<研究論文(原著論文)>自己表現の二つの意義: 自己理解と自己変容

Abstract

In this paper, I aim to explore the significance of self-expression by referring to Henri Matisse's activity and R. G. Collingwood's aesthetic theory. Matisse and Collingwood, who lived in the same period, shared a deep interest in art as self-expression, but while one put it into practice as a painter, the other discussed it as a philosopher. By focusing on this difference, I attempt to approach the significance of self-expression from both a practical-individual perspective and a theoretical-general perspective. As a result, two significances of self-expression can be identified, which I call “self-understanding” and “self-transformation”. The structure of this paper is as follows. In section 2, I focus on Matisse's words and confirm that he describes his activity not only as an attempt at self-expression but also as an attempt at self-understanding. That raises the question of how self-expression can also be self-understanding at the same time. In section 3, I point out that there are two concepts of expression, the Romantic one and the Post-Romantic one, and that the latter is more helpful in responding to the above question. Then, by reconstructing the argument of Collingwood, one of the philosophers who adopted the Post-Romantic concept of expression, I will show that Matisse's words are consistent and that self-understanding can be said to be the significance of self-expression without problems. In section 4, I focus on the cut-outs Matisse created in his later years, aiming to understand the significance of self-expression in a nuanced way (which cannot be achieved simply by applying Collingwood's theory to Matisse). Speaking in advance, it turns out that self-understanding achieved through self-expression enables one to reinterpret an experience that has something in common with the experience expressed, thereby allowing the subject to undergo a kind of self-transformation.