Philosophy Weekend: Faces

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). Perhaps Cezanne? I’m not sure why.

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

  1. 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.

  2. 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

  3. It’s in pre-production now.
    It’s in pre-production now.

    Arnie Aristotle is Don Martin’s Fester Bestertester.

    Christmas 2015.

  4. These are the greatest
    These are the greatest suggestions in the world. Especially the Don Martin.

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