THE ACTIVE VIEWER: AN EXPLORATION OF THE SECOND-PERSONAL APPROACH TO THE PAINTING THROUGH MERLEAU-PONTY’S PHENOMENOLOGY

Date

2025-9-19

Author

Yürenk, Kerem

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This thesis challenges the traditional subject-object paradigm in art interpretation, arguing that the lived experience of viewing paintings extends beyond passive observation. It is grounded in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, particularly his concepts of the lived body, the flesh, chiasm, and reversibility, and proposes a second-person approach to visual art. This perspective suggests that artworks are not inert objects but active presences that address the viewer, inviting an embodied, reciprocal, and ethically responsive encounter. Rather than positioning perception as detached analysis, the thesis explores it as a lived, sensory exchange. Paintings by Velázquez, van Eyck, Magritte, Klimt, Klee, and Cézanne are examined in depth to show how formal elements such as color, rhythm, and gesture open up a perceptual field that implicates the viewer. The viewer is not a passive observer, but a participant in a shared moment of meaning-making. The study draws not only on Merleau-Ponty, but also incorporates perspectives from Richard Wollheim, Mieke Bal, and Scott Churchill to support its interdisciplinary framing. This allows the thesis to situate its analysis at the intersection of aesthetics, ethics, and embodied phenomenology.v Ultimately, the thesis offers a reorientation of how we engage with visual art, proposing that the painting-viewer relation is a co-creative, affective, and ethically attuned space of encounter. Meaning does not lie in the artwork alone, but emerges through the viewer’s responsive presence.

Subject Keywords

Phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty, Second-Person Perception, Painting, Embodied Aesthetics

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/115677

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis