On the Phenomenological Force of Painting as Poietic Imagination

Abstract This article shows how painting affords us the chance to engage the invisible dimensions at play in the happening of the visible. The first part focuses on how in Force of Imagination John Sallis rethinks nature in terms of “force of imagination” and “the elemental.” In light of the sway of the elemental in the happening of nature, nature may be understood not in terms of presence and as the showing of things themselves, but through the dynamic elemental movement or shining in which and with which things show themselves. This happens in a play of visibility and invisibility. The second part of the essay discusses Sallis’ understanding of painting in terms of “poietic imagination.” Painting is not a matter of representation but happens as a performative doubling of force of imagination, of the dynamic movement in the shining or appearing of things. Ultimately, the discussion shows that painting exposes us to the elemental, to the invisible dimensions at play in the arising of the visible. In painting one is held in the movement of the arising of the visible, a happening of the sense of the sensible beyond discourse and yet phenomenologically available to the understanding.