Who wants words, on an August weekend before the final week of the summer? I don’t. Let’s look at some pictures instead.
Renee Jorgensen Bolinger, a philosophy graduate student at the University of Southern California, has found a fresh way to think about her favorite thinkers: she paints their portraits, mimicking styles of thematically corresponding classic painters. That’s Wittgenstein/Mondrian at top left, W. V. O. Quine/Dali top right, Kierkegaard/Lichtenstein bottom left, Philippa Foot/Toulouse-Lautrec bottom right. (I’ve never heard of Philippa Foot before, but apparently she’s a neo-Aristotlean ethicist).
I always try to find new angles with which to look at the history of philosophy, and I like the idea of matching classic thinkers to classic artists. Which classic artist would you pair with, say, Friedrich Nietzsche? (Please don’t say Caspar David Friedrich … too obvious
How about Jean-Paul Sartre? I’m drawing a blank.
Jacques Derrida in Matisse might be nice.
An Edward Hopper William James, anyone?
The enterprising Renee Bolinger has even created a calendar featuring these portraits. Thanks to Leiter Reports for the link.
6 Responses
Nietzsche gotta go with van
Nietzsche gotta go with van Gogh, or maybe better, Jackson Pollock.
Sartre, Maxfield Parish. I was going to say Norman Rockwell, but don’t mean to demean Rockwell.
Derrida. Vargas.
I see them all in wire……
I see them all in wire……
Sartre by Arcimboldo – all in
Sartre by Arcimboldo – all in vegetables
Simone de Beauvoir by Botticelli à la Primavera, surrounded by Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, Mary Wollstonecroft and Albert Camus as Mercury
Nietzsche by Rembrandt
Schopenhauer by Vermeer
Bernard-Henri Lévy by Warhol
And Aristotle by (gasp!) Don Martin
It’s in pre-production now.
It’s in pre-production now.
Arnie Aristotle is Don Martin’s Fester Bestertester.
Christmas 2015.
These are the greatest
These are the greatest suggestions in the world. Especially the Don Martin.
What a great combination of
What a great combination of the arts and letters!