Czy sztuka zamiast religii?
Can art replace religion?

Summary/Abstract: The essay brings up the question of factors responsible for promoting art to a level where it becomes an equivalent of religion or even its substitute. Contemplating the long tradition, the essay points out to revolutionary achievements of German Romantics who introduced „religion of art” into the European canon of literature, art, and philosophy. However, Novalis, Hölderlin or Schelling did not intend to destroy religion as such - they rather sought its new dimension, a new „poetic religion”, some kind of alternative theology, making recourse to intuition and myth. Many thinkers followed their footsteps. Charles Baudelaire, for instance, highlighted the role of aesthetic experience regarded as euphoric elevation as a way of transcending ordinary reality and reaching Beauty, although deprived of strictly religious values. The essay concludes with a conviction that art (poetry) cannot be identified with religion, nor can religious experience be replaced with a literary experience. Unfortunately, this tendency toward substitution has become widespread in modern culture.

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