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The Active Bodies: The Pictorial Spinozism of Cristina Ruiz Guiñazú
Mario Donoso
Université Paris 8 - Vincennes Saint-Denis

With her pictorial interpretation of Spinoza, in a style inheriting from symbolism, Ruiz Guiñazú offers a different perspective on Spinoza’s work. Cristina Ruiz Guiñazú's Spinozism is a visual translation of the active power of bodies.

Readings of Spinoza cannot be reduced to academic commentary and exegesis, to university interpretations, seminars, courses, articles, or monographs. Spinoza reappears with another face in literature: in Borges' poems as the solitary geometer who carves out a philosophy of the infinite; in Josep Pla’s bus journeys as a silent and slow companion who matches the rhythm of the vehicle; also in The Fixer by Bernard Malamud. Spinoza not only inspired literature, but also the arts. For example, Picasso left us a portrait of Spinoza, but not of other philosophers. Recently, numerous investigations have explored the connection between Spinoza, Spinozism, and art.

Just as there is a Spinozism in philosophy and literature, we can also say there is one in painting. Proof of this are the exhibitions La Géométrie du bonheur and Modernité de Spinoza. The first exhibition, comprising 30 paintings, opened in June 2023 at the Argentine Embassy’s exhibition space in Paris. The second opened in November 2024 at Châteauform’City Monceau Rio, Paris.

Cristina Ruiz Guiñazú’s Spinoza is not Borges' architect of the infinite nor Deleuze’s Spinoza of intensities; Cristina’s Spinoza is one of active bodies, joyful bodies, bodies full of power. In an interview with RFI, the international antenna of Radio France, Ruiz Guiñazú seeks from Spinoza the dust of the stars. This cosmic dust is present in bodies. Cristina Ruiz Guiñazú translates the geometric roughness of Spinozist propositions into the sensuality of a pictorial language inherited from symbolism. The Geometry of Happiness is the geometry of active bodies.

The rigid bodies of the Ethics’ propositions—the tangle of propositions, corollaries, and axioms—are embodied, plastic and malleable, in images: desire is a female figure stretching her body athletically, muscles taut, expressing bodily power; joy, a serene walk along the path of Ethics; sadness, a curled-up body, withdrawn into itself, weeping.

The body appears as the space where ethical transformations take place. The oscillation between the corpse-body and the child-body, the living body and the dead body, marks the extremes within which human life develops. Between these two poles, the human body gains power, transforms, becomes empowered. In Ethics V 39, Spinoza analyzes ethical transformation by comparing it to the transformation of children's bodies. “One who has a Body capable of very many things has a Mind whose greatest part is eternal,” the proposition states. In the scholium, Spinoza describes the ethical project not only as a striving for self-preservation, but also for preserving and transforming the bodies of others—children, in this case—so they may attain their highest degree of power. “We strive above all in this life to transform the body of childhood, as far as its nature allows and is directed, into another that is capable of very many things and relates to a Mind very conscious of itself, of God, and of things.”

The body of childhood is one of the central themes in Ruiz Guiñazú’s work. This empowerment of the child’s body always appears in its playful dimension, as a game through which the child gains bodily power and simultaneously self-awareness, awareness of the world, and of God: a girl playing hopscotch on the structure of the Ethics; a girl drawing the attributes of God; a boy playing with external causes; a girl who, while playing, leaps from fear to hope.

In Multitudo, bodies form a heterodox collective: a large variety of people, very different from one another, gathered in a festive-political crowd. The common affect that unites this multitude is pleasure, joy.

“Les causes extérieures.” Acrylic on canvas. 92 x 73 cm. 2023.

Interaction and play are fundamental to this ethics of corporeality. To interact playfully with the world and with God, in a pleasurable game. Knowledge cannot be separated from this bodily regime of pleasures that characterizes a healthy and good life. Ruiz Guiñazú’s work crystallizes what Spinoza affirms in the scholium of proposition 45, part IV:

“Thus it is of the wise person to use things and, as far as possible, to enjoy them (certainly not to excess, for that is not to enjoy them). It is of the wise, I say, to refresh themselves and moderately enjoy pleasant food and drink, and likewise, as each can without harm to others, to enjoy perfumes, the beauty of the woods, ornaments, music, sports, the theater, and other such things. For the human body is composed of many parts of diverse nature, which constantly need new and varied nourishment so the entire body remains equally apt for all that follows from its nature, and therefore, so the mind also remains equally apt to understand many things at once.” (Ethics IV 45)

These bodily pleasures, these games, these aromas constantly appear in Ruiz Guiñazú’s pictorial Spinozism. In Les équations, a boy plays with a geometric representation; in La liberté, a girl runs; in Caute II, a girl plays hopscotch on a geometric structure; in La pierre (lettre à Schuller), a girl throws a stone in play; in Les causes extérieures, a boy plays beside a portrait of Spinoza lying on the ground, with a sprig of flowers. Flowers—especially roses—play an important role in Ruiz Guiñazú’s work: in Deus sive natura, a focused girl holds a rose. The rose of Spinoza is also depicted in the portrait titled simply La rose.

