La fin de l'art

From the moment the book declares “the end of art,” it plunges listeners into a lively debate that feels both timeless and startlingly modern. A sharp‑tongued interlocutor, reminiscent of a literary Caliban, argues that paintings, symphonies and ancient tragedies have lost any practical worth, insisting that only measurable results—gold mines, railways, irrigated fields—should command society’s respect. Through witty, polemical prose the author sketches a future‑obsessed Italy that would replace Venice’s canals with rice paddies and turn the Doge’s palace into a shoe factory, using these absurd proposals to question whether art can survive in a utilitarian age.

Interwoven with this philosophical duel are vivid vignettes about Parisian monuments that seem to crush the very streets they inhabit. A proposed Beethoven statue, denied by merchants and childcare providers alike, becomes a comic symbol of how grand gestures can feel oppressive, while the endless parade of mediocre statues is lampooned as a parade of indifference. The narrative invites listeners to consider whether beauty must be defended against bureaucracy, or if its demise is already inevitable.