Itinera
Not a member yet
571 research outputs found
Sort by
«The Human Clay»: David Hockney’s poetics
Get PDFThe contemporary artist David Hockney is well known as a painter of nature. However, what is the focus of his art? What is his self-appointed purpose as a painter? From a critical review of his numerous publications the answer arises naturally: humanity. David Hockney abandons abstraction and excessive naturalism, criticizes and uses photography (and other new medias) to find a way to better understand and express his humanity; to communicate his personal vision of the word. The subjects of his paintings – present or not – are humans and their peculiar way of looking, which is very different from that of a camera. Human vision takes place over time, and it carves the space. It is close to its object, and it is influenced by memory. Human beings are not only the subject but also the recipient of his work, he draws for humanity. He aims to educate himself on a more human perception and communicate it to others. Art education is visual education. Art sharpens the visual sense and makes it see the world as beautiful, thrilling and mysterious. Thus, by changing perception, it can change the world. If we look at the world more closely, if we allow ourselves to truly perceive the beauty of the ordinary, we can better love and care for our environment. This is Hockney’s duty as an artist, to paint humanity and its visual perception in order to make the world more human. In this overstimulating era of new media, he indicates to his anesthetized contemporaries a possible way to fight against their many distractions and emerging depressions and, perhaps, even to address major environmental issues.The contemporary artist David Hockney is well known as a painter of nature. However, what is the focus of his art? What is his self-appointed purpose as a painter? From a critical review of his numerous publications the answer arises naturally: humanity. David Hockney abandons abstraction and excessive naturalism, criticizes and uses photography (and other new medias) to find a way to better understand and express his humanity; to communicate his personal vision of the word. The subjects of his paintings – present or not – are humans and their peculiar way of looking, which is very different from that of a camera. Human vision takes place over time, and it carves the space. It is close to its object, and it is influenced by memory. Human beings are not only the subject but also the recipient of his work, he draws for humanity. He aims to educate himself on a more human perception and communicate it to others. Art education is visual education. Art sharpens the visual sense and makes it see the world as beautiful, thrilling and mysterious. Thus, by changing perception, it can change the world. If we look at the world more closely, if we allow ourselves to truly perceive the beauty of the ordinary, we can better love and care for our environment. This is Hockney’s duty as an artist, to paint humanity and its visual perception in order to make the world more human. In this overstimulating era of new media, he indicates to his anesthetized contemporaries a possible way to fight against their many distractions and emerging depressions and, perhaps, even to address major environmental issues
The space of ragoûts. Diderot, the dressing gown and Penelope in a beer hall
Get PDFMy article aims to interrogate the tension between space and time in Diderot’s philosophy starting from the tableau of the imagination and its specific functioning.By examining the category of ragoût – a culinary preparation that, during the 18th century, became an expression of an aesthetic of the relationship and harmony between the parts and the whole – I will show how it plays, between the Lettres sur les souds et muets, the Essais sur la peinture, the Salons and the Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre, its central role in defining an idea of dynamic spatiality, within which reality and representation coexist in relationships of mutual tension and correspondence.
In fact, the ragoût reveals a conception of convenience which, by interweaving space and time, recalls the processes of human reason and interrogates them in pictorial and real space, making it habitable and comprehensible: if a detail always reveals a totality, activating a process of orientation in reality, when the relationship between the parts and the whole breaks down, the world itself falls apart. It is the law of convenience and ragoût that regulates the world: to change one’s dressing gown is to redefine one\u27s life entirely. If this does not happen, if the relationship between the fragment and the whole is broken, as in La Grenée painting exhibited at the Salon 1767, Penelope appears more suited to a beer hall than to the majestic but sober palace of Ithaca.My article aims to interrogate the tension between space and time in Diderot’s philosophy starting from the tableau of the imagination and its specific functioning.By examining the category of ragoût – a culinary preparation that, during the 18th century, became an expression of an aesthetic of the relationship and harmony between the parts and the whole – I will show how it plays, between the Lettres sur les souds et muets, the Essais sur la peinture, the Salons and the Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre, its central role in defining an idea of dynamic spatiality, within which reality and representation coexist in relationships of mutual tension and correspondence.
