This document discusses the artistic intuition in phenomenology. It begins by contrasting Oscar Wilde's view that art is useless with the phenomenological view that art can be experienced and described. It then defines the artistic intuition as the critical engagement with art through reasoning and imagination to grasp its transcendent meaning. The intuition is distinguished from passive viewing and from other intentionalities like pictorial, signitive, and categorial intentions. Finally, it examines artistic truth, stating that it expresses human dignity and is both individual yet shared communally, pointing to truths about ourselves and transcending limits of time, space and tradition.

1. A Window Into the Soul, Spirit, and Mind:
The Artistic Intuition in Phenomenology
Keziah Camille Rezaey
14 March 2022

2. 1
The preface of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray ends as such: “All art is quite
useless”. Wilde continues, stating “The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one
admires it intensely”.1
However, in the phenomenological notion of the world, one in which
human beings act as datives of disclosure who can articulate reality from objects, can Wilde
make such a claim? In all its forms, art is an object that can be experienced, which means it can
be described phenomenologically in terms of absence and presence, identity in manifolds, and
moments and pieces. It appears in the world, yet transcends it. Robert Sokolwoski in his
Introduction to Phenomenology even identifies a phenomenology of art, a subfield within
phenomenology that aims to describe the appearances that an artwork might take on within the
world.2
Because artworks can be intended in multiple manners, be evidenced or be proposed as a
state of affairs, reason is at work. Art is beautiful in both aesthetic and contextual ways, but it is
also beautiful in the sense that it stands as a creative, intelligible expression of human rationality,
and with the ego’s responsibility to act as agents of truth, it is certainly not, as Wilde claims,
useless.
There is no denying that art speaks to us. Throughout time, regardless of geographical
borders, technological advancements, linguistic and sociocultural differences, art has been a
constant. When viewing or creating art, there is the tendency to relate it to ourselves, to our
experiences and to others, and by doing so, we target truth. In the ways that human beings
interact with art so as to derive meaning in relation to the ego and the world, a new sort of
phenomenological intuition can be described. This intuition is of the artistic sort, and like all the
intentionalities, is founded on perception, but furthermore, appeals to us as agents of truth since
it is a further elevation into logos. It is an activity of correlation that involves a more
2
Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 31.
1
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1.

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sophisticated exercise of critical reasoning, and in addition, a demonstration of imaginative
activities in ideation, creation, comprehension, and appreciation of artwork. It might be the claim
made by an individual that Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist conveys themes about the pursuit of
dreams, and so, we must take heed and live in consideration of the protagonist's struggles. It can
also be a proposal that Alexandre Cabanel’s painting Fallen Angel makes the perfect use of
colors and strokes to express the narrative. It might even be an artist going through the design
process, planning out the work’s form, in addition to musing what meanings it might propose. In
order to explain why a distinction in intuition is to be made for works of art, this essay will
examine when it occurs, its phenomenological structure and the disclosure of truth within art.
First a distinction must be made between a passive viewing of art and a critical
understanding of it, as the intuition proposed occurs in the latter mode rather than the former. A
passive viewing of art is merely that – a viewing. Sokolowski too recognizes such a difference,
highlighting that there is a contrast in how a work “appeared to the artist and how it appears to
the viewer, as well as differences between the viewing of a cultivated viewer and a mere
curiosity seeker…The identities and the manifolds are different in each case”.3
The viewer and
mere curiosity seeker can be likened as taking a passive stance towards an art object, while the
artist and cultivated viewer a more critical one. It should be said that this is not some sort of
passive perception, as perception cannot be passive. This passivity is to only be applied to artistic
viewing. The viewer sees the piece to be an artwork (or performance, literary piece) but does not
register the content or maybe even the details of the form. In a passive understanding of art, the
art is simply a part of a background, one object among many in the life-world that we are both a
part of. In his outlining of the three stages of eidetic intuition, Sokolowksi defines a first level in
3
Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 30.

