On The Act Of (Dis)Engagement In Visual Arts

From War Disasters To Our Times

Abstract

The following article raises a discussion on a painting as a form of social engagement. Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Merleau-Ponty provided reasons for a negative - or at least skeptical - response at a time when the issue of engagement was explicitly and decidedly entering the space of phenomenology. According to them, the visual arts cannot be socially engaged activities in the strongest sense of the word. However, counterexamples to this position can be found in the Spanish and Yugoslavian painting tradition, mainly in the works of Francisco Goya and Đorđe Andrejević Kun. The meaning of a pictorial work is inherent to itself in a way that always remains "tied" in its material structure. This article intends to show that the phenomenological consideration of the relationship between verbal and non-verbal expressions regarding the issue of (dis)engagement is based mainly on antithetical discourse, full of contrasting figures. The visual testimony does not hide anything in a strong sense, but socially engaged art must maintain a count of the tension between the ethical and the aesthetic, because the irrationality or bad intention of a given act must be neutralized or blocked by the display of its consequences through the organized structure of an effective and successful work of art, that is, through beautifully arranged forms. The silent visual act leaves no room for charm, but for mystery, which again stimulates reflections in which there is no place for unilateral and clear answers, but also for stuttering of meaning. Painters' social appeal is a problem. The visual artist as a witness does not talk about crime or violence, but neither does it remain shut.