Paul Audi's 'L'ivresse de l'art' Reinterprets Nietzschean Aesthetics

Paul Audi's essay 'L'ivresse de l'art, Nietzsche et l'esthétique', published in the 'Biblio essais' pocketbook series by Le livre de poche, challenges conventional readings of Nietzsche's aesthetic philosophy. Audi argues that the core concept in Nietzsche's thought is not the Apollonian-Dionysian duality but 'ivresse' (intoxication), a radical physiological experience that makes art and self-consciousness possible. He traces this concept through 20th-century art, linking it to Georges Bataille's eroticism and D.H. Lawrence's critique of Cézanne. Audi contends that intoxication is both an aesthetic and ethical condition, an imperative that overwhelms the subject. The essay redefines modern art as a mission to liberate and intensify the feeling of life, echoing Nietzsche's dictum that 'we have art so as not to die of the truth.' Audi explores how this perspective breaks with Aristotelian mimesis and Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche, positioning artistic creation as an act of love that makes existence bearable. The book also includes an appendix on Aristotelian mimesis.