V E S T N K 
2/1996 
The Seen - Le Vu 

ISSN 0353-4510 
FILOZOFSKI VESTNIK / ACTA PHILOSOPHICA 
Volume / Letnik XVII, number / številka 2/1996 
FILOZOFSKI VESTNIK is included in: Arts & Humanities Cit. Index, 
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v 
ZNANSTVENORAZISKOVALNI CENTER SAZU 
FILOZOFSKI INŠTITUT 
LJUBLJANA 1996 
E S T N I K 
Edited by Aleš Erjavec 
Published with grant from the Open Society Institute - Slovenia 
Po mnenju Ministrstva za znanost in tehnologijo Republike Slovenije (št. 415-144/93 mb 
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CONTENTS 
Lars-Olof Ahlberg: Modernity and Ocularcentrism. 
A Second Look at Descartes and Heidegger 9 
Aleš Erjavec: Seeing, Painting and Art 25 
Marina Gržinič: Hysteria: Physical Presence and Juridical Absence & AIDS: 
Physical Absence and Juridical Presence 44 
Martin Jay: Must Justice Be Blind? The Challenge of Images to the Law 65 
Eva K. W. Man: Experimental Painting and Painting Theories 
in Colonial Hong Kong (1940-1980): Reflection on Cultural Identity 83 
Jos de Mul: Disavowal and Representation in Magritte's 
»La trahison des images« 107 
Mikhail Ryklin: The Collapse of the Statues or What Can & 
What Cannot Be Buried? 127 
Maryvonne Saison: De la nostalgic a I'art: voir de tout son corps 141 
Ken-ichi Sasaki: The Sexiness ofVisuality. A Semantic Analysis of the 
Japanese Words: Eye and Seeing 159 
Richard Shusterman: Urban Scenes and Unseens 171 
Johan Snyman: Suffering and the Politics of Memory 181 
Miško Suvakovič: Asymmetries of Language and Sight. 
Introduction to a Philosophy of Art 203 
Notes on Contributors 217 
Abstracts 221 

The Seen - Le Vu 
The seen is something that the moving eye can glance or gaze at. It captures our 
visual attention, and although senses other than sight may be engaged, we are usually 
aware only of the latter. 
The increased presence of visual culture in the last few decades coincides with the 
expansion of postmodern art and the aestheticization of everyday life and the environ-
ment. In the last decade this process has spread from the First and Third World coun-
tries also to those of the Second World, therefore becoming a global phenomenon of late 
capitalism. 
In such a situation new questions have to be posed and new theoretical answers 
are warranted. Here are a few possible questions: 
- It has been diagnosed that the 'linguistic turn' is a consequence of the pictorial 
turn' (W.J. T. Mitchell), that the predominant part of philosophy of our century is 
anti-ocularcentric (M. Jay), and that at least since the sixties society is increasingly 
becoming that of the spectacle (G. Debord), mass media and of the aestheticized envi-
ronment. What kind of theoretical discourse do such altered cultural circumstances 
require? 
- The culture industry received its first thorough critique in the sixties. Since then 
not only has the relationship between elite art and mass culture changed, but visual 
culture is, in many respects, replacing the written one. What consequences do such 
changes have if they are really as profound as implied here? 
- The presence of the visual has varied in different cultures. What are these 
differences and how can they be discerned today? What is the relationship between 
mass communication and the proliferation of visual culture? In which respects does the 
situation differ when comparing First, Second and Third World countries and cul-
tures? 
- Sight hardly ever functions alone. In recent art as well as in theory attempts 
have been made to stress other senses and features (audial and haptic), and hence to 
balance the preponderance of vision. In which ways has this process been carried our 
and what is its artistic and cultural significance? 
- It has been claimed that the present culture and art are in the process of 'de-
differentiation', of 'reenchantment', 'disturbation', etc. To what extent does the visual 
nature of much of this art and culture support such claims? 
- In which way do new technologies affect our perception of the lived world as 
compared to representational painting or photography? How is what and how we 'see' 
determined or influenced by our contemporary circumstances? 
Ales Erjavec 

Lars-Olof Ahlberg 
Modernity and Ocularcentrism 
A Second Look at Descartes and Heidegger 
I 
A host of id ioms and me tapho r s - bo th dead and alive - in every-day 
language as well as in phi losophica l par lance bears witness to the impor tance 
of sight and vis ion as a source of knowledge and exper ience: we speak of 
seeing, in the sense of unders t and ing , we have views about this or that, poets 
and ph i losopher s have fo rmula ted visions of reality, we can be clear-sighted, 
far-sighted or short-sighted, we can gain insight into things or we can be blind to 
certain things, we visualize things we have no t seen, we sometimes overlook 
things, we somet imes see through the invalid reasoning of others, and we hope 
tha t our own reason ing is perceptive and perspicuous. 
Sight and vis ion as a source of knowledge or illusion is a cardinal theme 
in the ph i losophica l t rad i t ion f rom Plato to the present t ime. The hegemony 
of vision, »the nobles t of the senses«, is deeply ingrained in our Western ways 
of th inking, fee l ing and acting. The p recedence given to the eye, to vision 
and to the visual has recen t ly come u n d e r attack f rom various quarters; the 
cr i t ique of ocu la rcen t r i sm is in tended to supplement and reinforce the cri-
t ique of logocent r i sm and the metaphysics of presence. 
A l though the p reva l ence of ocularcentr ic th inking and of visual meta-
p h o r s is f r equen t ly associated with Descartes and the rise of m o d e r n scien-
tific th inking, ocu la rcen t r i sm does not seem to be a part icular ly m o d e r n phe-
n o m e n o n n o r spec i f ica l ly W e s t e r n . Visual and ocu la rcen t r i c m e t a p h o r s 
a b o u n d in var ious cul tural settings, pe rhaps because »[i]n their expressive 
power and subtle capaci ty to change, me taphors of light are incomparable«, 
as H a n s B l u m e n b e r g puts it.1 T h e fact that the Sanskrit word »veda« (which 
m e a n s knowledge and t ransmi t ted wisdom) has given the holy scriptures of 
Ind ian religion, The Vedas, their name , bears witness to the int imate connec-
tion be tween vision and knowledge assumed in most, if not all, cultures. The 
G r e e k w o r d » o t 8 a «, m e a n i n g »1 know«, is the perfect tense of »etSco« and 
1 Hans Blumenberg, »Light as a Metaphor for Truth: At the Preliminary Stage of Philo-
sophical Concept Formation«, in David Michael Levin (Ed.), Modernity and the He-
gemony of Vision, University of California Press, Berkeley 1993, p. 31. 
Filozofski vestnik, XVII (2/1996), pp. 9-23. 
Lars-Olof Áhlberg 
means literally »1 have seen« and the n o u n » ei8o<; » (means tha t which is 
seen, as well as form, shape, figure, class or k ind. 
Light as opposed to darkness and vis ion as o p p o s e d to b l indness p lay a 
fundamen ta l role in ancient religious th ink ing and expe r i ence : »[light] has 
certainly been one of the things in the phys ica l e n v i r o n m e n t of m a n which , 
f rom the earliest t imes we know of, has pecul ia r ly impressed h i m and b e e n 
most closely associated with his thoughts of the Divine«, says the theo log ian 
Edwyn Bevan in his work Symbolism and Belief? »In all great rel igions of an-
tiquity,« he notes, »the chief gods are charac te r i zed by their c o n n e x i o n with 
light«.3 In J u d a i s m , for example , »[l]ight in an e x t r e m e degree , sp lendour , is 
the normal characterist ic of Divine manifes ta t ions« , 4 and in The New Testa-
ment we read that »God dwelleth in light wh ich c a n n o t be a p p r o a c h e d « (1 
Tim. VI . 16). In the Nicene Creed (325) we f ind a fus ion of p la toniz ing themes 
with an ancient metaphor ics of light: Chr is t is ha i led as »Light f r o m Light, 
t rue God f r o m true God«. T h e associat ion of the g o d h e a d with light and 
sp lendour seems to be ubiqui tous; at any ra te , it is a c o m m o n I n d o - E u r o p e a n 
habit of though t as the Sanskrit word »deva« (der ived f r o m »to shine«) wh ich 
becomes »deus« in Latin seems to indicate . 5 
In the present paper I shall discuss some fea tures of ocu la rcen t r i sm and 
some aspects of the cri t ique of ocu la rcen t r i sm ana lyzed and d o c u m e n t e d in 
Mart in J ay ' s magisterial Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-
Century French Thought (1993) and in the essays in Dav id Michae l Levin ' s 
Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision (1993). Ocu la r cen t r i sm is f r equen t ly re-
garded as a variety of logocentr ism and as a f o r m of essent ial ism: it can be 
regarded as an expression of the seemingly i n t e rminab l e search for secure 
founda t ions , a search that c a n n o t b u t resu l t in f a i lu re a c c o r d i n g to the 
poststructuralist and pos tmodern is t critics of E n l i g h t e n m e n t ra t ional i ty . 
