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Aesthetics and Painting (Continuum Aesthetics) PDF

205 Pages·2008·2.52 MB·English
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AESTHETICS AND PAINTING Continuum Aesthetics Series Editor: Derek Matravers, Open University and University of Cambridge, UK The Continuum Aesthetics Series looks at the aesthetic questions and issues raised by all major art forms. Stimulating, engaging and accessible, the series offers food for thought not only for students of aesthetics, but also for anyone with an interest in philosophy and the arts. Titles available from Continuum: Aesthetics and Architecture, Edward Winters Aesthetics and Film, Katherine Thomson-Jones Aesthetics and Literature, David Davies Aesthetics and Morality, Elisabeth Schellekens Aesthetics and Music, Andy Hamilton Aesthetics and Nature, Glenn Parsons Aesthetics and Painting, Jason Gaiger AESTHETICS AND PAINTING JASON GAIGER Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London, SE1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com © Jason Gaiger 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 10: HB: 0826485200 PB: 0826485219 ISBN 13: HB: 9780826485205 PB: 9780826485212 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gaiger, Jason. Aesthetics and painting/Jason Gaiger. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-8264-8520-5 ISBN 978-0-8264-8521-2 1. Painting–Philosophy. 2. Aesthetics. I. Title. ND1140.G343 2008 750.1--dc22 2008016672 Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall CONTENTS List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgements viii 1 Painting and Philosophy 1 The relevance of philosophy 1 The practice of painting 5 A preliminary defi nition 8 Two requirements 13 2 A Window onto the World 16 Art and imitation 16 Alberti’s On Painting 21 Plato’s theory of mim eˉsis 27 Ideal form and sensory knowledge 33 3 Surface and Subject 38 Two forms of awareness 38 Sustaining illusion 40 Ambiguity and pictorial representation 46 Representational seeing 53 Strong twofoldness 58 4 Resemblance and Denotation 63 Pictorial signs 63 A symbol theory of art 70 Rules and conventions 77 Seeing and reading 83 5 Pictorial Style 91 The problem of style 93 Individual and general style 97 The specifi cally visual 102 v CONTENTS A logic of depiction 106 Wölffl in’s history of vision 111 6 Modernism and the Avant-Garde 116 The limits of formalism 116 Greenberg’s theory of modernism 124 Abstraction and the easel picture 131 Contemporary challenges 137 Notes 144 Bibliography 165 Index 175 vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Colour Plates Plate 1 Pieter de Hooch, A Woman Peeling Apples, c. 1663 Plate 2 Dioskourides of Samos, Strolling Masked Musicians, 2nd century BC Plate 3 Diego Velázquez, The Waterseller of Seville, c. 1618–22 Plate 4 Giovanni Bellini, Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints, 1505 Plate 5 Adolph Menzel, Lady with Opera Glasses, c. 1850 Plate 6 Diego Velázquez, Las Meniñas, c. 1656 Plate 7 Leroy de Barde, Still Life with Exotic Birds, c. 1810 Plate 8 Georges Braque, The Portuguese (The Emigrant), 1911–12 Plate 9 Francisco de Goya, The Duke of Wellington, 1812–14 Plate 10 Pablo Picasso, Violin, 1912 Plate 11 Albrecht Dürer, Self-Portrait with a Thistle, 1493 Plate 12 R embrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait with Two Circles, 1661–62 Plate 13 Jacopo Tintoretto, The Presentation of the Virgin, 1552 Plate 14 Paul Cézanne, Woman with a Coffee Pot, c. 1890–95 Plate 15 Jackson Pollock, Silver over Black, White, Yellow and Red, 1948 Plate 16 Gerhard Richter, Christa and Wolfi , 1964 Figures Figure 1 T he visual cone, illustration from Brook Taylor, New Principles of Linear Perspective, London, 1715 Figure 2 Duck-rabbit (Kaninchen und Ente), illustration from Fliegende Blätter, Vol. 97, 23 October 1892 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Katerina Deligiorgi, Andy Hamilton, Charles Harrison, Derek Matravers and Paul Wood for their advice, encourage- ment and support in producing this book. Special thanks are due to Andy and Katerina, who read and commented on every chapter, and whose detailed criticisms and suggestions helped to shape my ideas and s ustained me in the belief that it is possible to reconcile the twin impera- tives of writing about philosophy and art. I would also like to thank the British Academy for the award of a research grant to cover the costs of the illustrations. viii CHAPTER 1 PAINTING AND PHILOSOPHY THE RELEVANCE OF PHILOSOPHY Philosophy is said to begin in wonder.1 But it also begins in perplexity, doubt, curiosity and a stubborn insistence on asking diffi cult questions, including questions about the nature and purpose of philosophy itself. This book is a study in philosophy, more precisely, that particular branch of the discipline that has come to be termed aesthetics. It is therefore important to start by asking what, if anything, philosophy can tell us about painting and why painting should be considered an appropriate subject for philosophical enquiry. Although directed at the same underlying issue, these two questions tend in different directions. The fi rst asks whether philosophy can reveal something about painting that might otherwise remain obscure or hidden: in what ways might it deepen our understand- ing and how does it differ from other forms of writing and thinking about art such as art history and art criticism? The second question asks why philosophers should be interested in painting in the fi rst place. Does paint- ing raise a distinctive set of problems in aesthetics that are not already addressed within other areas of philosophy? And might refl ection on these problems cast light on more abstract philosophical concerns, such as the distinction between appearance and reality or the status of repre- sentations? Painting is a non-discursive art form whose effects are realized through the arrangement of shapes and colours on a material support. A painting does not depend on axioms or chains of inference, nor, even in the most extended sense, can it be said to raise a claim or defend a position. It is therefore far from obvious that a discipline that is primarily concerned with abstract reasoning and logical argument is equipped to provide s pecial insight into a creative practice that operates through images rather than words. Although we might criticize a painting on the grounds of artifi ciality or insincerity, we cannot assess it in terms of its truth or falsity. Such an approach surely rests on a category mistake. But that we cannot argue with a painting does not mean that we cannot argue about it. 1

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