The Paradoxes of Art: A Phenomenological Investigation

Alan Paskow
Cambridge University Press, 7/7/2008
EAN 9780521733182, ISBN10: 0521733189

Paperback, 272 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm
Language: English

In this study, Alan Paskow first asks why fictional characters, such as Hamlet and Anna Karenina, matter to us and how they emotionally affect us. He then applies these questions to painting, demonstrating that certain paintings beckon us to view their contents as real. As emblematic of the fundamental concerns of our lives, paintings, he argues, are not simply in our heads but in our world. Paskow also situates the phenomenological approach to the experience of painting in relation to contemporary schools of thought, particularly Marxist, feminist, and deconstructionist.

Introduction
1. The reality of fictional beings
2. Things in our world
3. Why and how others matter
4. Why and how a painting matters
5. For and against interpretation.