Asymmetries of Language and Sight. Introduction to a Philosophy of Art

Abstract

0. The basic postulate is: seeing and the seen in painting can be studied through indirect forms of representation. The mediation of sight points to the intentional nature of artificial optical and visual phenomena of art. Intentionality enables a comparison of visual and linguistic effects. Potential asymmetry of the visual and the linguistic aspect of art (painting) is the problem which is elaborated in the paper. 1. Representation is a structural, epistemological, semantic and technical method of creating or producing a work of art which visually and optically refers to a real or fictional object, being, situation, or event. 2. Visual meta-language is the signification and structural order of a visual work of art by means of which other works of art are shown and represented, as well as aspects of the artworld, stylistic patterns, genre rules and typified schemes, ways of establishing meaning in a work of art, language-pictorial games, visual properties of a work of art, and conceptual and ideological overdeterminations. 3. The mimesis of mimesis (representation of the represented) is a Post-modernist eclectical (post-metaphysical, post-historical) conception of art whereby a painting does not represent reality, the original essence of art, or the direct emotions of the artist.