Painting, according to Jean-Luc Marion, is a central topic of concern for philosophy, particularly phenomenology. For the question of painting is, at its heart, a question of visibility―of appearance. As such, the painting is a privileged case of the phenomenon; the painting becomes an index for investigating the conditions of appearance―or what Marion describes as "phenomenality" in general. In The Crossing of the Visible , Marion takes up just such a project. The natural outgrowth of his earlier reflections on icons, these four studies carefully consider the history of painting―from classical to contemporary―as a fund for phenomenological reflection on the conditions of (in)visibility. Ranging across artists from Raphael to Rothko, Caravaggio to Pollock, The Crossing of the Visible offers both a critique of contemporary accounts of the visual and a constructive alternative. According to Marion, the proper response to the "nihilism" of postmodernity is not iconoclasm, but rather a radically iconic account of the visual and the arts that opens them to the invisible. Painting, according to Jean-Luc Marion, is a central topic of concern for philosophy, particularly phenomenology. For the question of painting is, at its heart, a question of visibility—of appearance. As such, the painting is a privileged case of the phenomenon; the painting becomes an index for investigating the conditions of appearance—or what Marion describes as “phenomenality” in general. In The Crossing of the Visible, Marion takes up just such a project. The natural outgrowth of his earlier reflections on icons, these four studies carefully consider the history of painting—from classical to contemporary—as a fund for phenomenological reflection on the conditions of (in)visibility. Ranging across artists from Raphael to Rothko, Caravaggio to Pollock, The Crossing of the Visible offers both a critique of contemporary accounts of the visual and a constructive alternative. According to Marion, the proper response to the “nihilism” of postmodernity is not iconoclasm, but rather a radically iconic account of the visual and the arts that opens them to the invisible. Painting, according to Jean-Luc Marion, is a central topic of concern for philosophy, particularly phenomenology. For the question of painting is, at its heart, a question of visibility—of appearance. As such, the painting is a privileged case of the phenomenon; the painting becomes an index for investigating the conditions of appearance—or what Marion describes as “phenomenality” in general. In The Crossing of the Visible, Marion takes up just such a project. The natural outgrowth of his earlier reflections on icons, these four studies carefully consider the history of painting—from classical to contemporary—as a fund for phenomenological reflection on the conditions of (in)visibility. Ranging across artists from Raphael to Rothko, Caravaggio to Pollock, The Crossing of the Visible offers both a critique of contemporary accounts of the visual and a constructive alternative. According to Marion, the proper response to the “nihilism” of postmodernity is not iconoclasm, but rather a radically iconic account of the visual and the arts that opens them to the invisible. Jean-Luc Marion is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris, Sorbonne. He has also taught and lectured for more than fifteen years at various universities in the United States, notably at the University of Chicago. Among his books published in English translation are Being Given (Stanford, 2002), God Without Being, and Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology. The Crossing of the Visible By Jean-Luc Marion, James K. A. Smith STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright © 1996 Presses Universitaires de France All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8047-3392-2 Contents Preface, 1. The Crossing of the Visible and the Invisible, 2. What Gives, 3. The Blind at Shiloh, 4. The Prototype and the Image, Bibliographical Note, Translator's Note, Notes, CHAPTER 1 The Crossing of the Visible and the Invisible I In itself, perspective exercises a paradox. Even more than that, perspective and paradox are determined by similar characters: both indicate the visible entirely in its withdrawing, discretely but radically. The paradox attests to the visible, while at the same time opposing itself, or rather, while inverting itself; literally, it constitutes a counter-visible, a counter-seen, a counter-appearance that offers in a spectacle to be seen the opposite of what, at first sight, one would expect to see. More than a surprising opinion, the paradox often points to a miracle — it makes visible that which one should not be able to see and which one is not able to see without astonishment [ stupeur ]. Thus, in the Septuagint, the works of God in liberating Israel from Egypt themselves produce paradoxes, known as miracles: "See what is most paradoxical [[TE