The Art of Doubting

Abstract

Merleau-Ponty's essay, Doubt,1 appeared in December 1945, the same year he published his Phenomenology Perception, which would become classic manifesto phenomenology, and collaborated with Jean-Paul Same to found Les Temps Modernes. While the ostensible aim Merleau-Ponty's essay is an examination Cezanne's painting, it is no less thumbnail sketch his own philosophy as developed in Phenomenology Perception. Given that Merleau-Ponty seeks in Cezanne an artistic parallel to his own philosophical ruminations, our caution should be alerted; as Sabine Cotte noted while Curator France's National Museums, theories are contradictory enough to enable one to justify anything.2 But, while there is the danger that Merleau-Ponty finds in Cezanne only what he has put there, it must also be mentioned that Merleau-Ponty's examination continues to influence art historians and interpreters Cezanne.3 It might be claimed, in fact, that the very malleability Cezanne's work has its parallel in Merleau-Ponty, whose Phenomenology one early critic labeled a philosophy ambiguity.4 To stick with only one ambiguity at time, I will leave aside the question how Merleau-Ponty's examination Cezanne relates to that other interpreters,5 and instead focus on the positive characterization he offers Cezanne and its parallels with his own philosophy. I will begin by discussing the explicit themes Merleau-Ponty's essay, namely (a) the importance Cezanne's return to and (b) the relation the artist's life to the meaning his work, particularly as these themes elucidate the nature the peculiar to Cezanne. In the second part this essay, I will explore the significance this for understanding Merleau-Ponty's own work and especially his relation to Jean-Paul Sartre. Giacometti, Sartre's paradigm artist, also manifests doubt. But, I will argue, the doubt shared by Giacometti and Sartre differs significantly from that Merleau-Ponty and Cezanne, and it is within the space this difference that we can distinguish Merleau-Ponty's brand existential phenomenology from Sartre's existentialism.6 Metaphysical Doubt As the title his essay indicates, MerleauPonty is interested in Cezanne's doubt, that is, in his uncertainty, his lack self-confidence, the struggle and tension his life. When Cezanne first made his decision to become painter, this lack self-confidence prevented him from asking his father to send him to Paris. When he finally did embark on his career, chastised by his childhood friend Zola for his instability, his weakness, and his indecision (CD, 14/60), his attempts met with complete critical rejection. Described as a kind madman who paints in delirium tremens,7 an artist with diseased eyes,8 and but lamentable failure,9 critics wrote that of all known juries, none could even in dream entertain the possibility accepting any pictures this painter.10 And in fact the government, art authorities, and the public all cried out for the refusal donated to the Musee du Luxembourg, and later transferred to the Louvre,11 which contained several Cezannes, calling it collection rubbish which publicly dishonors French art.12 In the face such criticism, it is perhaps no surprise that Cezanne himself came to wonder if the novelty his painting were nothing more than an accident his body stemming from trouble with his eyes (CD, 13/59).13 But Cezanne's anxiety ran deeper than doubt about his painting ability. He often said he found life terrifying, while his fear death drove him to create will at the age forty-six and to begin practicing religion in his fifties. As he grew older, he detached himself more and more from those who admired his work, would motion from distance for friends not to approach him, avoided new situations, and relied on the established habits his life solitude. …