The art in Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

The theme of vision is pervasive in Merleau-Ponty's work. Since the beginning, he investigated the phenomenon of perception and uncovered the germ or the presence of a spirit which the intellectualism always conceived as an operation which owes nothing to the order of the sensitive except as a simple occasion for exercising thought or a simple reality index. Initially enrolled in the ranks of the philosophy of existence (Phenomenology of perception), the theme is later led to ontology of the Brute Being. The objective of the present work is to present Merleau-Ponty's esthetical reflexions which mark this change and represent the encounter of his philosophy with painting in the endeavor of expressing an Ontology. Keywords: Merleau-Ponty, Art, Painting, Ontology, Brute being.