Seeing Differently with Merleau-Ponty: The Power of Visual Art to Change our Way of Seeing

Abstract

The modern way of seeing ourselves and the world is structured by a problematical subject-object thinking, which opposes human subjects to objectified “nature.” In the face of the ecological crisis, this dualism is no longer tenable. In this thesis, I explore the relation between subject-object thinking and vision. Drawing on the late works of Merleau-Ponty, I argue that in order to avoid ontological dualism between seer and seen, we have to think of vision as essentially embodied. Embodied vision finds expression in modernist and contemporary visual art. I argue that the visual arts can change our way of seeing by problematizing the dualism between subject and object. The experience of visual art can invite a non-appropriative vision, allowing us to see the environment for itself, and no longer for ourselves. By extension, the encounter with visual art can show us a world in which seer and seen are deeply intertwined.