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which objects are experienced as individuals, while not yet being comprehended as such.4
While
this is described in relation to an intention of forms and essences, the language can be applied to
distinguish criticality and passivity.
While in the passive viewing, the art piece is not registered as an individual, to critically
view a work, it must precisely be viewed as such. The active engagement in the content and form
of a piece is what defines critical viewing. It is where interpretation, judgment, and appreciation
of an artwork can occur, and it can only happen once an artwork is registered as an individual.
Imagine a museum worker after a finished shift rushing through crowds and subsequently, the
displays – the hallways are merely a wall with paintings and the people are in their way.
Consider this in contrast to the contemplative patron who takes time to stroll and stare, reads the
labels beside the statue or painting, and examines the details before moving on. The museum
worker is in the passive mode, while the patron is actively critically understanding. This is not to
diminish those who do hold such uninvolved views of art. Just as phenomenology restores the
validity of the natural attitude in contrast to the phenomenological one, a passive engagement is
not to be denigrated. One cannot be critically viewing each and every piece of art as individual
all the time, everytime. Sometimes we are the museum worker trying to get home, other times
the strolling visitor. It simply depends on context.
Since it is established that an artistic intuition occurs in the critical engagement of a work
rather than a passive one, we can describe what the intuition is. Calling upon reason, it is the
making of critical, logical movements in the intensive viewing or creating of a work so as to
attempt to grasp or describe the transcendent meaning of it in relation to the ego and the world.
This intuition invokes imaginations, just as a scientific or eidetic intuition would to contemplate
idealized objects or forms. Husserl believes that these imaginations are rich, “tower[ing] high
4
Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 182.

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over our own phantasy’s accomplishments in regard to the originality of the new configurations,
the fullness of individual features, and the continuity of motivation…‘fiction’ makes up the vital
element of phenomenology…the source from which knowledge of the ‘eternal truths’ draws its
nourishment”. 5
Imagination in an artistic intuition, however, does not end in such precise or
essential descriptions. Instead, it moves from understanding or constructing the details of a
work’s form and content to an abstraction of such details in an attempt to describe a truth, with
respect to the ego, others, or the world. Sokolowski asserts similarly that “Imaginative variations
occur in fiction, where circumstances are imagined that depart from the ordinary, but serve to
bring out a necessity…if there is to be insight is that within the imaginative circumstances, a
necessity has to be brought to light. For this to occur, the imaginative variation has to be cleverly
contrived”.6
And to be so cleverly contrived, reason is at play. Because a scientific and eidetic
intuition has been defined to describe logical workings to reach precise objects and essences,
then too an artistic intuition can be described, since it makes use of the capabilities of human
reason and imagination in a manner that is quite distinct from the scientific and eidetic.
How is it that the artistic intuition might be different from a pictorial, signitive, or
categorial intention? At first glance, a pictorial intention might not seem so different from an
artistic intuition. The intentionality even considers how we are able to shift focus from theme to
substrate, content to form.7
In the pictorial intention, Sokolowski acknowledges that there is
“differences, however, between picturing and ordinary perceiving: there is, for example, no
‘other side of the cube’ for objects that are depicted; there is only the other side of the wooden
panel on which the picture exists. The only sides, aspects, and profiles of the pictured objects are
7
Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 83.
6
Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 180.
5
Edmund Husserl, Ideas I, #70

