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The Paradoxes of Art: A Phenomenological Investigation.

Article Excerpt
Paskow, A. (2004). The paradoxes of art: A phenomenological investigation. Cambrdige, UK/New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 260 pp., ISBN 0-521-82833-3, $70.00 (hb).

The things that are depicted in artwork, such as fruit, mountains, or trees, are experienced by us the viewers of the artwork as having "personalities" that speak to us. We experience them as "peoplelike beings" similar to the way we experience people who are real to us. These objects, like people, if they happen to be depicted alongside other objects, may tell stories waiting to be discovered by us, the experiencing viewers. The paintings to which we deeply resonate contain phenomenological accounts that touch upon existential themes that are relevant to our individual lives, themes such as suffering, our longed-for redemption, and salvation.

It is in our nature to identify with ("to make ourselves the same as") the people or people-like objects depicted in artwork. The paradox lies in the fact that at the same time that we become the other (person or person-like object), at least momentarily, we are cognizant of not being the other. According to Paskow's paradoxical view, I am and I am not the other simultaneously. "I am the other, for the other always in some measure re-presents a fundamental way of being that I could, even might, assume" (p. 133). We, consequently, see ourselves in the other for the other displays a "mirror image" of our latent selves. The other may embody a story or narrative that is or could become our own. Yet, we also perceive the other as an independent being in his or her own right. Now then, here is Paskow's basic existential-phenomenological account about the paradoxical experience of art:

[P]aintings are at base about others--on the face of it, fictional others, but in an important and overlooked sense,...

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