“The Names of Things: Terminology and the Practice of Art History”, Revista de História da Arte 10 (2012): 227–239 (original) (raw)

Une Exploration de l'essence de l'art à la lumière de la situation contemporaine de l'art

2019

This thesis seeks to answer a basic question of the philosophy of art: What is art? After examining the answers provided to this question by several art theories, it proposes that the definition of art offered by Arthur Danto is the one that most conforms to the reality of art, although it suffers from certain imperfections and insufficiencies. On the basis of this critical conclusion and through a careful analysis of what is categorized as art in the present time, it attempts to modify Danto’s definition and to transfigure it into a new one, capable of better conforming to the reality of art. It firstly introduces the contemporary situation of art and the existing art theories which didn’t successfully do sufficient justice to the totality of what is considered as artistic. Through a critical examination of these theories, it tries to show that the sufficient and necessary conditions for being art that they propose are either not sufficient or not necessary. It then tries to clear ...

LOPES, Cristina M. G.(2020) PAINTING/MAKING; THE QUESTION OF MEANINGS AND VALUES. In JORGE, Vítor O. (coord.) - Modos de Fazer/Ways of Making. Porto: CITCEM, p. 315-321

Modos de Fazer/Ways of Making, 2020

This work seeks to give some contributions related to my painting, the process of making as well as to my philosophical research. I try that my fields of inquiry, are not just products of complex historically contingent circumstances, but constructs of the ontological dimension of my paintings as a medium of individuation. Therefore I consider that thinking about the meanings and the values and going beyond a historically and philosophically interrelated conceptual dichotomies is important to increase critical awareness. The late 20 th century saw those dichotomies sometimes come under convergence, in fields as diverse as those closest to physical science, such as the philosophy of science, and human sciences which traditionally focused on societies that used to be characterized as lacking science and even history, such as anthropology (and prehistoric archaeology). Many factors have been involved, including the socio-cultural changes that have gradually challenged the predominant pictures of the world.

The Truth in Painting . Review of: Lexicographie artistique: forme, usages et enjeux dans l Europe moderne, edited by Michèle-Caroline Heck with Marianne Freyssinet and Stéphanie Trouvé (Montepellier: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée, 2018)

Journal of Art Historiography, 2020

Reviews two important contributions to the study of Early Modern Northern European art theoretical literature, a dictionary of art terms and an edited volume of case studies on writings on art published between 1600 and 1750 in German, French, English, and Dutch. These two volumes are the first systematic comparison of artistic vocabulary in four languages as the terms appeared in a range of publications indebted to Italian sources. They study the literature from c. 1604, when Karel Van Mander s Schilder-boek was first published, until c. 1750, when Alexander Baumgarten introduced the term "aesthetics" to establish the analytical philosophy of art. Broadening the study to several countries and languages shows both the fragmentation of a received discourse and the emergence of common elements in an evolving, dynamic conception of painting.

“Portraying the Unrepresentable: The Methodical Eye of the Early Modern Meta-Painting. Las Meninas, From Velazquez to Picasso", Annals of University of Bucharest, Philosophy Series, No.2, 2013

The aim of this paper is to examine and define a new aesthetical paradigm, claimed by the speculative painting, following two different but connected artistic discourses: Las Meninas by Velazquez, and its 58 replicas of Pablo Picasso, the self-portrait being possible only as representation of the fictional author and its authorial Ego. The working hypothesis is that, by resort to this premise, the authorial representation of the painter performed through a self-portrait or the perennial relation between interior and exterior dimensions were created each time differently, using the insertion of a mirror representing a particular manner to give form to auto-reflexivity. Taking into account the elements and the conclusions of the current analysis, the present contribution aims to synthesize general characteristics of the mirror motive and the negative painting as meta-referential discourse. Las Meninas, both in Picasso’s and Velázquez’s representations, include exophoric and endophoric elements. I shall argue that this two types of elements generate two registers of visibilities, remarked as “visible” and “invisible” levels, in Foucault’s terms, the problem of Self’s representation being, in fact, originally constructed as the genuine difference between seen and unseen forms of pure representation. Inspired by Velázquez, Las Meninas, performed by Piccasso, created a new artistic discourse, in which the problem of the pure representation is abolished, the construct being replaced by the couple “self-reflective”-“self-reflexive” representations. “Portraying the Unrepresentable” is nothing else than creating an aesthetical dimension where visible and invisible contents can coexist and generate a fluent and consistent materiality for the pure representation’s Subject, testing on what conditions the terms of the critique change if “visible” is understood as “presence”, while any “invisible” – or at least speculated element as “invisible”- is recognized as “absence”.