The Critical Import of the Image: From Freud to Magritte

Meta: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy 6 (2):551-564 (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In the Interpretation of Dreams Freud asks how and if the dream, which is made of images, can express its connective structure, and in particular the negation. This can be made only by interpretation. This question represents the thread to examine the problem of the critical import of figurative arts, by comparing Adorno’s and Heidegger’s theories. According to Adorno, the artwork is mimesis: the capability to express negativity coincides with its autonegation, with its disappearing. For Heidegger, on the contrary, the artwork is first of all a work, and interpretation is the reconstruction of its genesis, or better, the understanding of it as temporal. In the last part of the text the problem of the relationship between negation and image is tackled discussing Magritte’s painting «Ceci n’est pas une pipe»: the structure of this painting makes it a rebus, the deciphering of which carries a conceptual and interpretative work. Only this interpretation can account for the negation that it, as image, could otherwise not express.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 98,459

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Mimicry, Ekphrasis, Construction. «Reading» in Freudian Psychoanalysis.Markus Klammer - 2016 - Aisthesis: Pratiche, Linguaggi E Saperi Dell’Estetico 9 (2):139-151.
Heidegger on death as a deficient mode.Mark Tanzer - 2021 - Continental Philosophy Review 55 (1):19-33.
Freud on Dreams and Kosslyn on Mental Imagery.Derek Nikolinakos - 1992 - Journal of Mind and Behavior 13 (4):397-412.
The Still Life of Objects – Heidegger, Schapiro, and Derrida reconsidered.Kerstin Thomas - 2015 - Zeitschrift für Ästhetik Und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft 60 (1):81-102.
Emotional information transmission of color in image oil painting.Weifei Tian - 2022 - Journal of Intelligent Systems 31 (1):428-439.

Analytics

Added to PP
2019-01-27

Downloads
9 (#1,470,766)

6 months
3 (#1,430,651)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Gaetano Chiurazzi
Università degli Studi di Torino

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

The Interpretation of Dreams.Sigmund Freud & A. A. Brill - 1900 - Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 10 (20):551-555.
Aesthetic Theory.Theodor W. Adorno, Gretel Adorno, Rolf Tiedemann & C. Lenhardt - 1986 - Journal of Philosophy 83 (12):732-741.
Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments.Theodor W. Adorno - 1944 - Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr.
Sophist. Plato & Nicholas P. White - 1961 - Hackett Publishing Company.
이것은 파이프가 아니다.Michel Foucault - 2010 - University of California Press, C1983.

View all 6 references / Add more references