
The Question of Painting
Rethinking Thought with Merleau-Ponty
Jorella Andrews(Author)
Bloomsbury Academic (Publisher)
Published on 25. June 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
352 pages
978-1-4725-7427-5 (ISBN)
Description
Since the latter half of the 20th century, committed art has been associated with conceptual, critical and activist practices. Painting, by contrast, is all too often defined as an outmoded, reactionary, market-led venture; an ineffectual medium from the perspective of social and political engagement. How can paintings change the world today?
The question of painting, in particular, fuelled the investigations of a major 20th-century philosopher: the French phenomenologist, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1907-61). Merleau-Ponty was at the forefront of attempts to place philosophy on a new footing by contravening the authority of Cartesian dualism and objectivist thought-an authority that continues to limit present-day intellectual, imaginative, and ethical possibilities. A central aim of The Question of Painting is to provide a closely focused, chronological account of his unfolding project and its relationship with art, clarifying how painting, as a paradigmatically embodied and situated mode of investigation, helped him to access the fundamentally "intercorporeal" basis of reality as he saw it, and articulate its lived implications.
With an exclusive and extended conversation about the contemporary virtues of painting with New York based artist Leah Durner, for whom the work of Merleau-Ponty is an important source of inspiration, The Question of Painting brings today's much debated concerns about the criticality of painting into contact with the question of painting in philosophy.
The question of painting, in particular, fuelled the investigations of a major 20th-century philosopher: the French phenomenologist, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1907-61). Merleau-Ponty was at the forefront of attempts to place philosophy on a new footing by contravening the authority of Cartesian dualism and objectivist thought-an authority that continues to limit present-day intellectual, imaginative, and ethical possibilities. A central aim of The Question of Painting is to provide a closely focused, chronological account of his unfolding project and its relationship with art, clarifying how painting, as a paradigmatically embodied and situated mode of investigation, helped him to access the fundamentally "intercorporeal" basis of reality as he saw it, and articulate its lived implications.
With an exclusive and extended conversation about the contemporary virtues of painting with New York based artist Leah Durner, for whom the work of Merleau-Ponty is an important source of inspiration, The Question of Painting brings today's much debated concerns about the criticality of painting into contact with the question of painting in philosophy.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
35 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
508 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4725-7427-5 (9781472574275)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
11/2018
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€37.49
Available for download

E-Book
11/2018
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€37.49
Available for download
Person
Jorella Andrews is Head of the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.
Content
1. Introduction
PART ONE
2. "Nature" and "Consciousness" - Merleau-Ponty's encounter with dualism
3. The Symbolic Forms and the question of integrated being
PART TWO
4. Description and the re-education of sight
5. Embodiment, self-perception and reflexivity
PART THREE
6. Merleau-Ponty's "new conception of the being of language"
7. Visual language and the 'unity' of painting
PART FOUR
8. Visibility - the "flesh" of the world
9. Intermundane space and the search for depth
PART FIVE
10. Painting, Largesse, and Life - A Conversation with Leah Durner
Bibliography
Index
PART ONE
2. "Nature" and "Consciousness" - Merleau-Ponty's encounter with dualism
3. The Symbolic Forms and the question of integrated being
PART TWO
4. Description and the re-education of sight
5. Embodiment, self-perception and reflexivity
PART THREE
6. Merleau-Ponty's "new conception of the being of language"
7. Visual language and the 'unity' of painting
PART FOUR
8. Visibility - the "flesh" of the world
9. Intermundane space and the search for depth
PART FIVE
10. Painting, Largesse, and Life - A Conversation with Leah Durner
Bibliography
Index