Individualism in modern art

This article was conceived and written as a continuation of another one that the author published last year (Literary Thought magazine, vol. 6), under the title "Origin and essence of the theory of "art for art's sake". Both there and here the author attempts to examine the relevant phenomena from a historical point of view, which, taking into account the specific conditions of their emergence and development, seeks to penetrate their complex and contradictory essence, to analyze the struggle of positive and negative tendencies in them and the fatal end of this struggle, in which, by virtue of a whole complex of social reasons, the destructive principle prevails. It is here, in the aesthetics and art of individualism, that the reader will see (if, of course, the author has been able to prove it) that both in the actions of individual human behavior and in broader social and cultural manifestations, subjectively honest intentions often lead to objectively harmful results, or more precisely, that the pursuit of freedom of personal expression in artistic creation is only a positive value when it is guided by the consciousness of public service, when it is restrained by the principles of social discipline.