Table Of Content“This much needed study does a masterful job of knitting together
Husserl’s texts on art and aesthetic consciousness and of showing
how relevant they are for addressing the fundamental questions of
aesthetics.”
John Brough, Georgetown University, USA
The Phenomenology of Aesthetic
Consciousness and Phantasy
This is the first book dedicated to Husserl’s aesthetics. Paul Crowther
pieces together Husserl’s ideas of phantasy and image and presents them
as a unified and innovative account of aesthetic consciousness. He also
shows how Husserl’s ideas can be developed to solve problems in aesthet-
ics, especially those related to visual art, literature, theatre, and nature.
After outlining the major components of Husserl’s phenomenological
method, Crowther addresses the scope and structure of Husserl’s notion
of aesthetic consciousness. For Husserl, aesthetic consciousness in all its
forms involves phantasy – where items or states of affairs are represented
as if actually perceived or experienced, even though they are not, in fact,
given in the present perceptual field. Husserl also makes some extraor-
dinarily interesting links between aesthetic consciousness and nature,
showing how natural things and environments become instigators of such
consciousness when apprehended in the appropriate terms. This “unreal-
ity” of the object of aesthetic consciousness anticipates contemporary
debates about pictorial representation and also brings new dimensions to
the philosophy of literature and theatre.
The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Consciousness and Phantasy will
appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in aesthetics, phi-
losophy of art, phenomenological aesthetics, and Husserl’s philosophy.
Paul Crowther is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the National
University of Ireland Galway, and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.
He has published many monographs on phenomenology and the arts,
most recently The Aesthetics of Self-Becoming: How Art Forms Empower,
Routledge (2019).
Routledge Research in Aesthetics
Paintings and the Past
Philosophy, History, Art
Ivan Gaskell
Portraits and Philosophy
Edited by Hans Maes
Radically Rethinking Copyright in the Arts
A Philosophical Approach
James O. Young
Philosophy of Sculpture
Historical Problems, Contemporary Approaches
Edited by Kristin Gjesdal, Fred Rush, and Ingvild Torsen
Art, Representation, and Make-Believe
Essays on the Philosophy of Kendall L. Walton
Edited by Sonia Sedivy
Philosophy of Improvisation
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Theory and Practice
Edited by Susanne Ravn, Simon Høffding, and James McGuirk
The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality
Grant Tavinor
The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Consciousness and Phantasy
Working with Husserl
Paul Crowther
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.rout-
ledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Aesthetics/book-series/RRA
The Phenomenology of
Aesthetic Consciousness
and Phantasy
Working with Husserl
Paul Crowther
First published 2022
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2022 Paul Crowther
The right of Paul Crowther to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-032-07946-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-08023-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-21255-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003212553
Typeset in Sabon
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
Contents
List of Figures viii
Introduction: Husserl’s Phenomenology and
Phenomenological Aesthetics 1
1 The Scope of Aesthetic Consciousness 23
2 The Phenomenology of Visual Representation 64
3 Aesthetic Form and the Phenomenological
Reduction 118
4 The Phenomenology of Literature,
Theatre, and Music 134
5 Final Review: And Some Glimpses of the Digital 163
Bibliography 172
Index 175
Figures
1.1 The David Vases, Jingdezhen, China, around 1351 AD
(British Museum, London); public domain. 27
1.2 Jan Davidsz de Heem, Vase of Flowers (c. 1645,
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.); public domain. 29
1.3 Albrect Durer, The Knight, Death, and the Devil
(engraving, 1513); public domain. 45
1.4 Caspar David Friedrich, The Monk by the Sea (1808-
1810, Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin);
public domain. 47
2.1 Eighteenth-century engraving after Raphael’s Theologia
by Giovanni Volpano; public domain. 66
2.2 Titian, Sacred and Profane Love, (1514, Galleria
Borghese, Rome); public domain. 70
2.3 Hans Burgkmair, Emperor Maximilian 1st, (woodcut,
1518); public domain. 73
2.4 James Tissot, Miss Golly Wilson, (pencil drawing c.
1870; private collection); public domain. 77
2.5 Walter Crane Glengarriffe Estuary (1901, private
collection); public domain. 79
2.6 Raphael, The Sistine Madonna (1512, here engraved by
A.L. Payne); public domain. 96
2.7 Veronese, Feast in the House of Levi (1573, Gallerie
dell’Accademia, Venice); public domain. 98
2.8 Franz von Lembach, Portrait of Otto Eduard Leopold
von Bismarck, (1890, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore);
public domain. 100
2.9 Wassily Kandinsky, Munich-Schwabing with the
Church of St-Ursula (1908, Lenbachhaus, Munich);
public domain. 103
2.10 Wassily Kandinsky, Landscape with Factory Chimney
(1910, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York);
public domain. 104
Figures ix
2.11 Donald Judd, Untitled (1977, riverside, Muenster);
photograph by Florian Adler. Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported. 106
2.12 Amy Ellingson, Variation (white/oak) No.2, 2019 (a
twelve-color lithograph). Photograph provided by the artist. 107
5.1 Char Davies. Seeds, Ephémère (1998). Digital still
captured in real-time through HMD (head-mounted
display), during live performance of immersive virtual
environment Ephémère. 169
