Abstract

After the "Death of Painting," the role of vision in the experience of art has changed entirely. The privilege of visuality in modernism has been superseded by a minimalist visuality, which contains in itself the relation between the beholder and the work. In this light, Nietzsche's concept of Vision assumes a different aspect. In The Birth of Tragedy, Apollonian art is attributed to the dream in which we look away from sufferings in real life, and become absorbed in contemplation of an imaginary world. In tragedy, however, the Apollonian operation is called Vision in distinction from the dream. The intoxicated spectator transfigures actors on the stage into gods and acquires an insight into the Dionysian origin of the world. In his later work Twilight of the Idols, in which Vision as an intoxication of the eye replaces the dream, Apollonian art as well as music arouses intoxication. A transfiguration results from this, with the eyes open. Therefore, Vision is a sort of visuality that exists as a physical relation between the beholder and the work. This concept of Vision provides a new perspective on both Nietzsche's theory of art and contemporary art