"Pas de trois" for dance, painting, and phenomenology

Abstract

The dance, painting, and philosophy triad depicts some sort of imbrication between these two artistic manifestations and philosophy, especially considering phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty's writings on painting. Human body is hereby considered in its stillness, but depicted through the paintings of artists such as Degas, Matisse, and Toulouse-Lautrec, who in their paintings portray dancing as a premise to contemplate the human body. Such purpose will be reached through the genuine intersection of the works of painters that portray dancing in their works. This study aims to understand how the perception / sensation of a body in dance can also be expressed in painting, as well as to reflect on the status of the body and dance in the visual arts, particularly in painting through phenomenology. This present research is a qualitative descriptive study that uses phenomenology as a methodological approach from the perspective of esthesiology and its concepts, seeking to understand sensitiveness and the voices of silence.