Mikhail Lifshitz

Mikhail Lifshitz is a major forgotten figure in the tradition of Marxist philosophy and art history. A significant influence on Lukács, and the dedicatee of his The Young Hegel, as well as an unsurpassed scholar of Marx and Engels’s writings on art and a lifelong controversialist, Lifshitz’s work dealt with topics as various as the philosophy of Marx and the pop aesthetics of Andy Warhol. The Crisis of Ugliness (originally published in Russian by Iskusstvo, 1968), published here in English for the first time, presented with a detailed introduction by its translator David Riff, is a compact broadside against modernism in the visual arts that resists the dogmatic complacencies of Stalinist aesthetics. Its reentry into English debates on the history of Soviet aesthetics promises to re-orient our sense of the basic coordinates of a Marxist art theory.

Mikhail Lifshitz is a major forgotten figure in the tradition of Marxist philosophy and art history. A significant influence on Lukács, and the dedicatee of his The Young Hegel, as well as an unsurpassed scholar of Marx and Engels’s writings on art and a lifelong controversialist, Lifshitz’s work dealt with topics as various as the philosophy of Marx and the pop aesthetics of Andy Warhol. The Crisis of Ugliness (originally published in Russian by Iskusstvo, 1968), published here in English for the first time, and with a detailed introduction by its translator David Riff, is a compact broadside against modernism in the visual arts that nevertheless resists the dogmatic complacencies of Stalinist aesthetics. Its reentry into English debates on the history of Soviet aesthetics promises to re-orient our sense of the basic coordinates of a Marxist art theory.

The Philosophy of Art of Karl Marx by Mikhail Lifshitz is a comprehensive study of the Marxist theory of art. The book explores the relationship between art and society, and how art reflects the political and economic structures of society. Lifshitz examines the Marxist perspective on the role of art in the revolution and the struggle for social change. He also delves into the Marxist critique of bourgeois art and the concept of alienation in art. The book includes a detailed analysis of the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels on art, as well as the works of other Marxist theorists such as Georg Lukacs and Antonio Gramsci. The Philosophy of Art of Karl Marx is a thought-provoking and insightful exploration of the Marxist perspective on art, and its relevance in the contemporary world. This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.