"Art accomplishes a discovery, an extraordinary discovery: it places before our wondering eyes an unexplored domain of new phenomena that have been forgotten, if not hidden or denied. These are the phenomena in fact that open our access to what alone matters in the end: ourselves. Art is not only a theoretical proof of this invisible and essential reality of our being: it does not give it as something to be seen as an object; instead, it makes use of it: it is the exercise and development of it. We experience its certainty as something that must be, much like one experiences love. This certainty is absolutely identical to our life. All other certainties -- those of the sciences included -- pale and break down in comparison to it. Because art accomplishes the revelation of the invisible reality in us with an absolute certainty, it is a salvation. In a society like ours which is divorced from life -- either by being content to flee it in the external world or by stating the explicit negation of it -- it is the sole salvation possible."
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Michel Henry, Seeing the invisible: On Kandinsky, translated by Scott Davidson, Continuum, 2009, p. 20
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Michel Henry
Michel Henry (10 January 1922 – 3 July 2002) was a French philosopher, phenomenologist and novelist. He wrote five novels and numerous philosophical works. He also lectured at universities in France, Belgium, the United States, and Japan.
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