Merleau-Ponty's Essays on Paintings: Cezannes Doubt....
In
Merleau-Ponty's "Essays on Paintings: Cezanne's Doubt" raises several
questions for me on different topics throughout the essay. Merleau-Ponty quotes
Paul Cezanne numerous times mainly on Cezanne’s belief of creating art “through
nature.” On page 67 at the bottom of the page Cezanne states “The landscape
thinks itself in me,” he would say, “and I am its consciousness.” I can read
this statement in several ways…. The first way I can attempt to decipher the
meaning is if Cezanne has a Schizoid
personality (as he was believed to have had) this statement would make a lot
sense to someone who lives mostly in their own world of a head and intently
isolated from people. One is bound to go crazy if they avoid people and have
limited access to socializing. On the other hand, if you were to
interpret this quote through the mind of an artist creating a landscape, then
it might make more sense because an artist has total control over what he
creates. The artist’s creativity comes from within what the artists creates,
therefore the artist is always the consciousness of the art.
Cezanne
was believed to be one of the first modern artists due to his multiple
perspectives opposed to painting a scene with a straight on perspective. If a
person is sitting in a chair looking at an object such as I am looking at my
computer as I write this blog, I can sit up straight and see the top edge of my
computer or move a little to the right or left and see the outside edge of my
computer. If Cezanne is "painting" through nature, maybe what he was
implying was that his perspective was the "natural" and more
realistic style to paint scenes because when a person is viewing something they
can move and look at the object in multiple perspectives. The viewer's feet are
not glued to the ground in terms of limiting their viewing perspective and more
traditional scenes before Cezanne.
Ponty discusses the “lived perspective” through Cezanne's painting style. Cezanne's
still life of the cherries and what I think are peaches are painted with two
different perspectives. The cherries and the plate the cherries sit up on are
painted as if you were closer to the table looking down at the cherries and the
plate and the peaches are painted as if you were standing further away looking
at the side of the peaches and the plate. Was Cezanne actually painting
"through nature" or was he a crazy schizoid trying to make sense of
his insane world?
“…Everything
comes to us from nature; we exist through it; nothing else is worth
remembering,” said Cezanne. There is beauty in this statement. I do think
people are happiest when in nature. I can recall some of the happier events in
my life occurred in natural spaces. Possibly in the time of Cezannes life in
the 1800’s technology is becoming more prevalent with the invention of electric
inventions. People could have possibly been becoming less involved with nature
due to technology. Cezanne did move out to the country in the middle of nature
partly to be closer to the outdoors. Possibly the statement has to do more with
trusting our natural instincts.
There
is a famous quote from a philosopher... and I know this is pathetic, but I
couldn’t recall the philosopher’s name (and I searched Google, I promise). I do
recall the gist of a quote from the philosopher: “No idea is original and comes
from an outer source and that it is basically impossible to come up with an
original idea.” Merleau-Ponty touches upon a similar statement on page 69 in
the second paragraph… “There is thus no art for pleasure’s sake alone. One can
invent pleasurable objects by linking old ideas in a new way and by presenting
forms that have been seen before.” Of course he was referring to Cezanne’s
truly unique style of breaking the norm from traditional artists through
Cezanne’s “lived perspective” art style. A few months ago the Artist
Klemens Torggler reinvented the door (see image below). Much like Cezzane,
Torggler truly invented a new style of something incredibly traditional. As for
the purpose and the function of Torggler's door in comparison to the
traditional door, I am unsure. The door is much quieter then your normal door
when opening and closing. These minor changes in the practical use of a door
are not necessarily revolutionary. The design Troggler created is
revolutionary. Is it possible to create something no one can identify with and
yet is also revolutionary?
No comments:
Post a Comment