Leiden University Scholarly Publications

Persistent URL of this record https://hdl.handle.net/1887/18698

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Damen, J.C.M. (2012)

Het Woord is aan het beeld : vijf Nederlandse beelden na 1960

Doctoral Thesis
This thesis is about the special relationship that the spectator enters into with sculpture. ‘Sculpture’ here means: immobile objects or three- dimensional bodies in one or more parts, deliberately made inside the domain of the visual arts. This thesis argues how sculpture, in the first moment, makes the spectator speechless. When thereafter the spectator opens himself up to the sculpture, he feels invited by the work to fully apply his language skills. He finds meaning by repeatedly and precisely describing all he sees in the sculpture. By researching critically how he came to create his interpretation, the interpretation becomes a reading that transcends the private interpretation of the spectator. Perhaps this way of perceiving is applicable to all sorts of artworks, but in the case of sculpture it is particularised in the relations with the sculpture, due to the continued presence of the sculpture as a body. The meeting with the statue is experienced bodily and the being...Show moreThis thesis is about the special relationship that the spectator enters into with sculpture. ‘Sculpture’ here means: immobile objects or three- dimensional bodies in one or more parts, deliberately made inside the domain of the visual arts. This thesis argues how sculpture, in the first moment, makes the spectator speechless. When thereafter the spectator opens himself up to the sculpture, he feels invited by the work to fully apply his language skills. He finds meaning by repeatedly and precisely describing all he sees in the sculpture. By researching critically how he came to create his interpretation, the interpretation becomes a reading that transcends the private interpretation of the spectator. Perhaps this way of perceiving is applicable to all sorts of artworks, but in the case of sculpture it is particularised in the relations with the sculpture, due to the continued presence of the sculpture as a body. The meeting with the statue is experienced bodily and the being together in the world stimulates the research in a way that is comparable to the meeting of human beings.Show less
Being-in-the-world
Presence
Phnenomenology
Interpretation
Perception
Sculpture
All authors
Damen, J.C.M.
Supervisor
Zijlmans, C.J.M.
Co-supervisor
Teeuwisse, J.
Qualification
Doctor (dr.)
Awarding Institution
Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University
Date
2012-04-19

Juridical information

Court
LEI Universiteit Leiden