A Phenomenological Reading of Abstraction in Painting

Images are able to show completely different things fromthemselves and have fascinated philosophers since Plato.Among the philosophers who have dealt with this field arephenomenologists, who approach images from differentangles. Some philosophers who study phenomenologicalaesthetics consider art as the perception of the visible.In this article, we try to answer the question, what is theimportance of art and aesthetics for philosophy, and howcan phenomenological concepts be used to understandabstraction in painting? Does phenomenology add anythingnew to our understanding of painting? Influenced by thefounder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, we draw onspecific concepts - horizon, phenomenological reduction,life-world, epoch - and show what the connection is betweenabstraction, the world, and phenomenological reduction.Abstraction shows the relationship between the world andthe horizon. Pictorial reduction reveals how the horizon ofthe world and surprises the viewer. Or how past horizonsmake up for our present experience. Relying on Husserlianframework and descriptive-analytical method, we must beprepared to look at artwork without any presuppositions, toset aside habitual expectations, and to react directly to thedynamic relationships of the visible elements of color andform. Thus, this reading works by reducing, eliminating,and concentrating, and it requires an active response, nota passive acceptance. In this reading, the work of art is anobject to motivate thought, but not in the way that inanimatenature, landscape, portrait, or narrative might be. In fact, ourjudgment of the effect depends on how the effect penetratesour consciousness and affects our feelings and thoughts.Thus, the artist, like a phenomenologist, moves away fromthe natural and everyday world and looks deeper into theworld, reviving the forgotten biosphere and filling the gapbetween consciousness and the world. In other words, theyboth rebuild the world and both return to the world. It thusrefers to the abstract concept of the return to the world and theinternal relations of the world that are not known. With thisreading we have shown that abstraction is not a separationfrom the world or nature, but a different experience of it.In fact, abstraction is a useful tool for expressing a varietyof experiences and ideas. In other words, abstraction maymean something positive, a “return” to a deeply globalrelationship, though not explicitly recognized. Also,considering the distinction between the phenomenologicalepoch and the aesthetic epoch, we conclude that the wholepainting is abstract and non-figurative. Finally, and surely arthas long been the subject of phenomenological philosophicalstudies, which in turn gives way to the expression of humanlife. However, the tradition of phenomenological aestheticsis still in its infancy and its identity is very fluid, and thepossibility of phenomenological aesthetics can still be posedas a living question.