Mar t in J a y ' s claim that » [d i s i l lus ionment with the p ro jec t of i l lumina-
tion [i.e. Enl ightenment] is now so w idesp read tha t it has b e c o m e the new 
convent ional wisdom« 6 seems to me to be correct , p r o v i d e d it is sui tably 
qualified. For a l though the dis i l lus ionment with the E n l i g h t e n m e n t and rea-
son and the repudia t ion of universal s t andards of ra t ional i ty is widespread , it 
is no t universa l . T h e an t i - en l igh tenment s tance d o m i n a t e s c o n t e m p o r a r y 
2 Edwyn Bevan, Symbolism and Belief, 1938, Fontana, London 1962, p. 111. 
3 Ibid., p. 115. 
4 Ibid., p. 126. 
5 M. Hiriyana, Outlines of Indian Philosophy, George Allen & Unwin, London 1932, pp. 
31-2. 
6 Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought, 
University of California Press, Berkeley 1993, p. 592. 
10 
Modernity and Ocularcentrism 
cul tura l s tudies a n d m u c h l i terary theory and can also be found in m u c h 
c o n t e m p o r a r y A n g l o - S a x o n and French sociology and phi losophy. In the 
na tu ra l sciences a n d in m a n y other areas of intel lectual activity and research, 
this s i tuat ion does n o t ob ta in . A major i ty of economis ts in the Uni ted States, 
for e x a m p l e , a n d I suspect also e lsewhere , suppor t so-called rat ional choice 
or pub l i c cho ice theor ies 7 wh ich have their roots in the util i tarian tradit ion, 
a n d are t he re fo re f i rmly a n c h o r e d within the rationalistic Enl ightenment tra-
di t ion. 
T h e n e w conven t iona l wisdom that J a y speaks of and which we encoun-
ter in cul tura l s tudies and in m u c h c o n t e m p o r a r y social and humanis t i c 
thought , is o p e n to serious object ions on several accounts . Critics of Enlight-
e n m e n t t hough t are p r o n e to embrace , implicitly or explicitly, relativistic 
doc t r ines wh ich are deep ly problemat ic , bo th theoretically and politically. I 
has ten to add tha t I am no t object ing to relativism as such; there are, to be 
sure, a bewi lder ing var ie ty of posit ions that are cons idered relativist, not all 
of which are self-refut ing or pernicious. The relativism of the so-called Edin-
b u r g h school is d i f fe ren t f r o m the relativism espoused by J o s e p h Margolis, 
Paul Feye rabend ' s relativistic phi losophy of science is different f rom the stand-
ard pos tmode rn i s t »constructivist« relativism, which again differs f rom the 
cul tura l re la t ivism of m a n y anthropologists . W h a t I ob jec t to is the ease and 
somet imes also the na ïve té with which cognitive relativism is accepted as a 
ma t t e r of course . 
T h e cr i t ique of ocularcent r i sm is graphically expressed by Levin who 
claims that vision is »the mos t reifying of all our perceptual modalities«. There 
is, he claims, a »power dr ive inheren t in vision«8 - an inheren t drive toward 
d o m i n a t i o n and cont ro l over objects and persons, and a desire for total vis-
ibility and a comple t e overv iew of reality. T h e re levant quest ion that needs 
to b e asked (but which is se ldom put) is: is this really true?, or, as Stephen 
Hou lga t e puts it in his cont r ibu t ion to Levin 's book, »Vision, Reflection, and 
Opennes s« : »Is vision (and the m o d e of th inking which is mode led on vision) 
inhe ren t ly o r i en ted toward surveying and domina t ing objects?«9 
I th ink tha t the an t i -en l ightenment critique, as it appears in Jay ' s work 
and in var ious essays in Levin ' s collection, overshoots the mark in certain 
f u n d a m e n t a l respects . In par t icular I shall argue that the anti-ocularcentrists ' 
7 See The Times Higher Education Supplement, February 17, 1995, p. 15. 
8 David Levin, The Opening of Vision, Routledge, New York 1988, p. 65. 
9 Stephen Houlgate, »Vision, Reflection, and Openness: The 'Hegemony of Vision' 
from a Hegelian Point of View«, in Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision, p. 98. 
11 
Lars-Olof Áhlberg 
appeal to He idegger , whose th ink ing is ha i l ed as a rad ica l a l t e rna t ive to 
ocularcentr ism and essentialism, is dub ious . 
To begin with I shall consider some aspects of Descar tes ' s ph i lo sophy 
that be token his modern i ty and his ocu la rcen t r i sm. In the second sect ion I 
shall discuss Heidegger ' s cri t ique of mode rn i ty . 
II 
Accord ing to the t radi t ional and s o m e w h a t se l f -congratula tory narra-
tive, as r ecoun ted and criticized by S tephen T o u l m i n in his pe rcep t ive work, 
Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), the »twin f o u n d i n g pil lars 
of m o d e r n thought« are m o d e r n science, wi th its first h e r o Isaac N e w t o n and 
m o d e r n phi losophy, init iated by René Descar tes . M o d e r n science and mod-
ern ph i losophy are thus cons idered to be pa rad igma t i c e x a m p l e s of reason 
and rat ional i ty.1 0 
If we wish to play the game of who-came-f i r s t we could easily th ink of 
other candidates for the title of found ing fa ther of m o d e r n ph i losophy : Francis 
Bacon, Dav id H u m e and I m m a n u e l Kan t spr ing to m i n d , bu t Descar tes is as 
good a cand ida te as any. It is therefore n o t surpr is ing tha t Descar tes has be-
come the favouri te target of recent cr i t iques of the En l igh t enmen t , of ra t ion-
alism and of scientism. Descartes 's ph i lo sophy is also o n e of the ma in targets 
of Heidegger ' s deconst ruct ion (Abbau) of W e s t e r n metaphys ics , whi le Car te -
sian foundat ional i sm and dualism are similarly cent ra l to Ror ty ' s cr i t ique of 
p h i l o s o p h y as a quas i - sc ien t i f ic e n t e r p r i s e a i m i n g at m i r r o r i n g n a t u r e . 
Wit tgenstein 's later phi losophy is of course also dec ided ly ant i -Car tes ian and 
anti-foundationalist in intent. 
» 'Car tes ian perspect ival ism'«, Mar t in J a y s says, »may nicely serve as a 
shor thand way to character ize the d o m i n a n t scopic r eg ime of the m o d e r n 
era«.1 1 But if Descartes is an ocularcentr ic th inker , he is no t ocularcent r ic in 
the way that the British empiricists are. Unl ike Locke Descar tes did no t es-
pouse a representa t ive theory of pe rcep t ion and knowledge : he did not be-
lieve that our percept ion of the qualities of objects resembles the quali t ies of 
the objects perceived, nor did he th ink tha t words and signs r e semble the 
things they signify (the view that the linguistic sign is a rb i t ra ry does not origi-
nate with de Saussure as is somet imes supposed) . Sense pe rcep t ion in itself is 
10 Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, The Free Press, New 
York 1990, p. ix. 
11 Jay, Downcast Eyes, pp. 69-70. 
12 
Modernity and Ocularcentrism 
ne i the r the source n o r the cr i ter ion of certainty and knowledge: »it is the 
m i n d which senses, n o t the body«, as Descartes puts it in his Optics.12 
Car tes ian dua l i sm b e t w e e n mind and mat te r b e c a m e influential, J a y ar-
gues, because of »its va lor iza t ion of the d i sembodied eye ... shared by mod-
ern science and Alber t i an art«.1 3 It justified and privileged the objective, and 
d i s e m b o d i e d gaze at the expense of the active and e m b o d i e d look. 
W h a t m a k e s D e s c a r t e s a m o d e r n t h i n k e r is n o t so m u c h h i s 
ocularcent r i sm as his concep t ion of thought and knowledge, or as Blumenberg 
po in t s out : »The d e m a n d for the presence of the object u n d e r study is the point 
of d e p a r t u r e for the m o d e r n idea of science, and in Bacon and Descartes, this 
d e m a n d is f o rmu la t ed in oppos i t ion to the validity of auctoritas«.li Instead it 
is the in ternal iza t ion of light and vision, the reliance on the eye of the mind 
and the stress on intel lectual percept ion and concept ion as well as the rejec-
t ion of t radi t ion that weds Descartes with ocularcentr ism. J a y distinguishes 
b e t w e e n two variet ies of ocularcent r i sm: the »traditions of speculationwith the 
eye of the m i n d and observation with the two eyes of the body«. 1 5 Descartes, 
b e i n g a rat ionalist , be longs to the first g roup whereas the British empiricists 
and the sensualists of the F rench Enl igh tenment be long to the second. 
In his Discourse on Method Descartes formulates the pr inciple which in-
fo rms his ph i losoph ica l projec t : »We ought never to allow ourselves to be 
p e r s u a d e d of the t ru th of any th ing unless on the evidence of our reason.« 1 6 
For Descar tes the au thor i ty of t radi t ion is the main source of error and folly: 
we should be sceptical of every th ing that is accepted on the authori ty of ex-
a m p l e and cus tom, he says. Descartes 's out look has been aptly summarized 
by Ernes t Gel lner : »it is individual reason versus collective culture. Tru th can 
be secured only by s t epp ing outside pre judice and accumula ted custom, and 
re fash ion ing one ' s wor ld« . 1 7 Descartes 's individualism, his anti-authoritari-
an i sm and his ant i - t radi t ional ism extend to all spheres of life, even to town-
p lann ing . In a C o r b u s i e r e s q u e passage in the Discourse on Method he says that 
»ancient cities ... a re usual ly but ill laid out compared with the regularly 
^ Quoted from Jay, p. 75. 
