Abstract

This paper aims to define the relationship between poetry and painting in the work of Cesare Viviani, in the light of the intuitions developed by Merleau-Ponty about figurative arts in the last years of his philosophical investigation. The essay puts in evidence that painting is a model in the poetics of Viviani for the following reasons: the art being considered as a «rumination» of the world; the lack of place for the work of art; the invariability of the artistic aim. Finally there is a close connection between poetic and pictorial objects through a similarity of contents or of composition. This paper makes use of poems, essays and interviews by Viviani, and the texts where Merleau-Ponty develops his investigation about painting.