To the Philosophy of Visual: A Path Passed to the End

Abstract

Is an essay on the two approaches to hermeneutic analyses of a visual text. The author addresses the “Old man with his grandson” by Domenico Ghirlandaio as a visual text that needs understanding and interpretation. The first approach is based on the creation of a new, quasi­artistic reality in the form of a dialogue in the classroom; it provides the holistic approach to understanding as a reconstruction­experience. The second one implements the proper hermeneutical analysis and involves tackling the interrelation of the basic hermeneutic concepts of “text” and “context”. Interpretations that apply this strictly logical method resemble the process of “preparation” and lose much in terms of the holistic humanistic approach. The author puts a question: which of the two approaches is deeper and more meaningful? A reader is to make a judgement.