DOI: 10.4231/a21z-b597
title: Painting and the Question of Concepts: Lecture 1, 31 March 1981

description: &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Deleuze Seminars&lt;/em&gt; is a collection of audio recordings, transcriptions, and English translations of, and supplemental materials from, the lectures French philosopher Gilles Deleuze gave during his career at the University of Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&ldquo;Painting and the Question of Concepts&rdquo; was an 8-lecture seminar given from late March to early June of 1981. In this seminar, Deleuze critiques aesthetic theories which treat art as &lsquo;representation&rsquo;, presenting instead his own aesthetic concepts. Many of the concepts and works of art discussed herein also appear in Deleuze&rsquo;s book published the same year,&lt;em&gt; Francis Bacon-Logique de la sensation&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation&lt;/em&gt;), making &ldquo;Painting and the Question of Concepts&rdquo; an important companion to Deleuze&rsquo;s book.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The 31 March 1981 lecture marks the end of the &lt;em&gt;Spinoza: The Velocities of Thought&lt;/em&gt; seminar, with Deleuze responding to students&rsquo; questions, and the beginning of the &lt;em&gt;Painting and the Question of Concepts &lt;/em&gt;seminar. Topics of discussion include: the pre-pictorial; catastrophe in painting and its affect on the act of painting itself; catastrophe and the birth of color; English Romanticist landscape painter J.M.W. Turner and his &lt;em&gt;Light and Colour (Goethe&#39;s Theory) &ndash; The Morning after the Deluge &ndash; Moses Writing the Book of Genesis&lt;/em&gt;; French artist Paul C&eacute;zanne and his texts; the pictorial synthesis of time; Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh; Swiss-German artist Paul Klee and the &lsquo;gray point&rsquo;; Irish-born British painter Francis Bacon and clich&eacute;; French poet and dramatist Paul Claudel and his collection of essays, &lt;em&gt;The Eye Listens&lt;/em&gt;; French author, poet, and art critic Joachim Gasquet; space and time in painting; Lucretia (Lucrece); and German philosopher Immanuel Kant&rsquo;s aesthetics and his &lt;em&gt;Critique of Judgment&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The new version of this dataset includes: the English translation and French transcription in Open Document Text (odt) format, an aggregate version of the audio recordings into a single mp3, and the original Paris-8 French transcription of the recorded lecture. The first version, also available, includes the translation and transcription in pdf and txt format and the audio recordings in three part and the aggregate version.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Note: a) Section 1 of the full transcript, and the corresponding audio file (part 1), constitute the end of Deleuze&rsquo;s &ldquo;&lt;em&gt;Spinoza: The Velocities of Thought&lt;/em&gt;&rdquo; seminar 15. These are available as a separate dataset in the &ldquo;&lt;em&gt;Spinoza&lt;/em&gt;&rdquo; seminar. The &ldquo;&lt;em&gt;Painting and the Question of Concepts&lt;/em&gt;&rdquo; seminar 1 begins with section 2 of the transcript and the corresponding audio file (part 2), and at the (approx.) 54:04 mark of the complete audio file. b) There is no audio recording corresponding to pages 34-36 of the transcript. The transcript is marked accordingly at the bottom of page 33. c) The aggregate audio file has been downsampled.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Les S&eacute;minaires de Deleuze&lt;/em&gt; sont une collection d&#39;enregistrements audio, de transcriptions et de traductions en anglais et de documents compl&eacute;mentaires des conf&eacute;rences que le philosophe fran&ccedil;ais Gilles Deleuze a donn&eacute; lors de sa carri&egrave;re &agrave; l&#39;Universit&eacute; de Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&laquo;La peinture et la question des concepts&raquo; &eacute;tait un s&eacute;minaire de 8 conf&eacute;rences donn&eacute; de fin mars &agrave; d&eacute;but juin 1981. Dans ce s&eacute;minaire, Deleuze critique les th&eacute;ories esth&eacute;tiques qui traitent l&#39;art comme &laquo;repr&eacute;sentation&raquo;, pr&eacute;sentant ses propres concepts esth&eacute;tiques. Beaucoup de concepts et d&#39;&oelig;uvres d&#39;art d&eacute;crites ici apparaissent &eacute;galement dans le livre de Deleuze publi&eacute; la m&ecirc;me ann&eacute;e, &lt;em&gt;Francis Bacon-Logique de la sensation&lt;/em&gt;, faisant de &laquo;La peinture et de la question des concepts&raquo; un important compagnon de le livre de Deleuze.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;La conf&eacute;rence du 31 mars 1981 marque la fin du s&eacute;minaire de &laquo;Spinoza, des vitesses de la pens&eacute;e&raquo;, avec Deleuze r&eacute;pondant aux questions des &eacute;l&egrave;ves, et au d&eacute;but du s&eacute;minaire &laquo;La peinture et la question des concepts&raquo;. Les sujets de discussion comprennent: le pr&eacute;-pictural; catastrophe dans la peinture affectant l&#39;acte de peindre en lui-m&ecirc;me; catastrophe et naissance de la couleur; la peintre de paysage romantique anglais J.M.W. Turner et sa &lt;em&gt;Lumi&egrave;re et couleur&lt;/em&gt;; l&#39;artiste fran&ccedil;ais Paul C&eacute;zanne et ses textes; la synth&egrave;se picturale du temps; la peintre n&eacute;erlandais Vincent Van Gogh; l&#39;artiste suisse-allemand Paul Klee et &lt;em&gt;le point gris&lt;/em&gt;; la peintre irlandais-britannique Francis Bacon et clich&eacute;; le po&egrave;te et dramaturge fran&ccedil;ais Paul Claudel et sa collection d&#39;essais, &lt;em&gt;L&rsquo;&oelig;il &eacute;coute&lt;/em&gt;; auteur, po&egrave;te et critique d&#39;art fran&ccedil;ais Joachim Gasquet; l&#39;espace et le temps dans la peinture; Lucr&egrave;ce; et l&#39;esth&eacute;tique du philosophe allemand Immanuel Kant et sa &lt;em&gt;Critique du Jugement&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 31 March 1981. This is lecture 1 of an 8-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between March and June 1981.