Overview
- First book-length work on a forgotten definition of rhythm as ‘schema’ or ‘composition’
- New approach to visual rhythm, with references to Piet Mondrian’s theory of visual rhythm in Neoplastic painting
- References to Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘aspect-dawning’, Husserl’s ‘image-object’, and S. K. Langer’s ‘composition’
Part of the book series: Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures (SCPT, volume 23)
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
- Ancient Greek theories of rhythm
- Eastern aesthetics
- Gilles Deleuze
- Husserlian phenomenology
- Jastrow's duck-rabbit and aspect dawning
- Kyoto School of Philosophy
- Piet Mondrian
- Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations
- Zen aesthetics
- calligraphy tradition
- rhythm as schema
- theories of rhythm
- visuals of rhythm
About this book
This volume investigates the meaning of visual rhythm through Piet Mondrian’s unique approach to understanding rhythm in the compositional structure of painting, drawing reference from philosophy, aesthetics, and Zen culture. Its innovation lies in its reappraisal of a forgotten definition of rhythm as ‘stasis’ or ‘composition’ which can be traced back to ancient Greek thought. This conception of rhythm, the book argues, can be demonstrated in terms of pictorial strategy, through analysis of East Asian painting and calligraphy with which Greek thought on rhythm has identifiable commonalities. The book demonstrates how these ideas about rhythm draw together various threads of intellectual development in the visual arts that cross disparate aesthetic cultural practices. As an icon of early 20th Century Modernism, Mondrian’s neoplasticism is a serious painterly and philosophical achievement. In his painting, Mondrian was deeply influenced by Theosophy, which took its influence from Eastern aesthetics; particularly East Asian and Indian thought. However, Mondrian’s approach to visual rhythm was so idiosyncratic that his contribution to studies of visual rhythm is often under-recognized. This volume shows that a close inspection of Mondrian’s own writing, thinking and painting has much to tell scholars about how to understand a long forgotten aspect of visual rhythm. Rodin’s famous criticism of photography (“athlete-in-motion is forever frozen”) can be applied to Muybridge’s zoopraxiscope, the Futurists’ rendition of stroboscopic images, and Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase.” Through a comparative study between Mondrian’s painting and these seminal works, this volume initiates a new convention for the cognition of the surface of painting as visual rhythm.
“Mondrian’s simultaneous emphasis on the static and the rhythmic is hardly fodder for a publicist. Eiichi Tosaki has taken on the challenge of elucidating Mondrian’s theories of rhythm, and particularly his conception of “static” rhythm. The result is a tour de force that will forever alter the reader’s encounter with the works of Mondrian.”
Prof. Kathleen Higgins
Reviews
“Tosaki has travelled a great deal to see Mondrian’s paintings, and has absorbed a deal of commentary on them. The book is full of information of a useful kind, all of it to the point. … It should sell well to the Libraries of Universities and Art Schools. Serious scholars would read this book: University Libraries should buy it.” (Patrick Hutchings, Sophia, Vol. 59, 2020)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Mondrian's Philosophy of Visual Rhythm
Book Subtitle: Phenomenology, Wittgenstein, and Eastern thought
Authors: Eiichi Tosaki
Series Title: Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1198-0
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-94-024-1196-6Published: 01 December 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-024-1507-0Published: 06 September 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-94-024-1198-0Published: 15 November 2017
Series ISSN: 2211-1107
Series E-ISSN: 2211-1115
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXVII, 260
Number of Illustrations: 4 b/w illustrations, 13 illustrations in colour
Topics: Aesthetics, Fine Arts, Non-Western Philosophy