PDF Gli occhi del capriolo (Il porto) (Italian Edition) by Ilaria Furlan in Arts-Photography

Description

Less is more goes the modernist dictum. But is it? In an age when we are endlessly urged to do "more with less"; can we still romanticise the pretensions of minimalism? For Pier Vittorio Aureli; the return of "austerity chic" is a perversion of what ought to be a meaningful way of life. Charting the rise of asceticism in early Christianity and its institutionalisation with the medieval monasteries; Aureli examines how the basic unit of the reclusive life - the monks cell - becomes the foundation of private property. And from there; he argues; it all starts to go wrong. By late capitalism; asceticism has been utterly aestheticised. It manifests itself as monasteries inspired by Calvin Klein stores; in the monkish lifestyle of Steve Jobs and Apples aura of restraint. Amid all the hypocrisy; it must still be possible to reprise the idea of "less" as a radical alternative; as the first step to living the life examined.