Imagination in Experiences of Visual Art: An Investigation in Phenomenological Psychology

Abstract In this article, we demonstrate empirically that imagination is fundamental in experiences of visual art. We do so through phenomenological interviews and analysis in dialogue with works of the phenomenologists Mikel Dufrenne, Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. We challenge Dufrenne’s delimiting of imagination to a pre-reflective power of synthesis, and argue in favor of a more comprehensive psychological understanding of imagination, which encompasses psychological differences in actual lived experience. Our analysis shows how imagination is necessarily part of experiences with visual art, as it provides ways of exploring and unfolding the expressions of the work of art. Such experiences are therefore characterized by a close relation between imagination and perception, as well as an affective lining which belongs to our imaginings.