Nietszche's view on art.

Essay by CRAZYCAPTAINCollege, UndergraduateA+, February 2004

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In a world that is full of chaos, there has to be some way preserve or create order. If art imitates life, then an artist has the ability to create order or disorder. This means that artists have responsibilities. As a philosopher, Nietzsche tried to change to world with his prose by discussing societal values and ascetics. However, an artist like Elizabeth Bishop took a little more subtle approach to imposing order by changing her immediate surroundings through her vivid and imaginative poetry. Regardless on who had a bigger impact on the world, the power of art can be pretty scary.

Nietzsche treated art as something higher than ordinary, mass-conventional logic and rationality such as that in science, for he admired creativity and beauty in art above all things. His values may or may not be the same as any other, but a good artist should be able to combine creativity with his perception of the world and life and express it well in his work.

Artists should be content with their own lives and appreciate every bit of it, even through times of pain and suffering. Artists spend each day of their lives creating beauty, which affects the minds of others through out the time, knowing that his life has values and meanings since his existence of will-to-power will live on indefinitely. For Nietzsche, art is not the imitation of nature, but a metaphysical complement that will enable the transcendence of nature itself. Art is the fundamental metaphysical activity of Man; art is the highest form of human activity. Nietzsche's view of art is, at the same time, the most sublime and metaphysical. Art may well be said to be the bridge between Man and the superhuman, the artist, the bridge to perfection and eternity. All nihilism...