Between Word and Image by Dennis J. Schmidt

Author:Dennis J. Schmidt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indiana University Press

CHAPTER 3

ON WORD, IMAGE, AND GESTURE: ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT A BEGINNING

Three texts published in 1960, the same year in which Heidegger largely abandoned the question of painting, proved to be among the most promising for opening up a new approach for the philosophical concern with painting. The first was the reissue of “The Origin of the Work of Art” (written and delivered as a lecture in 1935, first published in 1950, reissued as a separate text in 1960), which was published this time with an introduction by Gadamer and a new addendum by Heidegger. With the addition of these texts, one is led to see “The Origin of the Work of Art” in a new context and so read it in a new way. The second text of 1960 was “Eye and Mind,” a text in which Merleau-Ponty asks about the “fundamental of painting, [and hence] perhaps of all culture,”1 and which does this more rigorously from within the standpoint of the painter than perhaps any philosopher had yet accomplished. The third text of this year was Gadamer's Truth and Method, which, more systematically and more rigorously than any other text, draws together all of the historical strands that have defined the decisive moments in the history of philosophical approaches to artworks—especially with regard to painting.2 There were other texts from this period that pursued the question of art; among them, several would single out Klee's work as opening up new possibilities for painting. Adorno, Foucault, Deleuze, Lyotard, Marcuse, Bloch, and, to some extent, Sartre, Blanchot, and Bataille all take up the question of the work of art, especially painting, as a central philosophical issue and not merely as an adjunct concern, and all turn to Klee as exemplary in addressing this question.3 In other words, precisely at the moment that Heidegger despairs of the possibilities of art in our times, precisely when he quietly retreats from the question of painting, art—painting above all—comes forward to define the central philosophical questions of this moment and in a variety of thinkers.

Three common denominators uniting these new developments and these texts should be noted. First, in each case the work of art is understood to signal a challenge to the hegemony of philosophical conceptuality in the determination of truth. The question of the relation of word (no longer defined by the view that it reaches its summit in the concept) and of the image (no longer tethered to figuration and representation) moves to the center of philosophical concerns and holds these otherwise rather disparate thinkers together in a “tradition.” This tradition, which we inappropriately tend to designate geographically as “continental” philosophy, understands the question of art as moving directly to the heart of philosophical questioning. For this tradition, art is no longer able to be considered as a matter of “aesthetics” or as a subfield of philosophy; rather, art is understood as opening up the very possibility of philosophy and thus located at the heart of philosophy itself. The task of philosophy is to seek a philosophical response to this new opening.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.