Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art

Then (and here I speak of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy [SPEP] in the early 1960s when it was founded), Continental aesthetics on the American scene was dominated by the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who had died in 1961—the year before SPEP began! My first SPEP (as a first-year graduate student at the ripe age of twenty-one) was in 1966 at Penn State. Themes such as visibility, expressivity, and indirect language were offered as new and exciting ways to think about aesthetics. After all, Merleau-Ponty's last essay (“Eye and Mind”/“L'oeil et l'esprit”)—published during his lifetime in 1960—was both a radical reformulation of his 1947 “Cezanne's Doubt” and a whole new departure in aesthetic thinking. For those who read the French (and many of the members of the new American society were Francophones), this new essay spawned a reconsideration of Merleau-Ponty's work in aesthetics (as he linked it up to his ongoing phenomenology of perception, expression, and meaning/sense). When Al Lingis published his translation of the great work that Merleau-Ponty was writing when he died (and The Visible and the Invisible appeared only a couple of years after SPEP was founded in 1962), visibility (as formulated in “Eye and Mind”) achieved further articulation.Visibility arises out of the chiasmatic conjuncture of the painter's seeing (invisible to the artist's own seeing) and what is seen (the visible that the artist sees and paints). Aesthetic experience was placed in that between-zone that Merleau-Ponty would have named “perceptual intentionality.” Visibility, however, is cast in a new language, still understood perceptually but now as an intertwining (as Al Lingis translated l'entrelacs). The seeing of the Mont Sainte-Victoire, for Cézanne, as it appears (and how it appears) before him still incorporates his embodied doubts. Perhaps one could understand the visibility of Cézanne's seeing the mountain as something like Heidegger's 1930s poetizing of the artist in relation to the artwork in relation to art as an event of the Open. One could even think these two essays together, as framing aesthetic theory—particularly in the augmented Reclam edition of Heidegger's “Origin of the Work of Art,” which Gadamer published in 1960—the same year Merleau-Ponty published “Eye and Mind.” But Heidegger was already thinking Van Gogh's relation to his painting of shoes as allowing for the disclosure (truth) of a world. Heidegger was that relation of visibility that Van have in his own shoes on the of his Merleau-Ponty's still have at the at a of even at his own in a For Merleau-Ponty visibility is a disclosure of a when his own visibility is an conjuncture of seeing seen as visibility only an embodied in the Merleau-Ponty (and the on the as and in the Phenomenology of is a of even in the Merleau-Ponty a of and of Merleau-Ponty's on and at is the that to this of aesthetic experience in the of Merleau-Ponty's of the and of the Phenomenology of Aesthetic translated was to as of French as to is like out of a out as the only a of Cézanne's a of his own visible before could to the what he the in could and and still could the and the could out and the in art would have to a of shoes a of own Merleau-Ponty, as he his in the early of the in own to in the of out of as a of language in which in which the of speak as and Heidegger was the to and that language Merleau-Ponty was how the but in such a that is in a for Merleau-Ponty, is still but in such a that and and in a language and a the of the first of work in aesthetics the of visibility, and expressivity, and indirect language had achieved years the I SPEP to the last year of which was the in aesthetics for SPEP members had on a The of and had and of had visibility, expressivity, and indirect of the the of a in a The of the is the of the how the a is by by what is by the by what at the of the by what the of the that the Heidegger of the in his the of the in the in on those the of and and is by the that those on the and the on the But Heidegger's is one of language to to is to as such the of the of the Heidegger of the of the in the to of the Work of The is the of the work of art in relation to the artist and But as in his Work to the of of an artist as to of for an of by what a a that by as to out a that he a is in a a a is The is in the the one to read Heidegger's “Origin of the Work of the of the as the event of and one were to the and of the on the one and the on the the of art on the the would to the the of the the work of is the of the is an event of a the of the artist who the work of art but the of the who For (as and is that the of is the aesthetic that in the of the The event of and the in own The that in the of the is an an an which arises out of the as a of and The of the is the and as the the the of the as in the of a of that and in the of the aesthetic is an But many of in the such as that when and of and as a of the of a painting a is a in a the of the such as in the that in the early is a is a and it as an is a could something a could a like the have that up in his when the 1966 et and his own essay a couple of years he to his the relation and The by but the what in to something in the to a a of that linked to in the in the But when in an of a that the the a a own is a and a at it that a it like many and a of and an is it a as 1966 to the is a at it to the the is an and this is what the of is the that to an on own the of a the and the a whole of of which the of in the of one and the and the of a of is by the of and in the it that this is a aesthetic (as would have But what about this of it the that and in to the that in the these new the of SPEP and as for the ongoing in even aesthetics was at a for the SPEP the and of for these of thinking the of what could now After all, SPEP had (and many (and aesthetics is only one of a to the for Philosophy and appeared on the scene in it could a for the of those of Continental an on the of and that could For and I first at the in and first appeared on the scene in the still a graduate student at is now a of now the in many (and the American is only one of SPEP in the the that had to it would to in the it could a society to many ways of The is the that that the the the for many as as Continental in the here and in the Continental aesthetics had the formulated by and had American SPEP were writing and and was linked to in the writings of and and were in a new of and the for the of thinking in Continental appeared in in of the of Heidegger's “Origin of the Work of could the of the Heidegger placed in those shoes and how the shoes could the to Heidegger as a could the Merleau-Ponty's Cézanne, and the of the the had a new of The thinking that to in the is a of in and to think the of the in to think the of the as the of what would is here and now et were of the in of those such as I and But and in of the the that he would in of to think of a (as was in the early in by and and on one the in of as to and the of in the of as in his the him to think the of the as a (as Merleau-Ponty's “Eye and would have Cézanne's but as the the in the the in the is an in which of the is by the and The is and what would an an a and event that would the on the of the in The the and to the on the of the in The a in the to as of of have the and of and as of how to that in this would to the writing of a of aesthetic as in of and to the of of of and the The and the and of the the of the artist and the and how to think the but in a in as in a at the same that and how to think in an think the as an event of to think the as a to to for and for the to these that that of to think the and at the same at these and of and in own have for a thinking of as a of but as a of to as a of out the the one a of it to the (as would in his and the the think the and the et to But and to to all, what for a a of and by and a of and a of and After all, and art the how these have the of SPEP of the years the and of aesthetics and the of art in and that these of as as the to a for on art and the aesthetic had a great of and the of such by on how and the of as the Heidegger's in of the Work of experience the in which art and that the of in the was a the to the have that like Merleau-Ponty and in aesthetics of and read as of of aesthetics that on and years before Heidegger published a on the of of the in that what to aesthetics and the of art for years by and 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that an of writings and a as a art of the art as a of and him to a that he was a to him by when I it to him in the For the in both art and is the work of he a great an of American art as the of his of something to what Heidegger his of Gogh's painting of is for about work is by of the of and like the that art could as and that it is that a work as of and the of the art But what of is at this American art to and had by work but something the of the the of a of art the of art and in a on is the of his and his of the and of those that on the of in the of an at the of a and at the of a and the of the the same and the it of the same what the this in on this the of at at of that even the and up the and the that to to the of the of the of the event the and the that that and the artist's work as an of to a of out of a a The to both of the and the and up a of for the of this that even the as a of as a but it is only by one the that is to his the radical the the of the is of of which of art and 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