You have to see to believe. The art of looking and the philosophy of images

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Eduardo Pellejero

Abstract

When taken up in a dogmatic way, the Platonic views on painting casts on the production and contemplation of images the attributes of unreality, irrationality and passivity, rendering the looking the opposite of knowing and the opposite of acting, an uncritical acceptance of appearances, kid’s stuff. The present article aims at problematizing that iconoclastic tradition, casting doubts on its philosophical assumptions and exploring the power of the images in art and of a critical look. Through a dialogue with the works of Merleau-Ponty, Berger, Damish, Didi-Huberman, Manguel and Rancière, this piece aspires to show that the look of the painter and that of the spectator are far from allowing a reduction to Platonic simplifications, giving rise to a critical and creative dialectic that doesn’t acknowledge any distinction between appearance and reality, passivity and activity and, ultimately, between interpreting and transforming the world.

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Articles
Author Biography

Eduardo Pellejero

Universidade Federal de Rio Grande do Norte, Brasil edupellejero@gmail.com