Abstract

This study carries three components: a survey of the concept of inter-subjectivity, or the question of the relations of individuals with others. This survey draws upon J. G. Fichte's idea that "individual" is a reciprocal concept, or the idea that one becomes oneself only with others. a survey of how modernism dealt with the four individual artists in this study. The underpinning question here is why modernism missed the question of inter-subjectivity when dealing with Pissarro and Cezanne, and Rauschenberg and Johns who, however, worked together for a sustained length of time. an analysis of the complementary ties------at work within, and between, the two artistic interchanges under study. ;The three principal themes of this study have led to the following observations. The complex and challenging features of these two collaborative pairs do not just tell a lot about each individual artist, in relation with an important other. We also see that a manifold experience of inter-subjectivity is inseparable from the subjectivity of each artist. The two pairs of artists compared have a lot more in common than modernist history would let us expect. Thus, in the end, thinking about inter-subjectivity in art invites us to rethink the model of history inherited by modernism, not just to understand the past, but also to understand our present: it is still within our common---albeit fractured---space that the individual today can affirm itself