Dwelling inside the Picture: Phenomenological Investigations into the Theory of Ancient Chinese Mountain-water Painting

Our vision lets us dwell inside the world.

Taking a transcultural stance, this book conducts a critical deconstruction of philosophical theories concerning vision and painting. Besides phenomenological elucidation of the specificities of Chinese landscape painting and its significance for contemporary philosophy and esthetics, the book also presents a philosophical reflection on nowadays environmental consciousness.

Central philosophical problems related to issues such as “appearance”, “intuition”, “landscape”, “picture”, and “image”, are analyzed and discussed in-depth. Furthermore, through detailed and systematic phenomenological investigations into textual evidence concerning the theory of art in ancient China, so-called mountain-water painting receives a new and unconventional interpretation, with respect to its implications for our understanding of vision and environment. The aim is to demonstrate how we can obtain a more suitable relation to our life environment, by means of another philosophical understanding of vision and the esthetics of painting: Our gaze in general, as well as esthetic intuition in particular, actually help us to develop an environmental awareness and to regain access to a “dwelling” mode of existence in our life world.