Colors of the Concepts: Philosophers on Paintings

By Alex Taek-Gwang Lee

This short monograph explores the intersection of philosophy and painting, examining how major thinkers from Hegel to Merleau-Ponty developed key concepts through their engagement with specific artworks. Unlike traditional surveys, my book focuses on philosophers’ ideas as they emerged from concrete encounters with paintings, offering both scholars and general readers fresh insight into philosophical thought. By analysing these interactions, the book illuminates the often-overlooked connection between visual art and abstract reasoning, tracing the evolution of philosophical ideas through tangible, visual experiences. This approach not only bridges aesthetics with other philosophical branches but also presents a unique contribution to the history of ideas, demonstrating how painting has shaped philosophical thoughts. Ultimately, this work provides a novel perspective on familiar philosophical concepts, revealing the profound influence of art on intellectual history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthem Press
• Release date: Aug 5, 2025
• ISBN: 9781839994234

Book preview

cover image for COLORS OF THE CONCEPTS

COLORS OF THE CONCEPTS

Early in the morning, people wait for the train at the station, reading newspapers or chatting.

Colors of the Concepts

Philosophers on Paintings

Alex Taek-Gwang Lee

Anthem Press

An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company

www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in UK and USA 2025

by ANTHEM PRESS

75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK

or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK

and

244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

© 2025 Alex Taek-Gwang Lee

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: 2025934738

A catalog record for this book has been requested.

ISBN-13: 978-1-83999-422-7 (Pbk)

ISBN-10: 1-83999-422-3 (Pbk)

This title is also available as an e-book.

Contents

Prologue: Image and Thought

One Hegel: History and Rembrandt’s The Night Watch

Two Freud: The Unconscious and Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa

Three Heidegger: Being and van Gogh’s A Pair of Shoes

Four Benjamin: Weak Messianism and Klee’s Angelus Novus

Five Gramsci: Imagination and Timanthes’s The Sacrifice of Iphigenia

Six Adorno: Political Commitment and Picasso’s Guernica

Seven Sartre: Analogon and Matisse’s Harmony in Red

Eight Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The Third Philosophy and Cézanne’s Madame Cézanne in the Yellow Armchair

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Prologue: Image and Thought

Plato viewed philosophy as closer to truth than art, yet the history of philosophy seems to challenge this notion. Contrary to Plato’s skepticism of art, philosophers have consistently used visual metaphors to illustrate their ideas. Philosophers have shown a keen interest in paintings, with most commenting on them extensively.

Even Kant, known for his apparent indifference to painting and music, developed ideas that profoundly influenced art theory. In his lectures on aesthetics, Hegel discussed Dutch painters in depth, beginning with Rembrandt. In modern philosophy, paintings remain an essential subject of inquiry. Walter Benjamin’s On the Concept of History, centered around Paul Klee’s painting, demonstrates the close relationship between philosophical thought and imagery.

Examining philosophy and art together, or exploring the history of ideas through their relationship, is significant. The paintings that attracted philosophers may reveal the essence of philosophical thought. Paradoxically, for a philosopher to discuss paintings could be seen as a betrayal of philosophy, as philosophy has, in a sense, been aspiring to be a form of painting since its inception.

While the origin of philosophy is debated, Pythagoras is often credited with coining the term. Instead of claiming the lofty title of sage, he chose the humble designation of lover of knowledge (φῐλόσοφος). This plain meaning contrasts with the grandeur the term has acquired today.

Plato, or his portrayal of Socrates, elevated philosophy to a higher status. While Plato was not the only one to write about Socrates (playwright Aristophanes also depicted him in The Clouds), Plato’s deep admiration for his teacher shaped our understanding of philosophy. However, being a lover of knowledge, a philosopher, is not as simple as it might seem. Even today, pursuing knowledge for its own sake, without immediate practical application, can be viewed skeptically. The perception of a philosopher as an easy loser has not changed significantly since Socrates’s time.

The birth of philosophy coincided with that of science in Miletus, a small Greek city on the periphery of ancient civilizations. While the European Renaissance and Enlightenment have positioned Greece as the cradle of Western civilization, a glance at a map reveals its location on the fringes of Mesopotamia and Egypt. This geographic context is significant, as philosophy’s origins in a modest commercial outpost, rather than at the heart of established empires, underscore its nature as a pursuit of the periphery.

This pattern recurred in seventeenth-century Amsterdam with Baruch Spinoza. Exiled from his community and viewed with suspicion by religious authorities, Spinoza penned his Theologico-Political Treatise to advocate for the freedom to philosophize. These examples illustrate how philosophy has often served as a tool for marginalized voices to challenge prevailing narratives.

Initially, philosophy encompassed inquiries into nature, with no clear distinction from what we now call science. It was not until Aristotle that these disciplines began to diverge. In its nascent stage, philosophy lacked a defined domain, poised like an unrung bell in the tense intellectual climate of the sixth century BCE. Both philosophy and science shared a common goal: to illuminate aletheia (ἀλήθεια), a term meaning to bring to light or to reveal. This mission to dispel obscurity is epitomized in the legendary encounter between Diogenes and Alexander the Great.

