2023/05/25 by Aurélie Debaene · 1 voice
Neuroscience · Arts and Humanities · #Aesthetic Perception and Analysis #Art History and Market Analysis
paper · doi:10.1093/aesthj/ayad017
openalex publication_date 2023/05/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Anthony Rudd’s Painting and Presence: Why Paintings Matter is a monograph that spans the categories of aesthetics, philosophy of art, and religion. Rudd takes the reader on a philosophical exploration into why paintings should matter to us. Painting and Presence considers this pursuit broadly; Rudd endeavours to arrive at an account of the value of painting that is general enough to encompass different locations, cultures, and times. The author practices what he preaches: Painting and Presence ambitiously connects continental and analytic philosophical discussions, while enquiring with an exploratory phenomenological aesthetics lens that looks beyond Western art and philosophy of the last hundred years. Especially refreshing is Rudd’s concrete comparison of qualities shared among Byzantine icons, the traditions surrounding religious Hindu sculpture, classical Chinese landscapes, as well as European Modernist painting, to arrive at a general notion of painting as disclosing the reality of things, arguing for a reality that is at once meaningful and valuable. In so doing, Painting and Presence expertly weaves ancient philosophies and theologies of art into contemporary aesthetics without getting bogged down by an exegesis of any proponents of thought. Complementing rich philosophical underpinnings, Rudd presents a range of testimonies to inform his phenomenological thinking on the experience of paintings. Rudd not only draws on art theorists and art historians, but he also gathers insights from art critics, appreciators, and artists themselves to glean what they understand the value of paintings to be, relying on their views as they exist across different times and locations.