13 Ibid., p. 81. 
14 Blumenberg, »Light as a Metaphor for Truth«, p. 48. 
15 Jay, Downcast Eyes, p. 29. 
16 Descartes, Discourse on Method, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. J. 
Cottingham, R. Stoothoff & D. Murdock, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 
1985, part IV. 
17 Ernest Gellner, Reason and Culture: The Historic Role of Rationality and Rationalism, 
Blackwell, London 1992, p. 8. 
13 
Lars-Olof Áhlberg 
constructed towns which a profess ional a rchi tec t has f ree ly p l a n n e d on an 
open plain«.1 8 
Descar tes ' s p rob lem, which he passed on to H u m e and Kan t , was h o w 
the h u m a n m i n d could arr ive at just i f iable and secure knowledge of the wor ld 
f rom its own resources without relying on t rad i t ion and au thor i ty . 1 9 Desca r t e s 
is something of a phi losophical Faust, bu t he fa i led in his en te rpr i se since he 
did not succeed in throwing off his scholastic baggage comple te ly , bu t tha t is 
another story. 
Descartes 's starting poin t is universal d o u b t - theoret ica l doub t , if you 
like, since his doub t is hyperbol ic - an intel lectual and rhe tor ica l device , 
since n o b o d y in his or he r senses can consis tent ly live u p to the s tandards of 
Car tes ian doub t . 
Descar tes ' s ce lebra ted cogito ergo sum was i n t e n d e d to p rov ide a f i rm and 
indubi table g round for our knowledge of the wor ld , t he r eby mee t ing the scep-
tical challenge. Descartes is after absolute , or, as he calls it, me taphys ica l 
certainty. His methodica l doubt is expressed in the fo l lowing m a n n e r in the 
second Meditation (Mediationes de prima philosophiae): »1 shall p r o c e e d by set-
ting aside all that in which the least doub t could be supposed to exist, jus t as 
if I had discovered that it was absolutely false«.2 0 Descar tes cons iders some-
thing metaphysical ly certain if it is imposs ib le to conce ive of any g r o u n d for 
doubt and if it is impossible to be dece ived or mis t aken abou t the t ru th of 
what one is certain about . T h e only th ing that is metaphys ica l ly cer ta in is 
one 's own existence, for, according to Descar tes , the s t a t ement »1 doub t , b u t 
I do not exist«, is contradictory. O n e cannot , he claims, consis tent ly d e n y 
one 's own existence: it is metaphysical ly cer ta in that the conscious, th ink ing 
subject exists. InPrincipia Philosophiae Descar tes c laims tha t »we c a n n o t d o u b t 
our existence wi thout existing while we doub t ; and this is the first knowledge 
that we obta in when we phi losophize in an o rde r ly way«. 2 1 
It should be b o r n e in mind that Descar tes ' s cogito, »1 think« includes all 
conscious exper ience and not only wha t we n o r m a l l y would call th inking. It 
includes willing, unders t and ing , imagining, and perce iv ing . T h e r e f o r e we 
might just as well say »percipio, ergo sum« (I perce ive , the re fo re I am), or, if 
we regard intent ional actions as conscious in some sense, we migh t say »bibo, 
ergo sum« (I drink, therefore I am) to quote the s tuden t song. 
18 Descartes, Discourse on Method, part II. 
19 Cf. Gellner, Reason and Culture, ch. 1. 
20 The Philosophical Works of Descartes, trans. E. S. Haldane & G.R.T. Ross, Cambridge 
University Press, Cambridge 1972, vol. 1, p. 149. 
21 Ibid., p. 221. 
14 
Modernity and Ocularcentrism 
H a v i n g es tabl i shed a f i rm g round for h u m a n knowledge, Descartes then 
fo rmula tes his f a m o u s cr i ter ion of t ruth: the cri terion of clear and distinct 
ideas, which h o w e v e r a p p e a r s to be p resupposed in the cogito-ergo-sum proof. 
But the cr i ter ion of t ru th is reliable, it seems, only if it is guaranteed by the 
exis tence of a non-dece iv ing God and Descartes 's ontological proof of the 
existence of G o d relies on the criterion of clear and distinct ideas, so »Descartes 
is in t h e i m p o s s i b l e p r e d i c a m e n t of t ry ing to hois t himself by his own 
boots t raps« as N o r m a n Malco lm puts it .2 2 
A recu r r en t t h e m e in epis temology since Descartes is that the founda-
t ion of knowledge is to be sought in subjective self-certainty. Within this epis-
temologica l t radi t ion there is ag reement concern ing the principal task: to 
cons t ruc t h u m a n k n o w l e d g e out of the contents of consciousness. T h e disa-
g r e e m e n t conce rns the exact na ture of the e lements of consciousness. T h e 
last and m o s t consis tent (and pe rhaps mos t heroic) off-shoot of this tradit ion 
was the logical posi t ivism of the V i e n n a Circle, which a t tempted to construct 
the wor ld out of sense-data , the postula ted »atoms« of exper ience. 
T h e p resuppos i t i on or the grand premise of this epistemological tradi-
tion, viz. that the consciousness of the individual h u m a n subject is the natural 
po in t of depa r tu r e for epis temology, is re jected by Hegel ians, by Heidegger , 
b y the later Wi t tgens te in and by the pragmatis ts in favour of a communal , 
collective and prac t ica l concep t ion of the na ture of h u m a n knowledge. A 
corol lary of the re jec t ion of the grand epistemological premise is the rejec-
tion of Car tes ian and empir ic is t foundat ional ism, and by implication all vari-
eties of ocu la rcen t r i sm associated with rat ionalism and empiricism. 
Car tes ian ra t ional i sm can be in terpre ted as an existential response to a 
pe r sona l and cul tural crisis. As Tou lmin points out, Cartesian phi losophy 
m a t u r e d du r ing an ex t r eme ly tu rbulen t and violent pe r iod in European his-
tory: the Thi r ty Years ' W a r was ravaging the Cont inent , the major European 
powers , wi th the excep t ion of the Nether lands , were suffering a severe eco-
nomic depress ion and religious in to lerance and persecut ion was on the in-
crease . 2 3 T h e p resen t -day rift be tween the two cultures, the scientific and 
technological cul ture and the humanis t ic and social culture is pref igured in 
the fo rma t ion of m o d e r n i t y , Tou lmin argues. »Moderni ty«, he claims, »had 
two distinct s tar t ing points , a humanis t ic one g rounded in classical literature, 
and a scientific one roo ted in 17th-century natural phi losophy«. 2 4 Galileo, 
Descar tes and N e w t o n represen t the scientific t endency in modern i ty while 
2 2 Norman Malcolm, Wittgenstein: Nothing is Hidden, Blackwell, Oxford 1986, p. 206. 
^ Cf. Toulmin, Cosmopolis, pp. 13 ff. 
24 Ibid., p. 43. 
15 
Lars-Olof Áhlberg 
Erasmus, Rabelais , Shakespeare and M o n t a i g n e pe r son i fy the o ther face of 
moderni ty . Needless to say, it was the scientif ic and rat ionalis t ic vers ion of 
modern i ty that prevailed at the expense of the humani s t i c and sceptical vari-
ety. As a consequence , logic was f avoured at the expense of rhe tor ic , the 
universal at the expense of the par t icular , the genera l at the expense of the 
local and the timeless at the expense of the t ransi tory. 2 5« T h e God-eye ' s v iew 
of reality« as opposed to the e m b o d i e d subject ' s his torical ly s i tuated vision of 
reality and the disinterested and theoret ical gaze as o p p o s e d to the in teres ted 
and practical look could also be added to T o u l m i n ' s list. 
Ill 
Heidegger is often regarded , rightly or wrongly , as the mos t radical and 
consistent critic of Western metaphysics and En l igh t enmen t rat ionali ty, whose 
most spectacular manifes ta t ion is m o d e r n sc ience and technology . T h e cri-
tique of ocularcentr ism is an integral pa r t of He idegge r ' s cr i t ique of W e s t e r n 
metaphysics, but, as J a y notes, He idegger »was neve r s imply hosti le to vision 
per se, but only to the var iant that had d o m i n a t e d W e s t e r n metaphys ics for 
m i l l e n n i a « . 2 6 D a v i d L e v i n a r g u e s i n h i s e s s a y , » D e c l i n e a n d F a l l : 
Ocularcen t r i sm in Heidegger ' s Read ing of the His to ry of Metaphys ics« tha t 
He idegge r ' s t h ink ing is the a n t i d o t e to an o p p r e s s i v e a n d d o m i n e e r i n g 
ocularcentr ism. Heidegger ' s th inking p rov ides us with »a h e r m e n e u t i c a l gaze 
that recollects the unconcea lmen t of being«, he claims: 
the »truthful« gaze is thus a gaze that would hold itself open to the interplay of 
the visible and the invisible, the present and the absent - an interplay that is 
also made visible as the gift of the ontological difference, opening up a field of 
illumination for the enactment of human vision.27 
Levin believes that Heidegger ' s th ink ing encourages »resistance to all 
forms of reification, totalization, and reduc t ion i sm« and p r o m o t e s »epis temo-
logical humili ty, a r igorously exper imen ta l a t t i tude, always provis ional , al-
ways ques t ioning«. 2 8 In Levin ' s v iew H e i d e g g e r s tands for »a cons i s t en t 
perspect ivism, truth without certainty, the end of essential ism, an u n c o m p r o -
25 Ibid., pp. 30-35. 
2 0 Jay, Downcast Eyes, p. 275. 