When asked what he desired from the world’s most powerful man, Diogenes reportedly requested, Stand out of my light. This anecdote, featuring a philosopher who had renounced worldly possessions to embody Socratic ideals, encapsulates the essence of philosophy’s role: to demand that power not obstruct the path to truth and understanding.

Diogenes, a symbolic figure in the post-Socratic Athenian intellectual landscape, embodied the essence of Stoic philosophy through his legendary interaction with Alexander the Great. His audacious stance before the world’s most potent monarch symbolizes philosophy’s enduring mission to challenge authority and pursue unimpeded access to knowledge and wisdom.

The origins of philosophy and science were fundamentally linked to the concept of illumination. In ancient Greek, the word eidenai (εἴδομαι), meaning to know, also signified to see and formed the root of eidos (form). This linguistic connection underscores the visual metaphor central to early philosophical thought. Later, episteme (perception) expanded this concept to include approaching or penetrating a subject. Similarly, in Hellenic tradition, the quest for truth was equated with the act of seeing, emphasizing philosophy and science’s role in illuminating the unseen. This perspective frames knowledge as an active, ongoing engagement with the world.

If philosophy and science represent the pursuit of knowing and seeing, then art forms like painting and sculpture can be viewed as related endeavors in the quest for truth. However, this inclusive view was challenged with the advent of Plato’s philosophy. Plato’s era saw relativism’s rise and the influence of the Sophists, who taught citizens practical knowledge and rhetoric. These educators, widespread among the youth, advocated for democratic education. In opposition to the Sophists, Plato sought to redefine philosophy and reform education to effect political change. His efforts were partly motivated by a desire to vindicate his mentor, Socrates, who had been executed.

While sharing some common ground with the Sophists, Plato’s educational philosophy went beyond teaching rhetoric. He aimed to cultivate not just skilled orators but responsible citizens and politicians. Central to Plato’s concept was virtue (ἀρετή), which he defined as the optimal state of being for a citizen and statesman. In contemporary terms, Plato’s educational ideal focused on developing individuals who could excel and contribute meaningfully to their community.

This Platonic vision of education as a means to shape virtuous, civically engaged individuals marked a significant shift in philosophical thought. It established a framework for considering education’s role in forming knowledgeable, ethically grounded, and socially responsible citizens. This concept continues to influence educational philosophy to this day. What’s interesting here is that philosophy acquires an entirely different status with Plato than painting.

Plato’s ideas about art, like painting, are revealed through his uncomfortable attitude toward writing. Plato sees the written word as a supplement to the ordering of a community and dislikes the written word itself as orphaned speech. This is where the famous Poetics comes in. Plato’s caution against writing was actually a warning against technology. In Phaedrus, Plato’s ideas are conveyed through the mouth of Socrates as follows:

You know, Phaedrus, writing shares a strange feature with painting. The offsprings of painting stand there as if they are live, but if anyone asks them anything, they remain most solemnly silent. The same is true of written words. You’d think they were speaking as if they had some understanding, but if you question anything that has been said because you want to learn more, it continues to signify just that very same thing forever. When it has once been written down, every discourse roams about everywhere, reaching indiscriminately those with understanding no less than those who have no business with it, and it doesn’t know to whom it should speak and to whom it should not. And when it is faulted and attacked unfairly, it always needs its father’s support; alone, it can neither defend itself nor come to its own support.¹

For Plato, pictures, like words, appear as if they are alive, but in reality, they are only silent. Silence in this context also means it always refers to only one thing. A text or a picture may appear to be hiding a thought, but it does not actually have any thoughts. Why does Plato say this? Because, for Plato, knowledge is not just the accumulation of information.

Plato did not consider the storage of information in the memory to be knowledge; what mattered to him was original knowledge. Plato believed that original knowledge could be achieved through insight, but he was concerned that once writing came into being, that is, once technology took over the storage of memory, humans would become obsessed with the written record rather than with original knowledge.

This intrinsic knowledge means understanding the principles. It is not about memorizing a formula to solve a math problem; it is about knowing why the formula is the way it is. Therefore, the morality of judging right and wrong depends on whether we have acquired true knowledge. It was Plato’s belief that for everyday morality to be possible, we must act in accordance with these principles. Without knowledge of the principles, Plato believed, there would be no standard by which to determine justice and injustice, and a world of literal chaos would result.

This is why it was so crucial for Plato that each individual human being make the leap to the insight of knowledge, a leap that writing and drawing seem to have nothing to do with. Plato firmly believed that only the concepts of philosophy could lead us to a way of knowing that goes beyond information.

Imagination and Philosophy

Plato’s views on art and philosophy, while influential, have not gone unchallenged in subsequent philosophical discourse. Many thinkers have diverged from his stance, particularly regarding the role of visual arts in philosophical inquiry.