The limits of corporeality, the oscillation between life and death, and the transformation into a corpse from the scholium of Ethics V 39 also appear in her work with a political perspective. The vulnerability of the body is portrayed in Le manteau de Spinoza, where a body undresses, a body exposes itself. It is a vulnerable body, perhaps Spinoza’s own body, but one that does not fear death. The figure undresses, shows its body as it is, while in the background, before the imminent horror, a girl covers her face not to look. Spinoza’s cloak, empty, lies on the ground.

The scene that most clearly reveals this nakedness is Herem. Spinoza, expelled from the Jewish community of Amsterdam, appears nude. The expulsion strips Spinoza of his clothing, his cultural, religious, and social attributes: Spinoza becomes no one—a naked body. This nudity characterizes Spinoza’s philosophy: stripping away superstition, dismantling the many imaginaries that operate upon bodies, and approaching corporeality more geometrico—naked.

But at the same time, this geometric nudity, in living bodies, always has a tragic dimension. The axiom of Part IV reminds us that every body will be destroyed by another, more powerful body. The exposure of bodies to destruction in Spinoza is not gratuitous: the body is laid bare and exposed in order to find its own power. The risks are evident; Spinoza could have paid for his philosophical courage with his life.

“Le manteau de Spinoza.” Acrylic on canvas. 92 x 73 cm. 2023.
“Herem.” Acrylic on canvas. 130 x 162 cm. 2024.

The vulnerability of bodies reappears in the reinterpretation of the famous painting The Corpses of the De Witt Brothers, attributed to Jan de Baen. The corpses of the lynched brothers, hanging like slaughtered animals, appear in the center of the painting. Spinoza’s seal, his rose, and his initials occupy the pictorial space. The famous Caute appears at the bottom. Between this painting and the previously mentioned one, there is a dialogue: on the one hand, the caution not to expose oneself to unnecessary risk, aware of the dangers the philosopher faced; on the other, the decision not to hide when defending one’s ideas—even to the point of risking death.

Spinoza survived assassination attempts, including a knife attack by a fanatic, and risked lynching upon returning from Utrecht, when rumors spread that he was a spy. Even so, Spinoza was not afraid. He knew they might do to him what was done to the De Witt brothers; still, he declared that if the crowd came to lynch him, he would go down to speak with them. According to Colerus, Spinoza said:

“Do not be afraid! I am not guilty, and there are many in high office who know well why I went to Utrecht. If they make any noise at your door, I will go out to meet the people, even if they do to me what they did to the good De Witt brothers. I am an honest republican, and the welfare of the state is my goal.”

Spinoza’s position is clear. The same attitude, this commitment to defending philosophy and freedom, is theorized at the end of the Theological-Political Treatise:

“What can be more pernicious than having as enemies, and leading to death, men who committed no crime or wrong, merely for being of a liberal mindset? And that the scaffold, horror of the wicked, becomes the finest theater [fiat theatrum], where before the most shameful dishonor to majesty, the best example of tolerance and virtue is displayed? For those who are conscious of their honesty do not fear death like the wicked, nor beg for pardon of punishment; far from being tormented by remorse for a vile act, they consider it honorable—not a punishment—to die for a good cause, and glorious to die for freedom.”

The body that exposes itself, despite caution, in the moment of defending political and philosophical freedom, is the body of the free person who does not fear death. That body does not think about death, but about life. (Ethics IV 67)

Cristina Ruiz Guiñazú’s work is permeated by a “poetics of clarity”, as Diego Tatián stated at the exhibition’s opening—a passion for clarity that runs through the Ethics, against all mystery, all obscurantism. This clarity, equivalent to the clarity of Spinozist concepts, can be theorized as a clarity of form, as Deleuze presents in his lectures on painting: the clarity of form is a tactile clarity. Tactility, in Ruiz Guiñazú’s work, is linked to bodies and their movements. Touch appears in the play, in the interactions of figures with objects, but also in the bodies themselves—in the exposed flesh of bodies sensitive to contact with external causes.

“Les passions tristes” or “Ultimi barbarorum.” Acrylic on canvas. 130 x 160 cm. 2023.

In Ruiz Guiñazú’s work, there is a constant dialogue with Spinozist iconography, both in portraits of the philosopher and in a whole recognizable symbolism—Caute, Spinoza’s seal, the rose—but also in geometric representations of the Ethics. There is also a dialogue with key works for understanding Dutch political processes, such as The Corpses of the De Witt Brothers. Above all, her work offers an original reading of Spinozism—of its joy and its happiness—in its most bodily and sensitive version: bodies that act and interact with Spinozism, developing its dynamism and its power.

Copyright (c) 2025 Mario Donoso 

 v. 5 n. 5 (2025): Revista Seiscentos

 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License