Metamorphoses of the Subject: Kandinsky Interpreted by Michel Henry and Henri Maldiney
Avant: Journal of Philosophical-Interdisciplinary Vanguard September 30, 2018 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.26913/avant.2018.02.10 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
This paper compares how philosophers Michel Henry and Henri Maldiney interpret the work of artist Wassily Kandinsky. Henry sees Kandinsky's art as a pure manifestation of inner life, free from worldly alienation, and akin to a transformative mystical or ascetic experience beyond subject-object distinction. Maldiney, however, argues that true self-transformation must involve a change in one's being-in-the-world and meaning, so Kandinsky's a-cosmic paintings cannot produce such transformation. The disagreement is metaphysical, not about concrete aesthetic experience.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | The disagreement between Henry and Maldiney on Kandinsky's art is metaphysical, not about concrete aesthetic experience. |
Abstract
In this paper I compare how Michel Henry and Henri Maldiney interpret Kandinsky’s heritage. Henry’s phenomenology is based on a distinction between two main modes of manifestation: the ordinary one, that is, the manifestation of the world, and the “manifestation of life.” For him, Kandinsky’s work provides a paradigmatic example of the second, more original mode of manifestation, which is free from all forms of self-alienation. Henry claims that this living through the work of art is transformative; it is akin to ascetic practice or mystical experience that goes beyond the distinction of the subject and the object. Maldiney acknowledges Kandinsky’s work as an attempt to provide access to an a-cosmic and ahistoric experience of one’s inner self; yet for him this is not a positive characteristic. For Maldiney, the key distinction is not between modes of phenomenalisation, but between the dimensions of meaning (sens). For him there is no radical self-transformation which is not a transformation of one’s being-in-the-world and one’s meaning of the world, and so Kandinsky’s a-cosmic paintings cannot induce a true transformation of the self. I conclude that the disagreement of Henry and Maldiney on Kandinsky does not unfold on the level of phenomenological description of concrete aesthetic experience, but on the level of metaphysics.