I see, I see, said the blind man…

Abstract

The interdisciplinary study sets out to demonstrate that the blind man can indeed see in the sense of ‘understanding’; that he might understand differently from the ‘seeing’ man, but that he shares with him the Anschauung, which the blind man may evolve from an ekphrasis given by the seeing man. The study is grounded in hermeneutic art history and contrasts ekphrasis with Gadamer's distinction between original, copy and picture. For Gadamer only a picture offers an ‘increase in being’ compared to the original. While ekphrasis may mean being on-site for both the blind and the seeing man, the hermeneutical task the picture poses is that of insight, to transform the ‘I see’ into an ‘I understand’. The article shows that vision can be a discursive construction through a discussion of three pertinent examples from the history of art based on the application of both art historical interpretative procedures and analogous psychotherapeutic/psychoanalytic procedures.

Keywords:

• ekphrasis
• vision
• art history
• hermeneutics
• psychotherapy
• psychoanalysis