Reappropriated Spirituality: The Reclamation of the Eastern in Modernism

As we talked about today, I think reviewing Heidegger’s On the Origin of the Work of Art will give you a reference for philosophically analyzing artwork. It also mirrors Nietzsche’s idea of the Apollonian/Dionysian when Heidegger talks about Matter and Form – it might be a good topological tie to mention this.

I think Heidegger’s essence of the work of art is something that could be akin to your circumlocuism, which we can talk about more for your conclusion next week, but for now, you could just address it as dynamic spirituality, if you want.

I think all the useful Heidegger bits in that essay are found after his example of the poem The Roman Fountain (I have the orange David Krell version, 1993, page 163/164)- you can ignore that bit but on the page and a half following is his description of how to analyze art starting where he says, “We seek the actuality of the artwork in order actually to find there the art prevailing within it”. I might summarize it to be: 1) Describe the art in formalist terms, 2) Describe in phenomenological terms – how the formal elements connect to make a whole/or a new dynamic, 3) interpret the art/philosophy within – or how it applies to your concepts, and 4) — which you can do within the previous two if you’d rather — intertextually place the artwork with what came before and what comes after (like how the Da Vinci pieces both connect with the history of the ‘East’ and later Cezanne’s interconnectedness or how af Klint’s understanding of her work was very Nietzschean in that she knew she would not be understood in her lifetime and her possible connection with Kandinsky’s kind of spiritual modernism in the pyramid/triangle). Does that make sense?

* I would recommend doing this by taking Da Vinci’s Ginevra de Benci and Mona Lisa and doing a comparison of the two. That way you can show the continuity of his backdrop with the curve and lapis, referencing the river (Heraclitus, Nietzsche, Bergson) and the interconnectedness (like Cezanne). In one way you want to show that the curve/curl with the addition of lapis lazuli takes this interconnectedness and makes it exalted (divine/spiritual). 3-4 pages.

* And doing a deep reading/analysis of a Hilma Af Klint work (lapis lazuli will essentially be replaced by her acheiropoietos) can do the stuff I mentioned above with her and Nietz/Kandinsky. 2-3 pages.

Send me anything beforehand, if you like, and we will replace some of that Levinas/Habermas/Fry conversation with these examples. Let me know what you think or if you have any questions.