the things) in their work, Cezanne labored over being in his
work. He wanted to capture the phenomena as it happened,
attempting to express everything it made him see, smell, hear,
even feel.
Merleau-Ponty saw how Cezanne’s problem shifted from
the aesthetic to the existential. Cezanne’s doubted his work
because he was no longer concerned with his work’s visual, but
rather, he was concerned with what his work meant.
This was unique for an artist of his time.
Finding meaning is a central theme in Existentialism, a
field of philosophy where Merleau-Ponty was heavily invested
in. Philosophy prior to Existentialism believed in the idea of an
essence, or a property that made a thing what it is. It is toward
this essence that a being (or existing thing) drives toward.
Existentialism shifted from this idea proposing that our essence
is what we make of it. “Existence precedes essence” as the
famous quote goes from one of the most famous existentialists
John Paul Sartre. Our existence allows us to build meaning, to
find our essence.
However, finding meaning in art is always a difficult
endeavor. This is a struggle that both Merleau-Ponty and
artists like Cezanne is painfully aware of. Art will always
attempt to express beauty in its entirety. Beauty merely
inspires, speaks or appears to the artist, and he translates it into
something that allows an audience to experience it the best
way they can. The artist makes his artwork speak not only
to himself but also to the audience, and back. It is a continual
exchange, and for Merleau-Ponty this is as it should be:
“It is not enough for a painter like Cezanne, an artist, or
a philosopher, to create and express an idea; they must also
awaken the experiences which will make their idea take root
in the consciousness of others. If a work is successful, it has the
strange power of being self-teaching.”
I have gone on for almost 700 words about beauty, which
begs the question: “What does this have to do with Manila?”
My dear Manileños, Manila is our work of art, perhaps this
is also why we are her harshest critics. She speaks to us as we
move about within her borders, in her sunsets, her architecture,
and her people. She hopes to inspire us with whatever beauty
she has in store, in the hopes that we express it in a form that
inspires others within her. Whatever beauty she offers, take it,
create something from it, and share it.
Manila might not be the Pearl of the Orient it once was,
but we are her artists, and as Manileños, she is our magnum
opus. We doubt her beauty, but probably because we cannot
fully capture it. However, the only thing we can do to is
follow Cezanne’s example. As the artists of Manila, we must
bring out her beauty because her beauty truly dies if we stop
expressing it. Manila’s beauty may not always be evident, but it
is everywhere, especially in you, the artist.
“It took him one hundred working sessions for a still life, one
hundred- fifty sittings for a portrait. What we call his work was, for
him, an attempt, an approach to painting.”
- Maurice Merleau-Ponty on Paul Cezanne
There used to be a time when people complimented
how beautiful Manila is; her sunsets, her churches and
her architecture. After all, Manila was named, among other
things, Rome of the East, Queen of the Pacific, and more
famously, the Pearl of the Orient. She was once seen as one of
the greatest works of the Spanish empire in the East.
Today though, whenever I find myself in a conversation
about Manila my compliments about her are sometimes
met with knotted foreheads or doubtful retorts. Every time
I mention the Manila Cathedral, I’m met with the ironies
surrounding Quiapo Church. Every wonderful compliment
about the famous sunset is countered by the trash of Manila
Bay. It seems Manila has lost some of its luster more recently,
and if you ask around, it appears it is losing more of it with
each passing day.
Suffice to say that Manila’s beauty is being put into question.
Manila now, is torn between two polarizing opinions, but
at its core, the debate is a question of beauty. Can we still really
appreciate the beauty of Manila? (Or whatever of its beauty is left.)
If so, how?
These are only some of the questions asked regarding the
matter. However, this wasn’t the first time the beauty of an
object was put into question. It is often said that the harshest
critic of an artwork is its own artist. This was never truer in
the case of post impressionist painter Paul Cezanne. Maurice
Merleau-Ponty’s essay “Cezanne’s doubt” chronicles the
struggle of the artist. This was especially true with Mont-
Sainte Victoire, a subject he painted countless times, in as
many mediums in his paintings.
Cezanne could be credited with fathering the
impressionist movement in art, but not because he set out to
do so, quite contrary. Unlike his predecessors he wanted to
capture more than the mere visual. He wanted to capture more
than this. He wanted to capture the exact moment of the lived
experience. He captured the moment that inspired him, and
his subject gave him something different each and every time.
His frustration stemmed from the limitations of his art form.
For Cezanne, his paintings failed to capture the beauty he saw
as it revealed itself.
Fickle as it was, to be fair, he did set a high bar.
His problem was containing what cannot be contained
in a limited medium. How can color express the emotion of
the moment? Or add tension to the vision of a subject? His
problem wasn’t of technique; it was of substance. While others
lamented over the color, shape and form of the beings (or
89