MONOCULTURE | A Recent History

Friedrich Nietzsche, Die Geburtder Tragödie aus dem Geisteder Musik (The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music), ca. 1930
Published by Verlag von Philipp Reclam
Collection M HKA, Antwerp 

One of the most ambiguous and influential figures of modern thought, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is invoked in different and often ambivalent ways. The early association of his writing was with Nazism, promoted by his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche who posthumously edited his unpublished works to fit her nationalistic ideas, and contradicted Nietzsche’s own stance against nationalism and antisemitism. Nietzsche’s complex philosophical thought and writing, which is commonly divided into three periods, questions the values and motives behind traditional Western thinking, religion and morality by demonstrating their inconsistencies. His early work The Birth of Tragedy (1872) is a study of the origin and development of Greek tragedy that considers the prevailing idealistic perception of Greek culture as a reflection of order and optimism, by introducing an intellectual dichotomy between what he termed the Apollonian and Dionysian elements. The former element is associated with individualisation, restraint, harmony and order, while the latter, as its opposite, operates as a chaotic force and an ecstatic dissolution of individuality. According to Nietzsche, these two principles are inseparable from each other, and it is their fusion that makes a great work of art. A classic in the history of aesthetics, the book had a lasting influence over the art of subsequent periods, and German expressionism in particular.