Class Reading - Abby Hogge

At the beginning of the semester we spent a lot of time studying the phenomenological approach. We used it specifically to look explain the tension that exists between encountering art through ritual participation and performance. We first laid out that a definitive/final answer would not be reached but rather explored. We must see that beauty is intertwined with that which is human. We are a created thing, immersed with other created things, all on a search. We all have an idea of beauty in our heads that often directs us to see certain objects, events, etc. as beautiful. It is through a phenomenological approach that we search for meaning over an explanation and we attempt to return to things themselves; to the concrete experiences and the intentional consciousness of something when we speak of it. When we can see humans as “intentional body subjects in the world” we can understand consciousness to be not just of the mind, but of the whole body. We cannot see something as whole or a total picture, only God can, so we accept this search for beauty as a search for meaning, hoping for a glimpse or idea of what beauty is. It is thus using a phenomenological approach that we use art to explore and connect us with the artist and the transcendent other.