2 7 David Michael Levin, »Decline and Fall: Ocularcentrism in Heidegger's Reading of 
the History of Metaphysics«, in Levin, Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision, p. 212. 
28 Ibid., p. 190. 
16 
Modernity and Ocularcentrism 
raising b reak with founda t iona l i sm, and a renuncia t ion of the metaphysics of 
p re sence« . 2 9 
I wish to ques t ion Levin ' s assessment of Heidegger as a critic of moder-
ni ty; I d isagree in par t icu lar with his view that Heidegger ' s thinking is radi-
cal ly an t i -essen t ia l i s t a n d an t i - founda t iona l i s t . It is, of course, t rue that 
He idegge r is a f e rven t critic of moderni ty , but his crit ique, as I shall try to 
show, bears the s t amp of the sinister background - bo th philosophical and 
poli t ical - against wh ich it unfolds . 
Firstly, I shall c o m m e n t on Heidegger ' s alleged anti-essentialism. O n e 
th ing is b e y o n d doub t : He idegger ' s texts, bo th the early and the late works, 
bristle with essentialist language. In his essay f rom 1938, »The Age of the 
W o r l d Picture« [»Die Zeit des Weltbildes«], an essay to which I shall return 
in a m o m e n t , H e i d e g g e r considers a m o n g other things the essence of mod-
ern science (das W e s e n der neuzei t l ichen Wissenschaft) , which is an aspect of 
the essence of m o d e r n i t y (das Wesen der Neuzeit). Heidegger fur ther de-
clares that the essence of science is research and goes on to ask what the 
essence of r esea rch and wha t the essence of mathemat ics is (das Wesen der 
Forschung , das W e s e n des Mathemat i schen) . In his Introduction to Metaphysics 
[Einführung in die Metaphysik] f r o m 1935 b u t not p u b l i s h e d unt i l 1953), 
H e i d e g g e r even speaks of the essence of Being (Das Wesen des Seins) and 
charac ter izes the essence of spirit (das Wesen des Geistes) as »the originary 
and k n o w i n g a t t u n e m e n t to and the de te rmina t ion for the essence of be-
ing«. 3 0 M a n y m o r e e x a m p l e s could be given. Some of Heidegger ' s writings 
even have the word »essence« in their titles: On the Essence of Truth, On the 
Essence of the Ground [Vom Wesen der Wahrheit, Vom Wesen des Grundes], 
T h e f r e q u e n t use of the word »essence«, however , is perhaps not con-
clusive, a l though it is significant. W e must therefore consider how »essence« 
is actually used in He idegge r ' s work and scrutinize wha t he says about es-
sences, a H e r c u l e a n task that for obvious reasons canno t be under taken here, 
so I shall h a v e to conf ine myself to a few suggestions. It seems to me that 
He idegger ' s whole way of phi losophizing, both in the early and the late works, 
is i n f o r m e d by a quasi-pla tonic style of thinking. In the Introduction to Meta-
physics, for example , H e i d e g g e r in t roduces the quest ion of Being by citing a 
few examples of things tha t exist, of things he would call beings with a small 
b: a bu i ld ing (exists) is, there is a thunders to rm in the mountains , there is a 
29 ibid. 
My transl. of the German original: »Geist ist ursprünglich gestimmte, wissende 
Entschlossenheit zum Wesen des Seins«, Martin Heidegger, Einführung in die Metaphysik, 
1935, 2nd ed., Niemeyer, Tübingen 1958, pp. 37-8. 
17 
Lars-Olof Áhlberg 
gateway at the f ront of the R o m a n e s q u e chu rch , the state is s o m e t h i n g real , 
there is s o m e t h i n g in van G o g h ' s p a i n t i n g of a pa i r of p e a s a n t shoes . 3 1 
Heidegger then proceeds to ask what the Being of these be ings is, a s suming 
that there is someth ing uni tary h id ing b e h i n d p h e n o m e n a tha t »exist«, phe-
n o m e n a that »are«, namely the Being of be ings or Being itself. It seems to m e 
that Ernst Tugendha t , the r enegade H e i d e g g e r i a n , is r igh t in say ing tha t 
Heidegger assumes that the different m e a n i n g s and uses of the word »to be« 
are uni tary, or, that they can be r educed to a uni ta ry concep t . 3 2 Th i s m o d e of 
reasoning, the postulat ion of »hidden« p h e n o m e n a and processes f r o m which 
the visible and tangible p h e n o m e n a e m a n a t e as it were , is o m n i p r e s e n t in 
Heidegger ' s thinking. A spectacular e x a m p l e is He idegge r ' s in t roduc t ion of 
»nothing« as a noun in the lecture What is Metaphysics? [ Was ist Metaphysik] 
(1929). Science, he says, investigates wha t is, in o the r w o r d s be ings (Seiendes) 
and nothing else. H e then immedia te ly p r o c e e d s to ask the ques t ion w h a t this 
nothing with a capital N is, and claims tha t the N o t h i n g (das Nichts) is m o r e 
f u n d a m e n t a l t han nega t ion and our use of the w o r d s »no« a n d »not« . 3 3 
Heidegger bel ieves that the everyday use as well as the logical use of nega-
tion is possible only because of the No th ing . In o ther words , we can nega te 
statements and say no only because of the No th ing . If this is n o t essential ism 
and Platonism, then no th ing is! 
As for Heidegger ' s al leged ant i - foundat ional i sm, I will conf ine myself to 
a short and arrest ing passage f rom What is Metaphysics, in wh ich H e i d e g g e r 
claims that a l though science does no t wish to have any th ing to do with the 
Nothing, science is in fact only possible because it is g r o u n d e d in the Noth-
ing. »Only because the Noth ing is mani fes t is it possible for science to inves-
tigate beings«, Heidegger declares . 3 4 For He idegge r scientific inqui ry is al-
ways founded on metaphysical p resuppos i t ions . T h e r e f o r e I cons ider tha t is 
incorrect to regard h im as a radical ant i - foundat ional is t . 
I now turn to Heidegger ' s crit ique of m o d e r n i t y as it is expressed in his 
essay »The Age of the Wor ld Picture« and in the Introduction to Metaphysics. 
Metaphysics, Heidegger says, provides the founda t i ons for an age and con-
fers upon it its essential gestalt, because metaphys ics fu rn i shes a par t icu lar 
31 Ibid., pp. 26-7. 
3 2 Ernst Tugendhat, Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die sprachanalytische Philosophie, 
Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main 1976, p. 91. 
3 3 Martin Heidegger, Was ist Metaphysik?, 1929, 9th ed., Klostermann, Frankfurt/Main 
1965, pp. 26-8. 
3 4 My translation of the German original: »Nur weil das Nichts offenbar ist, kann die 
Wissenschaft das Seiende selbst zum Gegenstand der Untersuchung machen«, Mar-
tin Heidegger, Was ist Metaphysik?, p. 40. 
18 
Modernity and Ocularcentrism 
in t e rp re ta t ion of b e i n g and a specific concept ion of t ruth. Every phenom-
e n o n tha t is character is t ic of an age is pe rmea ted by the metaphysical foun-
da t ion of the age, H e i d e g g e r claims. Accord ing to Heidegger the following 
p h e n o m e n a const i tu te the essential characteristics of the m o d e r n age: the 
d o m i n a n c e of na tu ra l science and technology, the aesthetization of art, that 
is, the fact tha t the work of ar t becomes an object of aesthetic exper ience and 
is v iewed as an express ion of h u m a n life; the fact that h u m a n action is inter-
p r e t e d in t e rms of cul ture a n d value and the »de-deification« (Entgötterung) 
of the wor ld . All these p h e n o m e n a contr ibute to the domina t ion of the world 
as p ic ture , by which he m e a n s that the world has b e c o m e a picture, a repre-
sentat ion, some th ing reif ied which m a n can dispose of at will. The fact that 
the wor ld has b e c o m e a pic ture , a representa t ion is an essential characteristic 
of m o d e r n i t y (Neuzeit) . For Heidegger modern i ty is the latest stage in the 
his tory of the forge t fu lness of Being that set in after the Pre-Socratic per iod in 
ph i lo sophy . 
Basically, the s ame analysis is found in the Introduction to Metaphysics, but 
with s t ronger poli t ical and historicist overtones. E u r o p e a n culture is decay-
ing, E u r o p e »lies in the giant pincers be tween Russia and America«, which 
f r o m the me taphys ica l po in t of view are identical: the same »dismal rage of 
u n c h a i n e d technology« and the same »appal l ing organiz ing of the average 
m a n « (die b o d e n l o s e Organ i sa t ion des Norma lmenschen ) . Heidegger dreads 
the t ime w h e n the who le wor ld has been conquered technically and eco-
nomica l ly and w h e n »every event is accessible at all t imes everywhere«. 3 5 
T h e d a r k e n i n g of the wor ld (Weltverdiisterung) is in progress: the gods have 
f led, the ear th is be ing exploi ted , the collectivization of m a n (Vermassung 
des Menschen) is p r o c e e d i n g and mediocr i ty is rife.3 6 T h e Ge rmans are a 
me taphys ica l peop le , He idegge r says, and al though G e r m a n y is su r rounded 
by ne ighbour s on all sides a n d is therefore in a vulnerable position, she can, 
H e i d e g g e r claims, b e c a m e the source of the renewal of Europe , br inging 
E u r o p e back into contac t with the powers of Being.3 7 Levin no doub t has 
similar passages in m i n d to the ones I have pa raphrased when he writes: 
Heidegger might seem to be telling the very same story that so many reac-
tionary thinkers in Europe had been telling and repeating since the closing 
years of the nineteenth century: a story which, let us say, begins in nostalgia 
and concludes with a condemnation of modernity.38 
3 5 Heidegger, Einführung in die Metaphysik, pp. 28-9. 
