Merleau-Ponty's Aesthetics

Reality presents itself in adumbrations". It is not due to the subject whose perception is distorted by his/her insufficient abilities; it is due to the real itself, which is unstable and incomplete. The being of things and persons is fundamentally multiplied, dispersed among thousands of "adumbrations". Yet these various appearances, though not representing a perfectly defined, cohesive whole closed in itself, do not produce a sheer chaos. Merleau-Ponty models the reality of a thing/person on a melodic theme. If the theme does occur in the painting, there is also the thing itself in it. Paintings are components of the being of the reality itself. In them the adventures of the reality's existence continue. The work of art represents the thing as such, nevertheless a different, transformed thing in the form of a noble, fragile, wandering spiritual body.