Seeing is Believing

The Art of Seeing and the Philosophy of Images

Abstract

Re-examining the dogmatic form, the Platonic thematization of painting projected onto production and in the contemplation of images, attributes of unreality, irrationality and passivity, transforming seeing into the opposite of knowing and the opposite of acting, an acritical acceptance of appearances, a thing of children. This article seeks to problematize that iconoclast tradition by locating in cause its philosophical assumptions, and exploring the power of images of art and the critical gaze. By dialoguing with the works of Merleau-Ponty, Berger, Damish, Didi-Huberman and Rancière it intends to show that the gazes of artist and spectator can by no means be reduced to Platonic simplifications but, rather, give rise to a critical and creative dialectic that rejects any distinction between appearance and reality, between passivity and activity, and, finally, between interpreting and transforming the world.