36 Ibid., p. 34. 
37 Ibid., 29. 
3 8 Levin, »Decline and Fall«, p. 187. 
19 
Lars-Olof Áhlberg 
Although Levin admits that there are , »some d e e p and p r o f o u n d l y dis-
turbing affinities be tween Heidegger ' s accoun t and the nar ra t ives in circula-
tion among the forces of the G e r m a n right«, he never the less be l ieves that we 
can find hints of a new beg inn ing which is ve ry d i f fe ren t f r o m the ideals of 
Heidegger ' s conservat ive con tempora r i e s or f r o m the n e w b e g i n n i n g pro-
claimed by Nat ional Socialism.3 9 I do n o t wish to en la rge on the so-called 
Heidegger affaire, which concerns the n a t u r e and ex ten t of He idegge r ' s in-
vo lvement wi th Nat ional Socialism, b u t a few c o m m e n t s m a y be in p lace 
since Heidegger ' s crit ique of modern i ty inevi tab ly raises poli t ical and histori-
cal issues. T h e real quest ion is not w h e t h e r H e i d e g g e r h a d Na t iona l Socialist 
sympathies (that quest ion has been settled long ago); the real issue conce rns 
the relat ionship be tween Heidegger ' s ph i l o sophy and the polit ics of Na t iona l 
Socialism.4 0 It seems to me that in s o m e of his wri t ings f r o m the thir t ies 
Heidegger comes peri lously near to iden t i fy ing the »fate of be ing« and »the 
powers of Being« with the G e r m a n revolu t ion . Karl Lowi th , He idegge r ' s one-
time s tudent and a phi losopher and his tor ian of ideas in his own right, recalls 
that after hear ing Heidegger ' s no tor ious »Rektora t s rede« in 1933 he d idn ' t 
know whe the r Heidegger m e a n t that o n e should go h o m e and r ead the pre-
Socratics or that one should join the s torm t roops . 4 1 Lowi th also recalls that 
Heidegger concur red in Lowith 's op in ion tha t He idegge r ' s poli t ical commi t -
men t was f o u n d e d on his ph i losophy a n d that H e i d e g g e r told h i m tha t his 
political in tervent ion was based on his concep t of his tor ici ty . 4 2 
In Heidegger ' s writings after the war his invoca t ions of Being are con-
siderably m o r e quietist. His p r o n o u n c e m e n t s on Being assume an increas-
ingly mystical, or should I say quasi-mystical , quali ty. T h e th ink ing of Being 
transcends bo th theoretical and pract ical th inking. It is pure ly a r e m e m b r a n c e 
of Being and noth ing else, it lets Being be , He idegge r says in his Letter on 
Humanism (1946) [Brief iiber den Humanismus]. This or ig inary th ink ing is »an 
39 Ibid. 
4 0 Heidegger's refusal after the war to disassociate himself unequivocally from the poli-
tics of the Nazi period and his persistent silence about the holocaust are surely rel-
evant in this context. In the exchange of letters with Herbert Marcuse in 1947 
Heidegger compares the fate of the Jews with the expulsion of Germans from the 
eastern territories awarded to Poland after the war. The philosopher of ontological 
difference was blind to some very real ontic differences. (See Bernd Martin, Martin 
Heidegger und das »Dritte Reich«: Ein Kompendium, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 
Darmstadt 1989, p. 157.) 
4 1 Rüdiger Safranski, Ein Meister aus Deutschland: Heidegger und seine Zeit, Hanser, München 
1994, p. 292. 
42 Ibid., p. 371. 
20 
Modernity and Ocularcentrism 
echo of the f avour of Being«, 4 3 as Heidegger puts it and p resumably can only 
be prac t i sed by the elect. Those of us who have no t hea rd the call of the 
p a t h w a y in the Black Forest m a y be forgiven for th inking that Heidegger has 
a b a n d o n e d ra t ional t h o u g h t and communica t ive rat ionali ty. The impress ion 
that H e i d e g g e r is a t t empt ing to express the unsayable in his works after Time 
and Being (Sein und Zeit) is s t rengthened by the fact that there has not been 
(and, as far as I can see, there cannot) be any real deve lopment of Heideggerian 
ph i losophy . He idegge r i ans are in the habi t of p roduc ing more or less read-
able pa raph ra se s of the mas ter . In the final analysis Heidegger ' s thinking is 
religious. He idegge r ' s in f luence seems to be steadily decreasing in France 
and G e r m a n y , whe rea s he has a considerable fol lowing in America , arguably 
the mos t secular ized coun t ry in the world. T h e non-confessional religious 
qual i ty of his th ink ing m a y paradoxica l ly he lp to expla in his appeal in a 
wor ld f r o m which the gods have fled and where technosc ience reigns su-
p r e m e . 
For the r e a s o n s i n d i c a t e d I c a n n o t agree with Levin ' s appra i sa l of 
He idegge r as a critic of mode rn i ty and of ocularcentr ism. I do not believe 
that He idegge r is a radical anti-essentialist and anti-foundationalist thinker, 
a l though his essent ial ism and foundat ional i sm is admit tedly somewhat out-
landish . 
T h e concep t of theory , inher i ted f rom Greek phi losophy, and the theo-
retical a t t i tude is o f ten m a d e responsible for the prevalence of ocularcentr ism 
in our cul ture . T h e o r y impl ies general i ty in ph i losophy as well as in science. 
He idegge r is critical of the claims of bo th phi losophical and scientific theory. 
Science does no t th ink, science is not the revelat ion of t ruth, it can only attain 
»rightness« H e i d e g g e r says in his essay »What is thinking?« [»Was heiß t 
Denken?«] . To say that He idegger is r ight in saying that science does not 
think, since only scientists think, is pe rhaps a petty response. Nevertheless 
such a response points to an impor t an t aspect of Heidegger ' s att i tude toward 
science: his total d is regard for differences and for specific cases. 
I th ink there are some fundamen ta l similarities be tween Heidegger ' s 
and Der r ida ' s a t t i tude toward science in spite of the fact that Der r ida is no 
uncri t ical a d m i r e r of He idegger ' s . Derr ida ' s p r o n o u n c e m e n t s on science and 
scientific th ink ing seem to m e to be essentialist in some peculiar way. It may 
be naive, or pe rve r se (or both) to accuse Der r ida of essentialism. T h e fact that 
there are m a n y passages in his writings where he uses »essentialist« language 
is not in itself proof of essentialist thinking. Conversely, the absence of essen-
4 3 »das anfängliche Denken ist der Widerhall der Gunst des Seins«, Was ist Metaphysik?, 
p. 49. 
21 
Lars-Olof Áhlberg 
tialist language is not conclusive ev idence of the absence of essential ism. But 
what are we to make of the fol lowing str iking passage f r o m Der r ida ' s work 
Mémoires d'aveugle, quoted and c o m m e n t e d on in J a y ' s work: 
If the eyes of all animals are destined for sight, and perhaps from there to the 
scopic knowledge of the animale rationale, only man knows how to go be-
yond seeing and knowing because he knows how to cry ... Only he knows 
that tears are the essence of the eye - and not sight... Revelatory blindness, 
apocalyptic blindness, that which reveals the very truth of the eyes, this would 
be the gaze veiled by tears.44 
T h e quoted passage m a y strike us as po ignan t or pa the t ic as the case 
may be, but o n e thing at least seems to m e to be clear: De r r i da is m a k i n g the 
valid poin t that eyes are no t only for seeing and looking, they have an expres-
sive potent ia l that other sense-organs lack. It is surely significant tha t we cry 
with our eyes, and not, say with our noses or our ears. Never the less , the view 
that tears are the essence of the eye and tha t the gaze vei led by tears reveals 
the very t ru th of the eyes is puzzling. I th ink we should be gra teful that our 
mathemat ic ians and engineers are not s t ruck by apoca lyp t ic b l indness while 
doing sums or when designing a i rplanes and compute r s , even if they t he r eby 
prove that they are using their eyes in a »scopic« and non-essent ia l way. 
A final point about Der r ida and essent ial ism: in an in terview in 1984 
Derr ida del ineated the task of ph i losophy as fol lows: 
Philosophy, as logocentrism, is present in every scientific discipline and the 
only justification for transforming philosophy into a specialized discipline is 
the necessity to render explicit and thematic the philosophical subtext in every 
discourse.45 
To r e n d e r explicit the »phi losophical subtext« in the sense of uncover -
ing the h i d d e n logical and non-logical p resuppos i t ions in var ious theor ies 
and discourses is in my view an impor t an t ph i losophica l task, albeit no t the 
only one. But Der r ida actually says tha t the exposu re of logocent r i sm is the 
only justif ication for phi losophy. His view that logocent r i sm is p resen t in every 
scientific discipline is a surprisingly genera l and unspeci f ic claim. In wha t 
manner , we may ask, is logocentr ism and the me taphys ics of p resence act ive 
in mathemat ics or palaeontology, in geology or q u a n t u m chemist ry , in com-
puter science or theoret ical cosmology? Is it p re sen t in all the sciences in the 
^ Quoted from Jay, Downcast Eyes, p. 523. 
