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free to function more purely as a painting.” (OE 75/143, Merleau-Ponty’s emphasis) Inthe course (“Cartesian Ontology and Contemporary Ontology”), Merleau-Ponty also speaksof the role of the title in Klee, saying that the title “disburdens the picture of resemblance[here Merleau-Ponty means imitation] in order to allow it to express, to present an alogicalessence of the world which … is not empirically in the world and yet leads the worldback to its pure ontological accent, [it puts] in relief its way of Welten [worlding], ofbeing world.” (NC 1959-61, 53) This citation means that the title designates the thingwhose genesis the painting is showing us -- without the painting imitating that thing. So,Merleau-Ponty says in “Eye and Mind” that Klee has paint<strong>ed</strong> the two holly leaves exactlyin the way they are generat<strong>ed</strong> in the visible, in the way they “holly leave,” we might say,and yet they are indecipherable precisely because the painting does not imitate theempirical object call<strong>ed</strong> holly leaves; the title instead designates this empirical object whichhas been generat<strong>ed</strong>. It is important that Merleau-Ponty does not say that the title in Kle<strong>ed</strong>enies that the painting is of holly leaves. Klee does not say, “This is not two hollyleaves,” “ceci n’est pas deux feuilles de houx.” The title affirms that they are inde<strong>ed</strong> hollyleaves, which implies that the title, like the phrases in the poem, like the geometry of thetiles at the bottom of the pool, is the outgrowth of the genesis, its final stage, its patinaor mold, its exhalation. We might go so far as to say that the relation between the titleand the painting in Merleau-Ponty is that of a calligram: the lines emerge from the depthand then they be<strong>com</strong>e words which still resemble the depth from which they came. Thus,recognizing the weaving of the words into the things, we can interweave the twoquotations Merleau-Ponty uses to frame Part IV of “Eye and Mind.” The first, which <strong>com</strong>pletesPart IV, is from Klee: “I cannot be grasp<strong>ed</strong> in [dans] immanence,” in the immanence,that is, of consciousness, of the cogito, of thought. (OE 87/148) The secondquote, which <strong>com</strong>pletes Part III, of course <strong>com</strong>es from Cézanne: the painter “thinks in [en]painting.” 30 (OE 60/139)Conclusion: Man and his DoublesThe preposition in this phrase from Cézanne, “pense en peinture,” expresses, for Merleau-Ponty, the indivision of the invisible and the visible, of words and things. Therefore, whatis at issue in this philosophy that <strong>com</strong>es from painting, is the connection between thesetwo, (OE 64/140) the “between,” and the “entre-lacs,” the inter-weaving, as Merleau-Pontysays in The Visible and the Invisible. Being a “thought of the inside,” 31 Merleau-Ponty’sphilosophy is always trying to move into this “between.” This interiority is why Merleau-Ponty rejects the traditional concept of imitation, in which the imitation is between twothings outside of one another. Yet, despite the criticism of imitation, we must say that,while depth (la profondeur) is no-thing, there is a resemblance between the figure and theground (le fond). If we are correct about the conceptual schemes for Merleau-Ponty’smixturism, then we must recognize that the logic of the positive infinite implies a relationof eminence between the figure and the ground. Of course, again, what Merleau-Ponty isspeaking about is not traditional imitation, not a copying relation, but he is speaking ofresemblance and images. In “Eye and Mind,” Merleau-Ponty’s thoughts about resemblanceare especially guid<strong>ed</strong> by the specular image. (OE 28/128) Resemblance therefore seemsto work in this way (for Merleau-Ponty). In a mirror, I see my flesh outside, and as30For the same quote, see also NC 1959-61, 206.31See Françoise Dastur’s “La pensée du d<strong>ed</strong>ans,” in idem, Chair et langage (Paris: Encre Marine,2001), especially, 125-26, where she <strong>com</strong>pares, but not a contrario, Merleau-Ponty’s “thought of theinside” to Foucault’s “thought of the outside.”136

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