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those that are depicted”.8
Then, in contrasting picturing and perceiving, we see then that there is
an additional distinctness between the artistic intuition and the pictorial intention.
The pictorial intention, while bringing an object closer to the subject, intends the visual
work to be the object as depicted and discloses truth in relation to how it is pictured, rather than a
visual work to be understood on its own. In pictorial intention, the focus is on the depiction of
the object, rather than how the individuality of the work informs reasoning and imagining
capabilities as a result of the depiction. In a painting of an apple, we can consider how the apple
is pictured within the painting, or how the brush strokes depict the apple, however we do not
make claims about the necessity that both the form and content wish to express. The artistic
intuition may involve the pictorial intention if the artwork calls for it, but it is more than just
picturing. This is a similar case for signitive intentions. Since the intention is only the pointing to
an object from a singular word or phrase, it is the entrance into reason, a building block for
establishing meaning when a word or phrase is placed in additional syntax,9
not yet complex
enough for what the intuition calls for.
While the categorial intention is a further movement into reason, more so than the
signitive, it too is still not enough. While language “as function and exercised capacity, is related
correlatively to the world, the universe of objects which is linguistically expressive in being and
being-such”,10
the categorial intention deals with propositions and states of affairs as the
beginnings of logical operations. It allows us to articulate reality, demonstrating our rationality as
human beings, however, it alone does not target the truth that is sought after in the artistic
intuition. The categorial intention is certainly involved in artworks – as we read Franz Kafka’s
10
Husserl, The Origin of Geometry, 258.
9
Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 79.
8
Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 83.

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The Metamorphosis, to propose and verify that Gregor Samsa has indeed woken up as an insect
is fundamental to further critical analysis of Kafka’s themes. Consider an exam in a literature
class. The first section is composed of true or false statements, such as Gregor Samsa is an
overworked salesman. The second section is multiple essay questions, one asking What does
Kafka hope to convey with Samsa’s metamorphosis? The beginning section is a demonstration of
the abilities of the categorial intentionality, to which a reader of the text would affirm that Samsa
is an overworked salesman after propositional reflection in the text’s syntax. The latter section
then would exemplify the artistic intuition at work. So, while it is true that categorial intention is
exercised in the intuition, it is not the entirety of the intuition itself. Therefore, artistic intuition
cannot be simply formulated as a pictorial, signitive, or categorial intention. In fact, because
artistic intuition is a further elevation into reason while making use of imagination, the intuition
is founded upon the pictorial, signitive, and categorial.
Despite similarities in its intentional complexities and its teleologically ordered structure,
artistic intuition is still distinct from scientific or eidetic intuition. Each intuition has a different
goal – the scientific aims to describe idealized objects, the eidetic deals with the forms and
essences, while the artistic attempts to draw out the more abstracted essentialities of an artwork
procured from specifics and technicalities in the piece. Art is not meant to be ascribed to a
scientific model. On the other hand, it too cannot be described in terms of a form, since each
work is individualized and stands on its own. The way art invokes imagination is unique and
dynamic in its own right. Artworks are purposeful, and while the purpose cannot be so easily
acquired, art still remains open to the world, to all humans who act as datives of truth.
Since the intuition has been defined and described phenomenologically, artistic truth can
be examined, as this is what the intuition hopes to disclose. First, it must be said that the artistic

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truth does not fall within the realms of relativism. Both Sokolowski and Husserl make it clear
that there is no place for relativism within phenomenology, and because the artistic intuition has
been described in its traditions, it too moves away from such ideas. It cannot be relativist because
like the eidetic intuition, it still proceeds towards truth by manner of reason and imagination.
There is truth to be disclosed and expressed in artworks – one can attempt to reach such truths
and thus, can succeed or fail. Artistic intuition, like eidetic intuition, can be difficult, yet
worthwhile. Regarding activities targeting truth, Husserl notes that there “is something special,
as we have said, to have the intention to explicate, to engage in the activity which articulates
what has been read…extracting one by one, in separation from what has been vaguely, passively
received as unity, the elements of meaning, thus bringing the total validity to achieve
performance in a new way on the basis individual validities”.11
There is a reason as to why
humans have remained enamored with the creation and critical viewing of artworks.
Artistic truth is the achievement of human dignity, both rationally and creatively. It is a
successful and beautiful expression of the human ego engaging in the community of reason. By
turning towards reality, and while also invoking imagination, artistic intuition targets a truth that
is made possible by the act of perception and intentionalities founded upon it; yet, reason is
elevated in an act of transcendent reflection. How does this work speak to the nature of the
life-world as we know it? What does this line in a poem say about the nature of humanity? How
can this sculpture inform me as to what moral stance I should take? Why does this music
composition invoke such strong emotions in me? How do artworks seem so limitless in detailed
analysis, yet so easily shareable in the form of an abstracted statement? Artistic truth is found in
questions like these and more. While we teleologically cannot target the entirety of the truth of
11
Husserl, The Origin of Geometry, 26.

