Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• DURO, PAUL

Titel

What Is a Parergon?

Ist Teil von

• The Journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 2019-12, Vol.77 (1), p.23-33

Ort / Verlag

Oxford: Oxford University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Wiley Online Library Journals Frontfile Complete

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• ABSTRACT Despite important recent work, the rehabilitation of parergon as a critical concept in the history of art has yet to be fully broached. From the time Jacques Derrida introduced the term into contemporary critical theory in The Truth in Painting, its character and function have been largely understood as referencing a threshold or boundary—in particular, that of the border of the artwork. Yet a review of the term's long history suggests a meaning that differs in significant ways from its current near‐univocal characterization as a synonym for a frame. In particular, premodern art theory and criticism identifies a parergon with matters such as the background action in a history painting, the inclusion in a landscape of picturesque embellishments, or, following Kant, the addition of ornament to a painting, a statue, or a building. This article therefore proposes we ask again: What is a parergon?