Immanuel Kant stands out as a pivotal figure who dramatically reconciled philosophy with the arts, including painting. Contrary to Plato’s skepticism toward visual representation, Kant elevated art to a realm of cognitive and moral significance within philosophy. He posited that aesthetic judgment could play a crucial role in developing a fully integrated individual with well-rounded reasoning capabilities.

Kant’s approach represented a significant departure from the ancient antagonism between philosophy and the visual arts. By establishing art as a medium of cognition and morality, he opened new avenues for ­philosophical exploration through aesthetic experience. This perspective allowed for a more holistic view of human understanding, one that incorporated sensory perception and imagination alongside pure reason.

While Kant recognized the value of various art forms, he held a particular affinity for poetry. He viewed poetic expression as an optimal means to expand the imagination, thereby enhancing our capacity for both aesthetic appreciation and moral reasoning. This preference highlights Kant’s belief in the power of language and imagery to stimulate intellectual and ethical growth.

Kant’s contributions marked a turning point in the relationship between philosophy and the arts. His ideas laid the groundwork for future philosophers to explore the cognitive, emotional, and moral dimensions of aesthetic experience. This shift has had enduring effects, prompting later thinkers to explore more deeply the philosophical meaning of art and its role in shaping human understanding and development.

In essence, Kant’s work demonstrates that far from being antithetical to philosophical inquiry, the arts—including painting and poetry—can serve as valuable tools for expanding our conceptual horizons and deepening our engagement with fundamental questions of existence, knowledge, and ethics. Of course, he also valued the plastic arts, and among them, painting was his favorite. Kant says:

Among the pictorial arts, I would give the palm to painting, partly because, as the art of drawing, it is the basis of all the other pictorial arts, partly because it can penetrate much further into the region of ideas and also expand the field of intuition in accordance with these much further than is possible for the rest.²

Kant held painting in high esteem, viewing it as an art form that uniquely challenges us to extend our intuition toward ideals. He recognized aesthetics as a distinct realm from cognition and morality, a perspective well-articulated in his seminal work, Critique of Pure Reason. First published in 1781, the book is arguably one of the most influential philosophical texts in history. As the initial volume in Kant’s Critique trilogy, it represents the culmination of his earlier philosophical endeavors and articulates a specific argument central to his thought.

The book’s significance is evident from its opening sentence, which presents the image of bullied reason. Kant laments that human reason, though blameless, finds itself in trouble for no fault of its own. This framing is crucial to understanding Kant’s position at the pinnacle of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment movement sought to redefine explanations of the world through human reason rather than divine justification. Kant was writing during a period of dramatic epistemological shifts. His critique of pure reason was not an abandonment of Enlightenment principles but rather an attempt to overcome the limitations of human reason that the movement had inevitably exposed.

Kant argued that while human reason should be the standard for truth judgments, it must constantly be aware of its limitations through criticism. He posited that reason is capable of determining truth, but if left unchecked in a pure state without critique, it risks falling into dogma. This nuanced stance—rooting his philosophy in Enlightenment ideals while rejecting absolute trust in human reason—is what distinguishes Kant’s work.

Critique of Pure Reason laid the groundwork for establishing art, including painting, as a realm of autonomous judgment. Kant’s philosophy acknowledges the power of aesthetic experience in expanding our conceptual horizons and deepening our engagement with fundamental questions of existence, knowledge, and ethics. In essence, Kant’s work represents a crucial moment in philosophical thought, bridging the Enlightenment’s faith in reason with a critical awareness of its limits. His insights into the nature of human understanding and the role of aesthetic judgment continue to influence philosophical discourse to this day, underscoring the enduring relevance of his ideas. Kant states:

It is pointless to affect indifference with respect to such inquiries, to whose object human nature cannot be indifferent. Moreover, however much they may think to make themselves unrecognizable by exchanging the language of the schools for a popular style, these so-called indifferentists, to the extent that they think anything at all, always unavoidably fall back into metaphysical assertions, which they yet professed so much to despise. Nevertheless this indifference, occurring amid the flourishing of all sciences, and directed precisely at those sciences whose results (if such are to be had at all) we could least do without, is a phenomenon deserving our attention and reflection. This is evidently the effect not of the thoughtlessness of our age, but of its ripened power of judgment, which will no longer be put of with illusory knowledge, and which demands that reason should take on anew the most difficult of all its tasks, namely, that of self-knowledge, and to institute a court of justice, by which reason may secure its rightful claims while dismissing all its groundless pretensions, and this not by mere decrees but according to its own eternal and unchangeable laws; and this court is none other than the critique of pure reason itself.³

Kant’s primary critique in Critique of Pure Reason is directed at the empiricists. While he acknowledges their role in refuting dogmatic rationalism and attempting to settle metaphysical disputes, Kant argues that their approach has inadvertently diminished the status of metaphysics from the queen of all the sciences to a common field rooted in everyday experience.

Kant astutely observes that empiricism has paradoxically become worm-eaten by repeatedly asserting conclusions that mirror the dogmatism it sought to overcome. He illustrates this point with a powerful example: empiricists argue