Cézanne: Depth in the World
Cézanne: Depth in the World
This chapter explains why Cézanne stands as a key figure in Merleau-Ponty’s work, and how this is related to Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with the visual arts, particularly with painting. It is argued here that understanding the development of Merleau-Ponty’s thought requires applying ourselves to the heart of the changes that his work underwent instead of his most well-known conclusions. From his notes, one could gather a subtle but important shift in emphasis, underscoring “depth” as a philosophical notion. Depth, like the silent space of poetry, becomes in painting a means of expressing a fundamental structure of noncoincidence. Merleau Ponty takes up this theme by contrasting his own reading of depth with that of Descartes, who believed that a world of noncoincidence is merely a world of illusion.
Keywords: visual arts, Cézanne, merleau-ponty, painting, depth, poetry, noncoincidence, descartes, illusion
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