. 니체의 언급을 빌려 근대문명과 근대예술이 공히 병적인 상태에 처해 있다고 비관했던 그는 잃어버린 중심, 상실된 빛, 인간과 자연 등과 같은 근대예술의 본질 명제들을 제기하면서 정신성 부재를 강하게 비판, 대안제시에 나섰다. 근대예술의 재생 가능한 원천으로 인간의 이상을 내세웠다. 고대문명과 고대예술에서 인간 이상이 쇠퇴기에도 상실되지 않았던 증거를 찾아냈던 그는 근대예술의 지고한 가치로서 그러한 인간 이상의 비유를 제시했다. 그것은 신인조화론적 가치관이나 이성과 감성의 조화를 추구하는 신플라톤적 미학에서 유래한 것이었다. 근대예술의 또 다른 문제점은 예술의 자율성과 순수성이었다. 거기서는 인간의 통일된 중심이 상실되고 신과 분리됨으로써 이성적, 지적 수준이 사라졌으므로 그것을 병적이면서 죽은 비유를 가진 것으로 변질시켰다는 것이다. 그러나 그는 근대예술 전반을 부정하거나 거부했던 것은 아니며, 인간화의 경향을 벗어난 것만을 선별적으로 거부했다. 그는 최종적으로 근대예술의 재생 가능성을 제시했는데, 그것은 유머와 아동스러움이 있는 예술이었다. 그것은 기계공학에 편중된 근대예술의 경향에서 벗어나 인간이 주체적으로 선도할 수 있는 예술형식의 제안으로서 특별한 새로운 예술운동을 지칭하는 것이 아니라 인간성의 회복운동이요, 일종의 도덕재무장 운동을 지칭한다고도 볼 수 있다.