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Universal language

by
February 2014, no. 358

Art as Therapy by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong

Phaidon, $45 hb, 240 pp, 9780714865911

Universal language

by
February 2014, no. 358

Art, in all its diverse manifestations, from storytelling to picture-making, from singing and dancing to poetry, is as distinctive and universal an activity of the human mind as language. It is, in essence, a way of thinking about the world, of shaping experience as it is felt to be and reshaping it as it could be, that long predates the development of rational reflection. Stories have been told for thousands of years, perhaps tens of thousands; philosophical and scientific thought begins, for practical purposes, around 2500 years ago.

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