BETWEEN NATURE AND HUMANITY: THE STATUS OF ART IN ALBERT CAMUS

Abstract

The aim of this research is to investigate the status of art and the movement of artistic creation in the work of Albert Camus. The Franco-Algerian essayist, who bases his thought on two phases, the absurd and the revolt, consecrated his importance through great literary works, demonstrating the strength of artistic creation in his philosophical elucubration. We investigate in Camusian works the relationship between art and life. In his philosophical essays, The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel, Camus writes about art and creation as if they shared the same ethical requirements necessary for a stylized, lucid and engaged life. Therefore, the statute of art approaches its two first phenomena, the absurd and the revolt, passing through developments between them. For example, in its first phase about the absurd creation, true art should externalize the absurd feeling and its reason; in rebellious creation, art comes to meet the aesthetic demands of rebellion, and both art and rebellion perform a similar movement in the transformation of the world. From Camusian thought we extract the following data: 1) Faced with the absurd, it is up to humanity to remain lucid about the walls that surround it, and artistic creation must show such lucidity; 2) The passion for the unity between man and the world, as a kind of universal impulse, also manifested through art; 3) To be a great artist it is necessary, first of all, to be a great living being; 4) Art exalts and denies the real at the same time, building a project of transformation that never legitimizes death or annihilation, nor can it completely suppress nature. As a way of advancing his thinking, we sought in Camusian conception of Nature, the possibility of contact, through a kind of sensitive communication, between man and the world. It is the idea of Nature that allows man to overcome the fraction between himself and the world, without suppressing any of the poles or the tension between them. Through art, we can also build fruitful relationships with the thought of Nietzsche and Dostoiéviski, who fill the pages of Camusian essays, as an instrument to understand the depth of Camus' thought and his ethics for a stylized life.