Abstract

Addressing the question as to whether Post-Modernist meta-art constitutes an explicit attempt to reconcile art and reality: The Introduction serves to define and establish concepts that are vital to the examination and to situate them within an historical and philosophical context. Chapter One identifies essential, general and historical meta-artistic characteristics, which then are tested in Chapter Two through the analysis of diverse visual and literary meta-artistic works created between the 17th century and the present. Demonstrating both the specific attitudes towards art and reality indigenous to each historical period and the definite mutual characteristics retained through the ages, the chronological analysis ultimately serves to isolate meta-artistic attributes that may be considered distinctly Post-Modernist. Chapter Three tests the initial thesis against two specific Post-Modernist works: Les deux mysteres by Rene Magritte and El mono gramatico by Octavio Paz. ;While the examination assumed that an art work constitutes its own foundational evidence, it was also gathered that the message of any art work is constituted by contextual relativity; that of the creator, and ultimately, that of the analyzing perceiver. In order to establish a theoretical background to sapiently relate to vital concepts such as meta-art and Post-Modernism, various scholarly works on the issues were therefore initially presented and critically discussed. ;Since meta-art by definition inquires into the relationship between art and reality, and since Post-Modernist theory holds that there is no perceptual difference between art and reality, it is concluded that Post-Modernist meta-art necessarily does reconcile art and reality. It is further concluded that if meaning is a matter of perception and creation, reconciliation presents neither the solution nor dissolution. It is a possibility. Within the possible, there is hope for a reality in which the creators of art perceive meaning and the perceivers inexhaustibly re-create it