The great image has no form, or, On the nonobject through painting / François Jullien ; translated by Jane Marie Todd.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jullien, François, 1951-

Standardized Title:

Grande image n'a pas de forme ou Du non-objet par la peinture. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Painting, Chinese--Philosophy.

Painting, Chinese.

Aesthetics, Chinese.

Physical Description:

xvii, 263 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm

Other Title:

Great image has no form

On the nonobject through painting

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Summary:

In premodern China, elite painters used imagery not to mirror the world around them but to evoke unfathomable experience. Considering their art alongside the philosophical traditions that inform it, The Great Image Has No Form explores the "nonobject"-a notion exemplified by paintings that do not seek to represent observable surroundings.

François Jullien argues that this nonobjectifying approach stems from the painters' deeply held belief in a continuum of existence, in which art is not distinct from reality. Contrasting this perspective with the Western notion of art as separate from the world it represents, Jullien investigates the theoretical conditions that allow us to apprehend, isolate, and abstract objects. His comparative method lays bare the assumptions of Chinese and European thought, revitalizing the questions of what painting is, where it comes from, and what it does. Provocative and intellectually vigorous, this sweeping inquiry introduces new ways of thinking about the relationship of art to the ideas in which it is rooted. Book jacket.

Contents:

Web of texts and corpus

Presence-absence

From the foundation-fount of painting

Vague-drab-indistinct

The great image has no form

Theory of the sketch

Empty and full

Not quitting, not sticking

Quitting form to achieve resemblance

The spirit of a landscape

On the truth in painting

Gaze or contemplation?

Peindre n'est pas dépeindre

Ink and brush, form and color

What does painting write?

Image-phenomenon: painting transformation and life.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Translated from the French.

ISBN:

9780226415307

9780226415314

0226415309

0226415317

OCLC:

291193339