DOI: 10.4231/ec00-ev93
title: Painting and the Question of Concepts: Lecture 3, 28 April 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;In the 28 April 1981 lecture, topics of discussion include: Figurative and Expressionist painting; the concept &lsquo;chaos-germ&rsquo;; Belgian-born French artist and writer Henri Michaux; French philosopher and writer Jean Grenier; the tension between the eye and the hand; Dutch painter Piet Mondrian; American artist Jackson Pollock; colors and pictorial lines; Michelangelo; Mannerism and pictorial fact; Francis Bacon; C&eacute;zanne; diagram and pictorial code; Russian painter and art theorist Wassily Kandinsky; the Kantian analytic of elements; binary code; French painter Auguste Herbin; French artist Georges Seurat; Polish-born, French and American mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and fractal objects; German art historian Wilhelm Worringer; American essayist and art critic Clement Greenberg; and the line in various schools of painting, including the Gothic or Northern line, All-over painting, and the line without contour.&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 in a single mp3, and the original Paris-8 French transcription of the recorded lecture. The dataset first version includes the two mp3 recordings of the lecture and a single mp3, and the complete French transcription of the recorded lecture in both pdf and plain text. 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;Dans la lecture du 28 avril 1981, les sujets de discussion comprennent: peinture figural et peinture expressionniste; la notion &laquo;chaos-germ&raquo;; l&#39;artiste et l&#39;&eacute;crivain fran&ccedil;ais Henri Michaux; philosophe et &eacute;crivain fran&ccedil;ais Jean Grenier; la tension entre l&#39;&oelig;il et la main; peintre n&eacute;erlandais Piet Mondrian; l&#39;artiste am&eacute;ricain Jackson Pollock; couleurs et lignes picturales; Michel-Ange; Mani&eacute;risme et fait pictural; Francis Bacon; C&eacute;zanne; diagramme et code pictural; peintre russe et th&eacute;oricien d&#39;art Wassily Kandinsky; l&#39;analytique kantienne des &eacute;l&eacute;ments; le code binaire; le peintre fran&ccedil;ais Auguste Herbin; l&#39;artiste fran&ccedil;ais Georges Seurat; math&eacute;maticien fran&ccedil;ais et am&eacute;ricain (n&eacute; polonais) Benoit Mandelbrot et objets fractals; l&#39;historien de l&#39;art allemand Wilhelm Worringer; essayiste am&eacute;ricain et critique d&#39;art Clement Greenberg; et la ligne dans diverses &eacute;coles de peinture, y compris la ligne gothique ou septentrionale, la ligne &lt;em&gt;All-over&lt;/em&gt;, et la ligne sans contour.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 28 April 1981. This is lecture 3 of an 8-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between March and June 1981.