“When the Real Matters : Interpreting the Visual with Catherine Belsey." (original) (raw)
Related papers
EROTICIZING AESTHETICS: IN THE REAL WITH BATAILLE AND LACAN
London: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2021
Summary: Discusses Bataille's theory of eroticism and aesthetics by way of often surprisingly similar insights from Lacan, Freud, and Nietzsche. Bringing together Bataille with Lacan and Nietzsche, Tim Themi examines the role of aesthetics implicit in each and how this invokes an erotic process celebrating the real of what is usually excluded from symbolic articulation. Bataille came to deem eroticism as the standpoint from which to grasp humanity as a whole, based on his understanding of our transition to humanity being founded on a series of taboos placed on inner animality. An erotic outlet for the latter was historically the aesthetic dimensions of our religions, but Bataille's view of how this was gradually diminished has much in keeping with Nietzsche's critique of Christian-Platonic dualism and Lacan's of the desexualised Good of Western metaphysics. Building from these often surprising proximities, Themi closely examines Bataille's many interventions into the history of aesthetics -- from his confrontations with Breton's surrealism to his own novels and encounter with the animal cave paintings of Lascaux -- radically re-illuminating the corollary phenomena of Dionysos in Nietzsche's philosophy and the "jouissance [enjoyment] of transgression" in the psychoanalysis of Lacan. A new ethical criterion for aesthetic works and creations on this basis becomes possible. Key features: Thorough examination of primary texts of Bataille connecting his theory of eroticism to his many interventions into aesthetics. Sheds new light on Bataille's thought by closely detailing similar arguments in Nietzsche, Freud and Lacan. Strengthens our understanding of Nietzsche and Lacan by reflecting back on them in a new Bataillean way.
2012
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) has been known as the philosopher of painting whose thinking developed through visual arts. His interest in the theory of perception intertwined with the questions concerning the artist’s perception, the experience of an artwork and the possible interpretations of the artwork. For him, aesthetics was not a sub-field of philosophy, and art was not simply a subject matter for the aesthetic experience (of beauty), but a form of thinking. This study proposes an opening for a dialogue between MerleauPontian phenomenology and contemporary art. The thesis has a twofold approach: on the one hand, it examines his phenomenology through certain works of contemporary art, and on the other hand, it presents readings of these artworks through Merleau-Pontian phenomenology. My work is a demonstration of a Merleau-Pontian approach to artworks; the goal is both to show the potentiality of a method, but also to engage in the critical task of finding the possible limi...
RETURNING THE RADIANT GAZE: Visual Art and Embodiment in a World of Subjects
The Goose: Journal of the Association for Literature, Environment + Culture in Canada (ALECC), 2018
Drawing on the latter thinking of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as well as on the ideas of other contemporary philosophers and theorists, this essay considers the denigration of vision from Plato to twentieth-century antioccularism, and argues for the reclamation of vision and visual perception as sensuous, embodied interplay between humans and world, self and other–an opening to wonder and more sensitive human-world relations. It does so through a phenomenological exploration of the process of art-making, and consideration of the role and value of artworks and images in the world. This essay is first and foremost an enquiry. As such it promises no final conclusions but is rather a process, a journey through the contested territory of the sensual world of art and vision. Recommended Citation Carruthers, Beth (2018) "Returning the Radiant Gaze: Visual Art and Embodiment in a World of Subjects," The Goose: Vol. 17 : Iss. 1 , Article 32. Available at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol17/iss1/32
Art, Empathy, Truth : On The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience by Mikel Dufrenne
2013
This thesis discusses Mikel Dufrenne's view presented in The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience (1953) that the aesthetic experience is a fundamental aspect of human existence, which is valuable in its own right because it conveys truth. According to Dufrenne the aesthetic experience is the reading of, and contemplation on, the expressed meaning of an aesthetic object. The expressed meaning is purely sensuous and its comprehension is bodily. In the thesis I pose three questions to this view. First, if the aesthetic experience is a bodily comprehension of sensuous expression, what separates it from empathy? Second, if it is said that the expressed meaning of the aesthetic object is true, what is aesthetic truth? Third, if it is held that the aesthetic experience is fundamental, and thus necessary and universal, how does it relate to its socio-cultural context? Briefly put, I argue that the major difference between aesthetic and empathic experience, is that aesthetic experience conveys truth. According to Dufrenne, truth is a meaning that illuminates the real. The expressed meaning of the aesthetic object is such an illumination, and it can be described as being structured by an a priori principle. Therefore, the expression of the aesthetic object is not a result of the spectator's projection, but is an aspect of the aesthetic object itself. However, I argue that even though the aesthetic experience always occurs within a socio-cultural context, it can nevertheless not be reduced to be a product of this context alone. Finally, I present three contemporary approaches to aesthetic meaning, and discuss their merits in light of Dufrenne's theory, and briefly propose how it can be relevant for further interdisciplinary work between art history, theory and philosophical aesthetics. VI VII Thanks to Bente and Arnfinn for interesting conversations and excellent supervising, Vandad for proofreading, and my parents and friends for support. VIII
eJournalist, 2009
The (dis)orientation of thought in its encounter with art can be understood as the direct result of an encounter with indeterminacy as a lack in meaning. As an artist I am aware of how this indeterminacy impacts on the perceived value and authority of the artistic voice and in particular its value as a research voice. This paper explores this indeterminacy of meaning, as a profound and disturbing unknowing characteristic of the sublime and argues its value to advanced thought and for any methodological understanding of practice-led research.
re-published in a modified version as The Psychoanalytic Approach to Artistic and Literary Expression in Toward the Postmodern, ed. R. Harvey and M. Roberts (Amherst, NY, Humanity Books, 1993, pp. 2-11). Opposing itself to various other psychoanalytic approaches to art and literature (approaches that Lyotard criticises along the way), the paper argues that because artistic and literary works are laden with figure, which operates according to a different logic than that of language, artistic expression must be understood as having properties different from those of spoken or written commentary. Expression is thus set off from meaning, and is shown to reveal a very specific kind of truth: the trace of the primary process, free for the moment from the ordering functions of the secondary process. Its formative operations not only leave their mark on the space in which artistic works appear, but produce new, plastic, figures. Lyotard argues that the artistic impulse is the desire to see these unconscious operations, "the desire to see the desire." Attention to this function of truth and to the role of artistic space in giving the artwork its "play" brings attention back to Freud's analysis of expression in tragedy and its link to the results of his own self-analysis -and thus to the very constitution of psychoanalysis itself.
Phenomenologies of Art and Vision: A Post-Analytic Turn
British Journal of Aesthetics;Oct2014, Vol. 54 Issue 4, p504 Paul Crowther, Phenomenologies of Art and Vision: A Post-Analytic Turn, Bloomsbury, 2013. Paul Crowther has created an important body of philosophical writing about visual art. The present work develops it further. Crowther argues that the analytic and phenomenological traditions of philosophy need one another if visual art is to be understood in ways going beyond the spectatorial viewpoint alone. He shows this through critical discussions of a range of relevant thinkers. He shows their strengths and weaknesses, and gradually develops his own position in the course of doing this.