4 5 »Dialogue with Jacques Derrida« in R. Kearney, (Ed.), Dialogues with Contemporary 
Continental Thinkers, Manchester University Press, Manchester 1984, p. 110. 
22 
Modernity and Ocularcentrism 
same way, and if so, does it affect the validity and fruitfulness of the theories 
and the results ach ieved in those fields of scientific inquiry? Derr ida ' s atti-
tude seems to m e s o m e w h a t h igh-handed , because I do no t believe that these 
i m p o r t a n t ques t ions can be answered without a systematic analysis of the 
m e t h o d s and concep tua l f r ameworks of specific sciences. Is there not more 
than a t race of essent ial ism in his th inking about science and does not the 
ph i lo sophe r of differance display a r emarkab le disregard for the multifarious 
d i f fe rences be tween the aims, me thods and theories of different scientific dis-
ciplines? T o ask wha t the pu rpose or the funct ion of science is is like asking 
wha t the p u r p o s e and the func t ion of art is. In both cases the answer is the 
same: they have m a n y d i f fe ren t purposes and funct ions and no general theory 
can do just ice to the mult ipl ici ty of the sciences or the arts. 
Wit tgens te in , a ve ry di f ferent ph i losopher of difference, who once told 
his seminar : »I'll t each you differences«, writes in the Blue Book that 
Our craving for generality has another main source: our preoccupation with 
the method of science. I mean the method of reducing the explanation of 
natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws; 
and, in mathematics, of unifying the treatment of different topics by using 
generalization. Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their 
eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way 
science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the 
philosopher into complete darkness ... Instead of »craving for generality« I 
could also have said »the contemptuous attitude towards the particular case«.46 
It would of course be r idiculous to suggest that He idegger or Derr ida 
were in f luenced by the m e t h o d s of science, or that they »constantly see the 
m e t h o d of science be fo re their eyes«. But there is »a craving for generality« 
and a »con temptuous a t t i tude toward the part icular case« in their thinking, 
no t because they ado re scientific rationality, bu t because they are enamoured 
with a cer ta in concep t i on of ph i losophy as a theoretical enterprise, theoretical 
in the sense of p rov id ing a p r o f o u n d vision and an extensive interpretat ion of 
the wor ld wh ich is m o r e f u n d a m e n t a l and general t han anything envisaged 
in eve ryday life or in science. 
T h e cr i t ique of ocu la rcen t r i sm aims at exposing the totalizing and gen-
eral izing na tu re of the m o d e r n , scientific, scopic regime. But if the critique 
itself is total izing and if it relies on unwar ran ted general izat ions it quite liter-
ally loses sight of its target. 
4 6 Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, 1958, Blackwell, Oxford 1964, p. 18. 
23 

Aleš Erjavec 
Seeing, Painting and Art 
i 
In his n o w a l ready classical book Vision and Painting hom 1983 N o r m a n 
Bryson d i spu ted w h a t he saw as some of the s tandard tenets of art history. His 
o p e n i n g a r g u m e n t c o n c e r n i n g tradit ional art history was that f rom their very 
b e g i n n i n g in an t iqui ty W e s t e r n views on paint ing consist of the desire to 
c rea te a »perfec t copy«: f r o m Pliny th rough renaissance and Dante to Ernst 
G o m b r i c h Bryson de tec ted this desire to create a paint ing - and, to do this, to 
d iscover the pe r fec t t echn ique for its execut ion - that would enable us to 
r e p r o d u c e the pe rce ived in a t ruthful way. F rom the t imes of Zeuxis 's picto-
rial r e n d e r i n g of g rapes which misled the birds into bel ieving they were real 
to the m o d e r n age, pa in t ing is »thought of as a rivalry between technicians 
for the p r o d u c t i o n of a repl ica so perfect that art will take the palm f rom 
na ture . (...) T h e difficult ies conf ron ted by the painter are executive and con-
cern the f ideli ty of his registrat ion of the world before him.«1 T h e painter 's 
task is to m i r ro r the reali ty be fore him, to carry out in paint ing what in geom-
etry and in opt ics the rena issance deve lopmen t - or, in accordance with such 
th inking, »discovery« - of perspect ive offered to the painter . It is unders tand-
able that wi thin such a contex t paint ing is a craft, and that the not ion of 
c rea t ion is r e se rved for the divine being. The perce ived and the represented 
are one and the same. All h u m a n beings possess in pr inciple the same per-
ceptual facul t ies and share the same visual field, a c o m m o n technique of 
r e n d e r i n g a r ep resen ta t ion of the perceived is therefore possible. Renaissance 
d e v e l o p m e n t s in the arts and sciences, the latter offering the former tools for 
a t ru thfu l r end i t i on of the perce ived world , for the so-called »construzione 
legittima, the perspec t ive called 'correct ' or 'exact ' ,«2 offer the hope of the 
fu r the r d iminu t ion of the chasm between the paint ing and what Bryson calls 
»the Essent ial Copy« - the perfec t replica. 
For Bryson the p r o b l e m with art history was the hold ing on to opinions 
1 Norman Bryson, Vision and Painting. The Logic of the Gaze, Yale University Press, New 
Haven 1983, pp. 1 and 3. 
2 Hubert Damisch, L'origine de la perspective, Flammarion, Paris 1993, p. 107. 
Filozofski vestnih, XVII (2/1996), pp. 25-43. 
Aleš Erjavec 
such as the ones p resen ted above. I l lust ra t ing this wi th the w o r k of Erns t 
Gombr ich (although at the same t ime p resen t ing the lat ter 's wri t ings as »a 
transitional aesthetics«) Bryson poin ted ou t that G o m b r i c h was, b y accep t ing 
as his epistemological c redo Popper ' s t heo ry of ver i f ica t ion and falsif icat ion, 
effectively ascribing to, or developing, an art h is tory wh ich f o u n d its evalua-
tive criterion in a hypothes is of a con t inued progress towards the Essential 
Copy, a progress dr iven by novel d e m a n d s u p o n schemat ic c o n v e n t i o n s of 
image-making, 3 and hence a »provisional and in te r im i m p r o v e m e n t on the 
existing corpus of hypotheses or schemata , i m p r o v e d because tested against 
the world, through falsification«.4 
Art his tory is f i rmly rooted within the m o d e r n epis temologica l hor izon . 
It also ascribes to an Aristotelian poet ics wh ich is also visible f r o m resem-
blances be tween Aristot le 's and G o m b r i c h ' s p r e s e n t a t i o n of mimes i s : for 
Aristotle mimesis is one of the features tha t dis t inguish h u m a n s f r o m beasts , 
by mimetic activity we learn, and »a r e p r o d u c e d object invokes p leasu re in 
all people«.5 Gombr i ch expresses the s ame thought : »The p leasure is in rec-
ognition.«6 
Problems concern ing art history, such as those discussed by Bryson, are 
related to its epistemological status since its const i tut ion a cen tury ago and its 
inclusion into a modern is t scheme of ref lect ive th inking. In o ther words , art 
history has probably , just as t radit ional aesthetics, as a mode rn i s t discipl ine 
emptied itself in the fo rm we have b e c o m e used to in the first half of this 
century and has been, just as rationalist ph i lo sophy , caugh t in tha t same tra-
dition which is most of ten identif ied with Car tes ian perspec t iva l i sm and its 
dependency u p o n monocu la r and abst ract vis ion and optics, no t to m e n t i o n 
its phi losophical dualism. Since the aim of pa in t ing u n d e r discussion is pri-
marily cognit ive - the render ing of a r ep resen ta t ion in such a way that a 
recognized mean ing is established, since Alber t i this b e i n g accompl i shed with 
the use of perspectival mechan i sms - the a im of the artist is to accompl i sh a 
pictorial t echnique which will be, as a procedure, h i d d e n f r o m our scrut iniz ing 
eyes and will offer to our gaze only the p ic ture itself as a comple t e whole . 
W h a t is then called »perspectiva artificialis«, the »perspect ive of the pa in te rs 
as it is dist inguished f r o m the perspect iva natural is of au thors of the Midd le 
Ages, the theory of direct vision, ref lected or r e f rac ted (...), is as such con-
fused with that of optics.« ' Nonetheless , perspectiva artificialis h ad to be as-
3 Cf. Bryson, op. cit., p. 21. 
4 Ibid. 
5 Aristotle, Poetics, 1448b. 
6 E.H. Gombrich, The Image and the Eye, Phaidon, Oxford 1982, p. 122. 
7 Damisch, op. cit., p. 90. 
26 
Seeing, Painting and Art 
sisted by the two-poin t perspect ive (or »construzione legittima«) for it was found 
insuff ic ient by itself, w h e n conf ron ted with cont inuous at tempts to appropr i -
ate it wi thin the concep tua l field of the monocu la r and static eye of optics. 