In fact, the ragoût reveals a conception of convenience which, by interweaving space and time, recalls the processes of human reason and interrogates them in pictorial and real space, making it habitable and comprehensible: if a detail always reveals a totality, activating a process of orientation in reality, when the relationship between the parts and the whole breaks down, the world itself falls apart. It is the law of convenience and ragoût that regulates the world: to change one’s dressing gown is to redefine one\u27s life entirely. If this does not happen, if the relationship between the fragment and the whole is broken, as in La Grenée painting exhibited at the Salon 1767, Penelope appears more suited to a beer hall than to the majestic but sober palace of Ithaca
Schrodinger’s Narratives: Denis Diderot’s and Laurence Sterne’s Manipulations of Time and Space
Get PDFThis article proposes connections between literature and science through the relatively recent scientific concept of chaos. I examine Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and Denis Diderot’s Jacques the Fatalist and His Master to show how these authors contradict the scientific thinkers of their time by creating narrative structures that disrupt the normal flow of time and bend the typically absolute space between reader and fictional story. Though the physical books of Jacques and Tristram Shandy have a final page, the two authors leave it to their readers to finish the stories for themselves. The narrators of both novels interact with their readers, creating a space that allows their audience to fill in the narrator’s and author\u27s blanks. In doing this, these texts become simultaneously complete and incomplete. Thus, a narrative styled similarly to the thought experiment of Schrodinger\u27s cat is created. In this sense these novels can be perceived as precursors to scientific thought of the twentieth and twenty-first century.This article proposes connections between literature and science through the relatively recent scientific concept of chaos. I examine Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and Denis Diderot’s Jacques the Fatalist and His Master to show how these authors contradict the scientific thinkers of their time by creating narrative structures that disrupt the normal flow of time and bend the typically absolute space between reader and fictional story. Though the physical books of Jacques and Tristram Shandy have a final page, the two authors leave it to their readers to finish the stories for themselves. The narrators of both novels interact with their readers, creating a space that allows their audience to fill in the narrator’s and author\u27s blanks. In doing this, these texts become simultaneously complete and incomplete. Thus, a narrative styled similarly to the thought experiment of Schrodinger\u27s cat is created. In this sense these novels can be perceived as precursors to scientific thought of the twentieth and twenty-first century
The Existential Relevance of Art for Human Life
Get PDFWhat is the relevance of art for human life? This question can be answered if life is understood from life-performance and art from artworks. From this perspective, the human being – understood as a being in a self-researching process – and the work of art – conceived as an experience-figure – show a structural correspondence: a constitutive unfathomability. Both, human being and art, can only be adequately understood as open processes of their respective self- realization. Because of this correlation and, at the same time, considering their fundamental difference, the aesthetic experience enables the human being to objectify the process of self-research. Thus, the existential relevance of art to life becomes concrete in that the aesthetic experience that makes the artwork the unique unfathomability that it is, reveals itself as an excellent path to the process of self-research, which makes human beings the unique unfathomability that he or she is.What is the relevance of art for human life? This question can be answered if life is understood from life-performance and art from artworks. From this perspective, the human being – understood as a being in a self-researching process – and the work of art – conceived as an experience-figure – show a structural correspondence: a constitutive unfathomability. Both, human being and art, can only be adequately understood as open processes of their respective self- realization. Because of this correlation and, at the same time, considering their fundamental difference, the aesthetic experience enables the human being to objectify the process of self-research. Thus, the existential relevance of art to life becomes concrete in that the aesthetic experience that makes the artwork the unique unfathomability that it is, reveals itself as an excellent path to the process of self-research, which makes human beings the unique unfathomability that he or she is
Mettere in questione l’ornamento attraverso un approccio morfologico al visibile
Get PDFThe paper investigates the question of the ornament starting from a parallelism between biological- architectural ornaments and decorative-artistic ones. The element of innovation and the emergency of the ornament allow to consider images as if they were living organisms and to highlight their becoming through new forms. Starting from a morphological point of view, from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to the contemporary morphology, the ornament is strictly connected to the dynamics of forms and to a particular approach to the visible. The ornamental dynamics, according to the binomial form-function, open the dimension of the visible to new perspectives and foreshadow potentially infinite changes. The essay analyzes the consequences in the production of visible forms and in the attribution of meanings, but also the political function of images, with particular reference to the idea of an economy of visible forms.The paper investigates the question of the ornament starting from a parallelism between biological- architectural ornaments and decorative-artistic ones. The element of innovation and the emergency of the ornament allow to consider images as if they were living organisms and to highlight their becoming through new forms. Starting from a morphological point of view, from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to the contemporary morphology, the ornament is strictly connected to the dynamics of forms and to a particular approach to the visible. The ornamental dynamics, according to the binomial form-function, open the dimension of the visible to new perspectives and foreshadow potentially infinite changes. The essay analyzes the consequences in the production of visible forms and in the attribution of meanings, but also the political function of images, with particular reference to the idea of an economy of visible forms
Proust and Benjamin: The mystic reserve of the sublime
Get PDFThis paper aims to investigate the aesthetic implications of a particular type of image: Benjamin\u27s Dialectic of Stillness, whose most typical application concerns the Baroque Allegory in The Origin of German Tragic Drama. The close relations with the works of Marcel Proust are established by Benjamin himself. The minute freed from the order of time, the Instant in Proust, the extra-temporal moment in Benjamin, are the places of realization of the sublime, ready to dialectically reveal the mortal dissolution of the subject. Through the analysis of several passages from the Recherche, in the light of Benjamin’s gnoseological premises, can we say the silent misunderstanding of sublime is, like death, accessible only for a moment?This paper aims to investigate the aesthetic implications of a particular type of image: Benjamin\u27s Dialectic of Stillness, whose most typical application concerns the Baroque Allegory in The Origin of German Tragic Drama. The close relations with the works of Marcel Proust are established by Benjamin himself. The minute freed from the order of time, the Instant in Proust, the extra-temporal moment in Benjamin, are the places of realization of the sublime, ready to dialectically reveal the mortal dissolution of the subject. Through the analysis of several passages from the Recherche, in the light of Benjamin’s gnoseological premises, can we say the silent misunderstanding of sublime is, like death, accessible only for a moment
Artifex and ulteriority of representation in Bonaventure
Get PDFThe article intends to investigate the capacity of representation to refer to further meanings in the thought of Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1217/21-1274), starting from the Dino Formaggio’s conception of the ways of meaning in art: art is communication because it signifies in a plurivocal, plurivalent and uni-situational way. According to Bonaventure, natural and artificial things, as creation of the poietic activity of divine and human artifex, refer to further meanings also by the attitude of the observer that can consider the image as that which refers to a univocal sensible meaning, or as that which refers to an ulteriority, a multiplicity of spiritual senses. The Bonaventure’s idea of the ulteriority of representation arises also in the Franciscan art of the 13th and the 14th century and, with the emergence of the consciousness of the artist during this period, can confirm also from an historical point of view the conception of communication in art proposed by the Italian philosopher Dino Formaggio.