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an individual artwork, art does hope to be actively critically understood; it is meant to be
experienced as an identity of a manifold of appearances.
Artistic truth is very much tied to the transcendental ego. Art is both individual and
communal, thus, transcendent. It holds meaning for us personally, and yet also for a society, the
community as a whole. Even in the creation of a work, the writer does not hope that their book
will be bought only to be shelved and never read or the composer does not wish that their
composition never be heard – it is the exact opposite. The creator expects critical engagement,
hoping an interaction is prompted or an impression is made. They know agreements will be
made, criticisms raised, or dislike shared. Two parties are always present in an artwork: the artist
and the beholder, yet they can also be one and the same. Artistic truth cannot be so easily
described because it is so shared; it is “A thing as a source of appearance, as an identity in
manifolds…[it] generates new appearances, to a dative that will appreciate them, with greater
and greater intensity, not with diminishing strength. It is inexhaustible, an endless reservoir of
surprising disclosures”.12
On top of that, they transcend time, space, and traditions. Sokolowski
notes that appearances point to one and the same, yet “Some of the appearances that have already
surfaced, moreover, may go back into hiding and be seen again only at a later time and in other
perspectives, to speakers of other languages, to a community that may remember things we have
forgotten”.13
Art is inherently human. And so, when we attempt to disclose artistic truth, we also
undertake truths regarding ourselves. When we are enraptured, artwork displaces the self,
warping our sense of world time, placing us in a world that is so similar, yet unlike our own.
Kazuo Ishiguro in his novel Never Let Me Go writes of characters Kathy and Tommy, who,
13
Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 176.
12
Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 175.

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dismayed, ask their former teachers for a reason as to why their artworks were taken from them
as children. They receive this answer: “Why did we take your artwork? Why did we do that?…it
was because your art would reveal what you were like. What you were like inside…We took
away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it
to prove you had souls at all”.14
Upon this reveal, we feel Kathy and Tommy’s pain and share in
their existential crisis. We are present in their fictional world and our own, pondering how the
character’s narrative arcs inform us of our nature.
Ad Reinhardt in his collection of comics, How to Look, puts it so simply: “[Art] is alive if
you are”.15
Artistic truth is an achievement. It speaks to all of us, which is so incredible in
considering its origins lie in particulars. It is in the unique syntactical ordering of impactful
words that strike at the heart, in the brush strokes that seem so perfect but only created by the
imperfect bristles in movement, in the smooth blanketed marble that is sculpted by weathered
hands or the musical notes that lilt and seem to dance around us. A demonstration of the
transcendental ego, it is the artistic intuition described in the essay that allows us to derive such
truths. Art is such a phenomena that demands such a distinction – we humans interact with it in a
way that is unlike any other object in the world. It prompts us to turn to ourselves, others, and the
world; we are driven to understand, synthesize, and reflect. Art prompts us to act as agents of
truth, to see the world differently after engaging with it. A work of art in its individuality is a
reflection of the world and its relations. Movement towards artistic truth is a celebration of
human dignity.
15
Ad Reinhardt. How to Look.
14
Kazuo Ishiguro. Never Let Me Go. Random House, 2005.

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Works Cited
Husserl, Edmund. Ideas #1,
Husserl, Edmund. The Origin of Geometry.
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. Random House, 2005.
Reinhardt, Ad. How to Look.
Sokolowski, Robert. Introduction to Phenomenology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2017.
Wilde, Oscar. Picture of Dorian Gray.