Painting and Reality Delivered for the A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1955

"The midpoint of the twentieth century, as with the present day, saw no shortage of scholarship on the subject of art. In Painting and Reality, delivered in 1955 for the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, Étienne Gilson makes what a unique contribution to that vast body of literature. Addressing the problem of what a philosopher can learn from painting, Gilson makes the center of his perspective the work of art in and of itself paired with its relationship to the world of natural reality (ontology) and to the beholder (phenomenology). From this metaphysically robust vantage point, he develops a vision of art as both an investigation into and an affirmation of reality. Borne up on the wings of a deep understanding of and love for the artistic process, Painting and Reality aims to reveal to art the fullness of its inherent meaning and to artists the exhilarating honor of their creative mission. Brilliant and expansive, Gilson's "pictorial approach to philosophy" properly belongs among the classics of aesthetic philosophy."--