University of Dundee DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY An Ontology of Images and Painterly Subjectivity Towards a Bergsonian Philosophy of Art Lewis, Ryan D. Award date: 2013 Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 23. Sep. 2021 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY An Ontology of Images & Painterly Subjectivity: Towards a Bergsonian Philosophy of Art Ryan D. Lewis PhD University of Dundee December 2013 An Ontology of Images & Painterly Subjectivity: Towards a Bergsonian Philosophy of Art RYAN D. LEWIS Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. DECEMBER 2013 Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................. iv Declaration ................................................................................................................ v Abstract .................................................................................................................... vi List of Abbreviations .............................................................................................. vii Introduction: .............................................................................................................. 1 An Ontology of Images & Painterly Subjectivity ..................................................... 1 Chapter 1 – Image ................................................................................................... 33 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 33 An Ontology of Duration: Images Immanent to Reality ......................................... 41 The Painter: Living Centre of Images ..................................................................... 47 Pure Perception: The Contact of Painting ............................................................... 53 Forms of Memory: Painting as Recognition ........................................................... 59 The Actual painter and The Possible painting: Delimiting and Fixing Images ...... 72 The Passage of Painting .......................................................................................... 75 Painting as Living Encounter .................................................................................. 78 The Memory of Painting ......................................................................................... 81 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 84 Chapter 2 - Method of Intuition .............................................................................. 89 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 89 Intuition and Perception .......................................................................................... 92 Different Kinds of Images, Difference of Creative Intuition .................................. 99 The Painter Intensity and Contact ......................................................................... 111 From Sensation to Scheme .................................................................................... 114 Thinking In Reverse .............................................................................................. 115 The Vertical and Horizontal: Movements of Intuition .......................................... 118 Intuition to Painting Medium ................................................................................ 120 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 123 Chapter 3 - Order of Movement ............................................................................ 126 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 126 Duration and the Movements of Painting ............................................................. 128 Continuity and Succession .................................................................................... 139 Kandinsky’s Musical Rhythm and Bergson’s Rhythm of Change ....................... 141 Progression and Succession .................................................................................. 143 Movement and Tonality ........................................................................................ 145 Painterly Experience: Consciousness and Movement........................................... 146 The Life of Movement .......................................................................................... 149 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 150 Chapter 4 - Abstraction ......................................................................................... 154 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 154 Time and Abstraction ............................................................................................ 157 The Foundations of Abstraction ............................................................................ 161 Stratum of Expression ........................................................................................... 163 Internal and External: The Invisible and the Body ............................................... 165 Abstraction as Presentation ................................................................................... 167 Abstraction as Representation ............................................................................... 168 Intellectual Effort of Abstraction .......................................................................... 174 ii Image of an Image ................................................................................................ 176 Inner Necessity and Abstraction ........................................................................... 178 Abstraction and Progression ................................................................................. 179 Abstraction through Time ..................................................................................... 180 Beyond Reduction: Abstraction as Growth and Event ......................................... 183 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 184 Chapter 5 -Theory of Frame & Picture Plane ....................................................... 190 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 190 An Active Boundary ............................................................................................. 194 The Movement of Frame: Selection and Perception ............................................. 195 Thinking Frame and Giving Toward Space .......................................................... 197 Visual Consciousness: Framing and Thinking ...................................................... 198 Material Zones – Delimiting and Ordering ........................................................... 199 Deleuze: Concept of Frame .................................................................................. 210 The Frame and Framing’s Affect: Differentiating Subjects ................................. 213 From Frame to Plane ............................................................................................. 214 Expression and Planar Tendency .......................................................................... 216 Material Schema ................................................................................................... 219 Sequence and Surface: Material Movement of Life ............................................. 221 Relations of the Surface ........................................................................................ 223 Thinking and Expressing Difference .................................................................... 224 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 225 Chapter 6 - Theory of Colour ................................................................................ 229 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 229 A Goethean Approach ........................................................................................... 231 Colour and Materiality .......................................................................................... 233 Colour and Change ..............................................................................................