The Great Image Has No Form, or On the Nonobject through Painting (Hardcover)

~ FranCois Jullien (Author), Jane Marie Todd (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

In premodern China, elite painters used imagery not to mirror the world around them, but to evoke unfathomable experience. Considering their art alongside the philosophical traditions that inform it, The Great Image Has No Form explores the “nonobject”—a notion exemplified by paintings that do not seek to represent observable surroundings.

 

François Jullien argues that this nonobjectifying approach stems from the painters’ deeply held belief in a continuum of existence, in which art is not distinct from reality. Contrasting this perspective with the Western notion of art as separate from the world it represents, Jullien investigates the theoretical conditions that allow us to apprehend, isolate, and abstract objects. His comparative method lays bare the assumptions of Chinese and European thought, revitalizing the questions of what painting is, where it comes from, and what it does. Provocative and intellectually vigorous, this sweeping inquiry introduces new ways of thinking about the relationship of art to the ideas in which it is rooted.

 

About the Author

François Jullien is professor of Chinese philosophy and literature at the University of Paris VII and director of the Institut Marcel Granet.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (December 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226415309
• ISBN-13: 978-0226415307
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
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• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #482,505 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)