Introduction: de-Differentiation

• Published in: Common knowledge (New York, N.Y.) N.Y.), 2012-09, Vol.18 (3), p.419-432
• Main Author: Perl, Jeffrey M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: History; Religious studies; Theory and Philosophy
• ISSN: 0961-754X; 1538-4578
• DOI: 10.1215/0961754X-1630259

In this introduction to part three of the symposium “Fuzzy Studies: On the Consequence of Blur,” the journal’s editor argues that is not a medium of concealment, confusion, or evasion. Making distinctions between kinds of relative unclarity (for instance, , and ), he reserves the word for the kind that results from de-differentiating objects or qualities or states of affairs whose differences have been overstated. To refine what is and is not, he compares kinds of unclarity found in images by Giotto, Rubens, Hokusai, Kunitora, Manet, Zeshin, and Richter. With reference to art criticism by Hubert Damisch, Wayne Andersen, Anthony Hughes, Robert Storr, Julian Bell, Christopher Prendergast, and especially T. J. Clark, he agrees that choosing between focus and blur can be a moral decision, though not in the sense for which Clark arraigns the Impressionists. Characterizing the way of seeing that Clark encourages in as a form of staring, this essay argues that “lean and hungry looking” is indecent, whereas unfocused receptivity is irenic. What Bell calls the “aestheticized halfheartedness” of Manet is redescribed here as a genre of moral heroism, and the essay concludes that it is differentiation (rather than de-differentiation and lack of moral focus) that is on morally shaky ground.