El ojo y el espíritu: pintura y metafísica en el último Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

In L’oeil et l’esprit Merleau-Ponty applies his phenomenological interpretation to the painting of Paul Cèzanne. We assume that his account has a deeply metaphysical meaning, that is, it can not be object of a simple demonstration. The problem of representation is proposed from the point of view of the interdependence of relations between subject and object, what represents and what is represented. According to Merleau-Ponty’s analysis the object depicted in the picture is not simply the image of what is represented, since any representation also includes a «self-figurative» dimension. The Cartesian concept of res extensa doesn’t apply to Merleau-Ponty’s definition of the body; it is an idea that overturns all previous conceptions of the act of looking, since the body-subject becomes perpetually in relation to the perceptual activity that is both, self-generating world and a source of the world discerning.