Art and Phenomenology

Philosophy of art is traditionally concerned with the definition, appreciation and value of art. Through a close examination of art from recent centuries, Art and Phenomenology is one of the first books to explore visual art as a mode of experiencing the world itself, showing how in the words of Merleau-Ponty ‘Painting does not imitate the world, but is a world of its own’.

An outstanding series of chapters by an international group of contributors examine the following questions:

• Paul Klee and the body in art
• colour and background in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of art
• self-consciousness and seventeenth-century painting
• Vermeer and Heidegger
• philosophy and the painting of Rothko
• embodiment in Renaissance art
• sculpture, dance and phenomenology.

Art and Phenomenology is essential reading for anyone interested in phenomenology, aesthetics, and visual culture.