H e n c e even Descar tes himself in Dioptrics pays special attention to visual 
e r rors , m e n t i o n i n g tha t o f ten circles are bet ter represented by ovals and that 
»of ten to be m o r e pe r fec t as concerns the quality of images and to bet ter 
r ep re sen t an object , they mus t no t resemble it.«8 A re la ted story is recounted 
by Pl iny in c o n n e c t i o n with a compet i t ion be tween Alcamenes and Phidias 
for a sculp ture of M i n e r v a which was to sit on top of a tall pillar. »Alcamenes 
scu lp ted a h a r m o n i o u s sculp ture and Phidias a figure with de formed limbs, 
wi th a gap ing m o u t h and a s t re tched neck. O n the day of the exhibi t ion the 
first r ece ived the votes, whi le his rival was stoned. But the situation was re-
ve r sed w h e n the sculptures were put in their place. Installed on top of the 
pil lar , Phidias ' s s tatue acqui red great beauty, while the other became an ob-
jec t of der is ion.« 9 As even a hasty glance upon the elevated sculptures and 
facades of chu rches and medieva l towns attests, the pract icing sculptors and 
archi tects were very consc ious of the need to accommoda te the observer ' s 
gaze and its pecul iar i t ies , which of ten d iverged f r o m the geometrical and 
opt ical laws i m p o s e d by the monocu la r static gaze and even f rom the two-
po in t perspec t ive . T h e l imitat ions of the »perfect copy« were imposed also 
by the in t rus ion of the b o d y . 
In paint ings , engrav ings or drawings a special case were the anamor-
phoses , today the bes t -known a m o n g them certainly be ing that of a skull on 
H a n s H o l b e i n ' s »Two Ambassadors« . A n a m o r p h i s m is a case of pictorial 
r ep resen ta t ion requ i r ing a d i f ferent perspectival vantage point . Other »scopic 
regimes« r ange f r o m Du tch and ba roque paint ing to El Lissitzky.10 
E x a m p l e s such as a n a m o r p h o s e s witness that perce ived objects, if they 
are to offer »true« representa t ions , i.e. such that our percept ion will accept 
t h e m as such, mus t of ten resor t to devices that visibly diverge f rom rules that 
a re in acco rdance with the monocu l a r static gaze. Artists have to resort to all 
k inds of g immicks to m a k e ad jus tments for the pair of h u m a n eyes which 
8 Descartes, La Dioptrique (Oeuvres et lettres), Gallimard, Paris 1952, p. 204. 
9 Quoted in Jurgis Baltrusaitis, Anamorphoses. Les perspectives dépravées - II, Flammarion, 
Paris 1996, p. 19. 
10 This topic was most fully developed by Martin Jay in the essay »Scopic Regimes of 
Modernity« in Force Fields, Routledge, London 1993; cf. also Martin Jay, Downcast 
Eyes, University of California Press, Berkeley 1993; Svetlana Alpers, The Art of De-
scribing: Dutch Painting in the Seventeenth Century, Chicago University Press, Chicago 
1983; Christine Buci-Glucks-mann La folie de voir: De l'esthétique baroque, Flammarion, 
Paris 1986; on Lissitzky see Damisch, op. cit., p. 51. 
27 
Aleš Erjavec 
gaze at their works f r o m various posi t ions, d is tances and angles: heads of 
sculptures lowered more or less than normal ly , eyes in d i f fe ren t pos i t ions 
within the face, taller or shorter figures, ad ju s tmen t s for d i f fe ren t van tage 
points, etc. - these are all compensa t ions artists have to m a k e for the fact tha t 
human sight is not a mechan ic optical ins t rument , b u t an integral pa r t of the 
h u m a n body. 
Bryson based his cri t ique of the »na tura l a t t i tude« - the bel ief t ha t 
perspectival paint ing is through most of his tory of pa in t ing cons ide red the 
most appropr ia te , exact, scientific and t rue - on Husser l ' s descr ip t ion of such 
an attitude within sciences.1 1 Husserl ' s a t t empt to re t ract the Car tes ian dual-
ism and »return to things themselves« was re la ted to his belief tha t phi loso-
phy is essentially seeing. Wesenschau, intui t ion, is visual, a l though it is far re-
moved f r o m ocularcentr ism of m o d e r n science and Car tes ian i sm. Ins tead , 
p h e n o m e n o l o g y wants to regain the uni ty of the ob jec t and the subjec t wh ich 
was obliterated by that very same Cartesianism and which, fu r the rmore , caused 
also the emergence of the »natural at t i tude« of m o d e r n sciences crit icized by 
Husserl . 
W h a t Bryson seems to have of fe red as an a l ternat ive to the art of West -
ern art history as a history of the d e v e l o p m e n t of the »Essential Copy« , was a 
history of art as that »of paint ing as a material practice«}2 If, po in ted out Bryson, 
art history, or any theory for that mat ter , were to be able to at tain this a im, it 
should have taken into considerat ion the role of the h u m a n b o d y in the ex-
ecution of a paint ing: it no longer suffices for us to perce ive a pa in t ing as a 
result, ignor ing at the same time the p r o c e d u r e (»material practice«) that led 
to it. Instead, we should heed this pract ice as well as the bodi ly f r a m e w o r k 
within which and with the visible he lp of wh ich this deed is accompl i shed . 
Bryson suggests t radit ional Chinese pa in t ing as a posi t ive e x a m p l e of the way 
in which the bodily de te rmina t ion of a pa in t ing is to be pe rce ived : the visible 
way in which brushst rokes were execu ted and the fact tha t the s trokes are no t 
only vehicles of a technique but are s imul taneous ly also direct ly the expres-
sive means of paint ing as such. Wes te rn pa in t ing is ins tead p u r p o r t e d l y es-
sentially of fe red to our gaze as a static scene, p r e s e n t e d to our m o n o c u l a r 
vision. Classical painting, executed in acco rdance with the perspec t iva l rules, 
fur thermore offers what Kaja Silverman ascribes to still p h o t o g r a p h : »Whereas 
the moving image consigns what it depicts to obl iv ion, the still p h o t o g r a p h 
gives us access to a stable and durab le image of self.«1 3 It is this fea ture of 
11 Cf. Bryson, op. cit., pp. 4-5 et passim 
12 Ibid., p. 16. 
13 Kaja Silverman, The Threshold of the Visible World Routledge, New York 1996, p. 198. 
28 
Seeing, Painting and Art 
pa in t ing as well, i.e., the representa t ional stability which it can offer to the 
subject , tha t p rec ludes classical Wes te rn paint ing to t read the same pa th as its 
C h i n e s e coun te rpa r t . Bryson argues that European pain t ing disclaims what 
he cal led »deictic marke r s« , 1 4 marks of the bodi ly inscription into the repre-
senta t ion: »Western pa in t ing is p red ica ted on the disavowal of deictic reference, 
on the d i s appea rance of the b o d y as site of the image; and this twice over: for 
the pa in te r , and for the v iewing subject. (...) [I]f China and Europe possess 
the two mos t anc ien t t radi t ions of representat ional painting, the traditions 
never the less b i furca te , f r o m the beginning, at the point of deixis.«15 
If, then , one of Ch inese paint ing 's salient features is the visible trace of 
the exis tence of the artist 's b o d y within the picture itself, f rom where does 
t hen this fea tu re arise? W h y is it that »[t]he work of product ion is constantly 
d isp layed in the wake of its traces; [that] in this tradit ion the body of labour is 
on cons tan t display, jus t as it is j udged in terms which, in the West, would 
apply only to a performing ar t«?1 6 Far f rom wishing to engage in a discussion 
c o n c e r n i n g Ch inese art , I would never theless like to poin t out that obviously 
the E u r o p e a n t radi t ion, or at least its more recent part, is not necessarily thus 
far r e m o v e d f r o m the k ind of pa in t ing that Bryson is he re opposing to the 
m o r e classical W e s t e r n paint ing. I shall develop this a rgument in Parts II and 
IV . 
As François C h e n g explains, the Chinese art »always tends to recreate a 
total m a c r o c o s m whe re the p r ime unif icatory action of the Breath-Spirit, or 
the Empt ines s itself, far f r o m be ing synonymous with the vague or arbitrary, 
is the in te rna l p lace whe re the grid of vital breaths is established. We witness 
he re a system which p r o c e e d s m o r e by integrat ion of successive contribu-
t ions t han by ruptures . T h e Stroke of the Brush, the art of which is carried by 
pa in te r s to an e x t r e m e degree of re f inement , incarnat ing the O n e and the 
Mul t ip le in the m e a s u r e in which it is identif ied with the original Breath and 
with all of its m e t a m o r p h o s e s , contr ibutes no less to this pe rmanence of a 
tirelessly p u r s u e d s ignifying practice.«1 7 Since a paint ing is a microcosm re-
la ted to the m a c r o c o s m and is s imultaneously its integral part, the emptiness 
wi thin a pa in t ing is n o t »an inert presence [but] is t raversed by breaths link-
ing the visible wor ld [the pa in ted space] with the invisible one«.1 8 As the 
au thor explains , the e m p t y space of the picture media tes be tween its various 
