Week 8: Chapter 8 — The Shift in Art, Music, and Literature

1.Schaeffer argues that the fragmentation and chaos of much modern art is not arbitrary rebellion but an honest expression of a worldview: if there is no God, no objective meaning, and no rational unity to the universe, then art that is fragmented, chaotic, and meaningless is actually the most truthful art possible. Do you find this interpretation of modern art persuasive? How does it change the way you look at it?

2.Picasso's cubism — breaking objects into disconnected, simultaneous perspectives — is read by Schaeffer as a visual expression of the collapse of a unified view of reality. Whether or not this reading is correct, what do you think art is meant to do? Should it reflect the brokenness of the world, point toward transcendence, or something else?

3.John Cage's '4′33″' — a piece in which a pianist sits at a piano and plays nothing for four minutes and thirty-three seconds — is for Schaeffer the logical conclusion of a certain philosophical trajectory: if there is no meaning, then even silence is as valid as any other music. How do you respond to this piece? Is Schaeffer's reading of it fair?