Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Faculty Member of Academy of Art of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
Images are able to show completely different things from
themselves and have fascinated philosophers since Plato.
Among the philosophers who have dealt with this field are
phenomenologists, who approach images from different
angles. Some philosophers who study phenomenological
aesthetics consider art as the perception of the visible.
In this article, we try to answer the question, what is the
importance of art and aesthetics for philosophy, and how
can phenomenological concepts be used to understand
abstraction in painting? Does phenomenology add anything
new to our understanding of painting? Influenced by the
founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, we draw on
specific concepts - horizon, phenomenological reduction,
life-world, epoch - and show what the connection is between
abstraction, the world, and phenomenological reduction.
Abstraction shows the relationship between the world and
the horizon. Pictorial reduction reveals how the horizon of
the world and surprises the viewer. Or how past horizons
make up for our present experience. Relying on Husserlian
framework and descriptive-analytical method, we must be
prepared to look at artwork without any presuppositions, to
set aside habitual expectations, and to react directly to the
dynamic relationships of the visible elements of color and
form. Thus, this reading works by reducing, eliminating,
and concentrating, and it requires an active response, not
a passive acceptance. In this reading, the work of art is an
object to motivate thought, but not in the way that inanimate
nature, landscape, portrait, or narrative might be. In fact, our
judgment of the effect depends on how the effect penetrates
our consciousness and affects our feelings and thoughts.
Thus, the artist, like a phenomenologist, moves away from
the natural and everyday world and looks deeper into the
world, reviving the forgotten biosphere and filling the gap
between consciousness and the world. In other words, they
both rebuild the world and both return to the world. It thus
refers to the abstract concept of the return to the world and the
internal relations of the world that are not known. With this
reading we have shown that abstraction is not a separation
from the world or nature, but a different experience of it.
In fact, abstraction is a useful tool for expressing a variety
of experiences and ideas. In other words, abstraction may
mean something positive, a “return” to a deeply global
relationship, though not explicitly recognized. Also,
considering the distinction between the phenomenological
epoch and the aesthetic epoch, we conclude that the whole
painting is abstract and non-figurative. Finally, and surely art
has long been the subject of phenomenological philosophical
studies, which in turn gives way to the expression of human
life. However, the tradition of phenomenological aesthetics
is still in its infancy and its identity is very fluid, and the
possibility of phenomenological aesthetics can still be posed
as a living question.
Keywords
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