O MEDIACYJNYM I AUTONOMICZNYM CHARAKTERZE SOCJOLOGII SZTUKI.

The article consists of three parts. The first part presents the fields of research of the sociology of art, mostly situated on the borders of a few disciplines: sociology, psychology, esthetics and history of art. It is based mainly on the conceptions of S. Ossowski, A. Kloskowska, P. Bourdieu, H. Becker, A. Hauser, J. Wollf, and R. Moulin. Adopting the communicative orientation allows us to analyze the problems connected with the author, work of art, receiver and the institutional world of art. The second part is devoted to theoretical orientation of sociology of art and its methodological implications. The structural approach consists of the analyses of the form and content of the work of art, taking into account its meanings, values and code. The interference of esthetics and semiology seems to be very distinct at this point. The socio-genetic approach, the most famous representatives of which are G. Lukacs and L. Goldmann concentrates on showing the dependency between the construction of the work of art and the place and era when it as created. On the other hand, the functional approach concerns social existence of the work of art and its reception. The author's research on the reception of painting lies within this area. In all these cases, the basic techniques of gathering sociological materials are: analyses of documents and interviews linked with the experiments. The third part sums up the mediation and autonomous character of sociology of art indicating two parallel processes: interdisciplinary character of studies of art and attempts at building a separate field of sociology of art, e.g. by developing sociology of reception or sociology of interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]