Pooja Kaul received her doctorate in Exact Humanities (EH). Her research work was supervised by Prof. Kamal Karlapalem. Here’s a summary of her research work on An ontological approach to theorising art and a Spandanātmak view of painting:
The question “what is art” is a forever open inquiry. The study proposes a formal ontological approach to theorizing art. This leads us to question the fascinating density of the realms of imagination and freedom of creation, which can only be accessed through chasing formal structures of the mind and self.
Therefore, this inquiry deals with the folding of various categories of existence, in Art and in the specific act of painting.
The research explores the Indian and Greco-European traditions of metaphysical thought to arrive at a framework for describing the artistic phenomenon of painting. While we finally commit to the frameworks given in the Kashmiri Saiva darshana and Spanda-shastra therein, the inquiry journeys into a brief history of formal thought that does not limit itself to regional interpretative silos. Therefore, in describing the universal Art phenomenon, we enable conversation across cultures around the same theme.
This is a departure from the art-historical mode of theorizing art, while not dismissing the value of the sense of past in guiding such an exploration. We endeavor into observing the workings of the private mind in the work of art, rather than only the existential fact of its material presence. Traditions of the practice of observing mental functions, and strains from diverse formal thought traditions, enable opening the mysteries of the phenomena of art, especially painting. We attempt to clarify the formal states involved in the phenomenon of Painting.