The article intends to investigate the capacity of representation to refer to further meanings in the thought of Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1217/21-1274), starting from the Dino Formaggio’s conception of the ways of meaning in art: art is communication because it signifies in a plurivocal, plurivalent and uni-situational way. According to Bonaventure, natural and artificial things, as creation of the poietic activity of divine and human artifex, refer to further meanings also by the attitude of the observer that can consider the image as that which refers to a univocal sensible meaning, or as that which refers to an ulteriority, a multiplicity of spiritual senses. The Bonaventure’s idea of the ulteriority of representation arises also in the Franciscan art of the 13th and the 14th century and, with the emergence of the consciousness of the artist during this period, can confirm also from an historical point of view the conception of communication in art proposed by the Italian philosopher Dino Formaggio.
 
Paul Cézanne and the statute of painting
Get PDFOn the basis of a remark made by Giorgio Morandi on his own journey in the world of art, the essay aims to clarify the revolutionary significance of the method that underlies the plastic representation in Paul Cézanne and the contribution it has provided to the definition of the statute of painting in the twentieth century (color field painting). The analysis of the interpretations of Cézanne’s work by David Herbert Lawrence, Rainer Maria Rilke and Peter Handke thus has the merit of showing the nature of the need for truth that guided Cézanne in the choice of oil or watercolour as material capable from time to time of explaining the fundamental difference that exists between the movement with which a being discloses itself into the wide open and its presence as a fact here at hand.On the basis of a remark made by Giorgio Morandi on his own journey in the world of art, the essay aims to clarify the revolutionary significance of the method that underlies the plastic representation in Paul Cézanne and the contribution it has provided to the definition of the statute of painting in the twentieth century (color field painting). The analysis of the interpretations of Cézanne’s work by David Herbert Lawrence, Rainer Maria Rilke and Peter Handke thus has the merit of showing the nature of the need for truth that guided Cézanne in the choice of oil or watercolour as material capable from time to time of explaining the fundamental difference that exists between the movement with which a being discloses itself into the wide open and its presence as a fact here at hand
Two Poems on Colour
Get PDFChristopher Norris is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Cardiff University. He worked on literary criticism, on the question of realism and antirealism in philosophy, on Derrida and deconstructionism and on the philosophy of science. In the past few years he has also authored several philosophical poems. In this issue we present two poems he wrote that are dedicated to color
La fotografia a colori. Tra descrittivismo ed espressività negli scritti di Giuseppe Turroni
Get PDFThis text aims to rediscover the studies of Giuseppe Turroni, an important Italian critic whose research activity, had focused particularly on photography and cinema. Active expecially in the central decades of the 20th century, Turroni was the first Italian author to have pointed out the need to constitute a photographic criticism and the importance of studying photography also from an aesthetic point of view. Particularly, this text traces the main guidelines of Turroni\u27s thought about panchromatic photography, the uses that were made of it in the decades between the 19th and 20th centuries, and, above all, focuses attention on the expressiveness and communicativeness of this medium in contemporary society.
This text aims to rediscover the studies of Giuseppe Turroni, an important Italian critic whose research activity, had focused particularly on photography and cinema. Active expecially in the central decades of the 20th century, Turroni was the first Italian author to have pointed out the need to constitute a photographic criticism and the importance of studying photography also from an aesthetic point of view. Particularly, this text traces the main guidelines of Turroni\u27s thought about panchromatic photography, the uses that were made of it in the decades between the 19th and 20th centuries, and, above all, focuses attention on the expressiveness and communicativeness of this medium in contemporary society.