Prometheus Dismembered: Bataille on Van Gogh

Van Gogh Among the Philosophers-Lexington Books, 2018

Art as the self-representation of consciousness of the times, the Zeitgeist, is a prime locus of investigation of pre-philosophical as well as philosophical self-understanding, as indeed is proposed by the Heidegger-Jaspers argument over the import of Van Gogh's painting as a sign of the times. The materiality of the world represented in Van Gogh's art is illumined from within and operates its own transfiguration in a paradoxical movement of immanence cum transcendence. This essay considers Van Gogh through the eyes of Karl Jaspers, Heidegger, Derrida, and Thomas Altizer, towards an articulation of the theological relevance of his art in

In discussing the art and theology of Vincent Van Gogh, a few assumptions must be made -one, that the reader of this essay will be mildly familiar with the work of Van Gogh, and two, that they will come to this discussion assuming that art in the broadest sense, regardless of medium, can possess spiritual qualities. Instead of discussing whether or not Vincent remained religious throughout his life (affirmative) or which of his works had a religious undertone (arguably, all of them), I want to concern myself with the type of religion he saw himself practicing and capturing in his paintings. Long appreciated by the art world, Van Gogh is hardly ever discussed as a theologian for one simple reason -his medium was image, not logos or words. But is this true? Hardly. His letters belie a wealth of knowledge about scripture, religion, spiritual practice, natural theology (that is, God found in nature), and an unending desire to make sense of the world and reconcile himself to God. To say that his works, be they written or visual in nature, are not spiritual is to miss the fabric, the very warp and woof, of his life. Indeed, our second assumption demands we admit that image has as much potential as the written and spoken word to be spiritually meaningful. The author of this essay does not assume familiarity with the entire corpus of Van Gogh's work, the particulars of his biography, nor the literature cited here. One does not need to get mired in the minutae of an artist's life to appreciate their work, or to recognize that Van Gogh was hinting at and pioneering a new type of theologynarrative theology without words.

The world around attempts to peer into the world of Van Gogh. The Royal Academy in 2010, in all its usual dramatic expertise, attempted to put together, the life history, of this very brave, and experimental artist of the 19th century. A lover of life, art and God, but, some called this man’s work foolish in his day. And yet again the same frustrations exist for anyone and everyone who has ever had the charge to go forth and discover something new. The 2010, exhibition at the Royal Academy, had many virtues.

Church History, 1999

The Art Bulletin, 2002

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

The Object as a Process: Essays Situating Artistic Practice (book), 2022

The aim of this investigation is to consider the extent to which the processes and material stuff of painting work as enablers of meaning. Within writing that supports painting, the role played by the medium of paint(ing) is too often sidestepped—sidestepped within writings that take as their starting point the interdisciplinary assumption that the message owes little of consequence to the medium by/through which it becomes disclosed. I will consider the idea of truth – and of an origin to the work of art – developed by Martin Heidegger in his essay of 1936, and its implications in respect of notions of material, picture and medium. In particular, this will involve a clarification of Heidegger’s classification of being, so as to enable the ontological character and function of the medium of painting to attain visibility. I will position the central paradoxes of Heidegger’s exposition and address his re-situation of the prerequisite of truth as a challenge to notions of formalist aesthetics, reflecting on his attempts to provide questions the artwork’s spatial, temporal and linguistic constitution. With Hegel’s end of art thesis providing the backdrop to this inquiry, I will engage with Heidegger’s reading of Hölderlin’s river poems, and reflect too on Eva Geulen’s analysis of the Hölderlin Lectures. I will address the idea of a preservational modality prior to providing an account of the necessity of poetising the end of art as a means of circumnavigation, with important implications for the beginning too. The point is to permit the structural particularities of paintings to attain centrality in respect of the work’s meaning. I will consider Hölderlin’s reliance on rumour and double-directedness, approached through his poem The Ister, which signals in the direction of a new ontological model for painting. The medium will be presented as equipment. The mechanism of the caesura will re-surface as a holding bay, in which picture and material are suspended. The result: that the medium-aspect of a painting might, within a Heideggerian and Hölderlinean framework, become re-situated—its functionality made visible through its embeddedness in language and history.

The Qualitative Report, 2022

Artistic creativity is presently considered to be a multidimensional phenomenon that unfolds over time and is in constant conversation with the social and historical context of the artists, as well as their personal life experiences. This article adopts a narrative perspective and explores Vincent van Gogh’s understanding of the constructs of creativity as reflected in his letters to his brother Theo, friends, and other family members. To inquire into van Gogh’s correspondence, narrative thematic analysis was employed. Findings highlight the artist’s constructs around creativity, which seem to depict elements of both modern and post-modern views of creativity. Major themes include creativity as (a) a developmental, dynamic learning process characterized by dedication and persistence; (b) a relational process in the context of people and nature; (c) an embodied action; (d) an oscillation between asceticism and socio-cultural participation, (e) suffering, and (f) a larger-than-life fo...