14 Bryson, op. cit., p. 89. 
15 Ibid. 
16 Ibid., p. 92. 
17 François Cheng, Vide et plein. Le langage pictural chinois, Seuil, Paris 1991, p. 10. 
18 Ibid., p. 47. 
29 
Aleš Erjavec 
elements - be tween the Moun ta in and the W a t e r for e x a m p l e , the re la t ion 
be tween which would otherwise appea r rigid and static. A n addi t iona l ele-
m e n t is b rough t into the pic ture since the T ' a n g dynas ty (618-907), w h e n 
painters c o m m e n c e d to in t roduce p o e m s in to the whi te e m p t y space of their 
pictures. T h e p o e m »is not a simple, art if icial ly a d d e d c o m m e n t a r y ; it i nhab -
its a real space (there is no hiatus b e t w e e n the ca l l ig raphed signs a n d the 
painted elements , for they bo th come f r o m the same brush) , i n t roduc ing in to 
the picture a living d imension, that of T ime .« 1 9 T h e wor ld is a whole , there-
fore the empt iness in the picture, which depic ts a f r a g m e n t a r y pa r t of this 
wholeness, represents the invisible which s t ructures re la t ions wi thin the vis-
ible itself, and is consequent ly just as crucial as the pa in ted surfaces. In this 
way paint ing witnesses to the cosmological uni ty ; it is h e n c e no w o n d e r tha t 
»[i]n China , of all the arts, pa in t ing occupies the s u p r e m e p lace« . 2 0 
II 
Read ing Bryson, especially his b o o k Vision and Painting f r o m which I 
quoted above , as well as Tradition an<fDesire (1984), and h e n c e his cr i t ique of 
art history and some of its tenets, a rguing for a pa in t ing and theory thereof 
which would not only, at most , take into cons ide ra t ion the optical ly »defi-
cient« gaze of the viewer but also corporea l m a r k s of the pa in te r (i l lustrating 
the two sides by classical Eu ropean pa in t ing on the o n e h a n d and Ch inese on 
the other), one is cont inuously r e m i n d e d of a ph i l o sophe r and a pa in te r w h o 
both pursued a similar aim. T h e pair of course is that of Mer l eau -Pon ty and 
Cézanne . As in the case of Bryson, Mer l eau -Pon ty too criticizes the »natura l 
attitude« admon i shed by Husserl and carr ies this out no t only in the r ea lm of 
science bu t foremost ly in the rea lm of pa in t ing 2 1 wh ich he sees no t only as 
19 Ibid., p. 105. 
2 0 Cf. Cheng, op. cit., p. l ln . 
2 1 »[T]he classical perspective is only one of the ways humanity has invented for pro-
jecting the perceived world before itself, and not the copy of that world. The classical 
perspective is an optional interpretation of spontaneous vision, not because the per-
ceived world contradicts the laws of classical perspective and imposes others, but 
rather because it does not require any particular one, and is not of the order of laws.« 
- Merleau-Ponty, »Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence«, in The Merleau-Ponty 
Aesthetics Reader. Philosophy and Painting (ed. and intr. by Galen A. Johnson), North-
western University Press, Evanston, 111. 1993, p. 86. 
A perhaps even more revealing passage concerningperspectiva artificial can be found 
in the »Eye and Mind« essay: *[T]he painters knew from experience that no tech-
nique of perspective is an exact solution and there is no projection of the existing 
30 
Seeing, Painting and Art 
re la ted to the first, b u t as showing its inheren t truth, a t ru th which was dis-
to r ted in the rena i ssance artistic tradit ion. Mer leau-Ponty ' s aim was - and 
r e m a i n e d - Husser l ' s c r edo to »return to things themselves«: »To re turn to 
th ings themse lves is to r e tu rn to that world which p recedes knowledge, of 
wh ich k n o w l e d g e a lways speaks, and in relat ion to which every scientific 
schemat iza t ion is an abst ract and derivative sign-language, as is geography in 
re la t ion to the count ry-s ide in which we have learnt b e f o r e h a n d what a for-
est, a pra i r ie or a r iver is.«22 For Mer leau-Ponty it is fo remos t pa in t ing which 
offers a pr iv i leged access to wha t he will later start call ing Being. Al though 
ph i l o sophy is, like ar t »the act of br inging t ruth into being«, 2 3 »art, especially 
paint ing, draws u p o n this fabr ic of brute meaning which operat ional ism would 
p re fe r to ignore . Ar t and only art does so in full innocence . (...) [We want] the 
wri ter and the ph i l o sophe r (...) to take a stand; they canno t waive the respon-
sibilities of h u m a n s w h o speak.« 2 4 
It was ve ry consis tent with such views that Merleau-Ponty ' s (as well as 
He idegger ' s ) exis tent ia l p h e n o m e n o l o g y had to end in a poet ic ized discourse 
wh ich a t t e m p t e d to emu la t e the world, to avoid the »abstract and derivative 
s ign-language« which is a lways a discourse on the world. W h a t ph i losophy 
can do is o p e n our eyes to the world and make us conscious of its own limita-
t ions and limits: »A ph i l o sophy becomes t ranscendenta l , or radical, not by 
tak ing its p lace in absolu te consciousness without men t ion ing the ways by 
which this is r e ached , b u t by consider ing itself as a p r o b l e m ; no t by postulat-
ing a k n o w l e d g e r e n d e r e d totally explicit, bu t by recognizing as its funda-
m e n t a l t r a n s c e n d e n t a l p h i l o s o p h i c p r o b l e m this presumption on r eason ' s 
pa r t .« 2 5 A par t of this »presumpt ion on reason 's part« is also the belief into 
world which respects it in all aspects and deserves to become the fundamental law of 
painting. For example, the Italians took the way of representing the object, but the 
Northern painters discovered and worked out the formal technique of Hochraum, 
Nahraum, and Schrdgraum. Thus plane projection does not always stimulate our thought 
to rediscover the true form of things, as Descartes believed. Beyond a certain degree 
of deformation, it refers us back, on the contrary to our own vantage point; as for the 
things, they flee into a remoteness out of reach of all thought. Something about space 
evades our attempts to survey it from above.« (»Eye and Mind«, The Merleau-Ponty 
Aesthetics Reader, p. 135.) An analysis of the decentralized organization of visual space 
of the »Northern painters«, implying links between such painting and optical devel-
opments of the time, is offered by Svetlana Alpers in her book The Art of Describing: 
Dutch Painting in the Seventeenth Century (cf. note 10). 
2 2 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (Preface), Routledge, London 1995, 
p. ix. 
23 Ibid., p. xx. 
2 4 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, »Eye and Mind«, The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, p. 123. 
2 5 Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, p. 63. 
31 
Aleš Erjavec 
what Bryson will later call the »Essential Copy« , a belief tha t an au thent ic 
and universal ly valid render ing of the pe rce ived wor ld is poss ible t h rough 
pictorial representa t ion. To constrain the a t tempts of r eason to d is tance itself, 
as absolute consciousness, f rom the pe rce ived wor ld which no t only su r rounds 
it but of which it is, itself, an integral par t , ph i l o sophy mus t start at the closest 
possible start ing point , which is one ' s o w n b o d y . C o n t r a r y to Descar tes , w h o 
established an infinite distance be tween the res extensa and the res cogitans, 
Merleau-Ponty is one of the first ph i lo sophe r s n o t only to e m p h a s i z e the 
necessity of theorizing consciousness as a pa r t of our co rpo rea l be ing (such 
views a b o u n d already in the n ine teen th cen tury , in M a r x , a m o n g others) -
incessantly present ing this a rgument t h r o u g h o u t m o s t of his oeuvre - but , fur-
thermore , to »embody« his views wi thin his in te rpre ta t ions of the works of 
painters (and occasionally sculptors), h e n c e a rgu ing for a pe rcep tua l a n d cor-
poreal inscription of a painter within his p ic ture and , also, of its v iewer with 
w h o m the painter purpor ted ly shares the visual f ield. 
As in Chinese culture, in Mer leau-Ponty ' s ph i l o sophy too, pa in t ing is a 
privi leged art form. As Mer leau-Ponty argues in the Preface to Phenomenology 
of Perception, »[t] o seek the essence of pe rcep t ion is to dec la re that pe rcep t ion 
is, not p r e sumed true, but def ined as access to t ru th . (...) W e mus t no t (...) 
wonder whe the r we really perceive a wor ld , we mus t ins tead say: the wor ld is 
what we perceive.« 2 6 A privileged fo rm of pe rcep t ion is vision. In this respect 
M e r l e a u - P o n t y fo l lows in H u s s e r l ' s s t e p s a n d s h a r e s c e r t a i n t r a i t s of 
Heidegger ' s phi losophy. Al though He idegge r criticizes in 1938, in the essay 
by the same name, the m o d e r n »time of the wor ld p ic ture« and pr ivi leges the 
word and hear ing over the image and vision, a few years ear l ier he no t only 
uses a p ic ture - a van Gogh pain t ing - to expla in his u n d e r s t a n d i n g of an 
artwork, but generally regards the Greek cul tural un iverse as tha t of an un-
surpassed existential authentici ty - with this same wor ld also b e i n g that within 
which c o m m e n c e d the ocularcentr ism of the W e s t e r n civil ization. Still, for 
Heidegger , the word (language) never the less r ema ins the mos t au thent ic f o r m 
of communica t ion and, of course, the p r e c o n d i t i o n of thought . In Mer leau-
Ponty 's similar, but differently or iented ph i losophy , an authent ic i ty such as 
that which Heidegger finds in poetry , is r evea led in paint ing. It is no t the 
language which is »the house of Being«; ins tead »[t]he eye lives in this tex ture 
[of Being] as a man in his house«.2 7 
Both in the case of Chinese pa in t ing and in C e z a n n e ' s case (as inter-
pre ted by Merleau-Ponty , but of ten explici t ly s u p p o r t e d by ci tat ions f r o m 
26 Ibid., p. xvi. 
2 7 Merleau-Ponty, »Eye and Mind«, The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, p. 127. 
32 
Seeing, Painting and Art 
C e z a n n e ' s o w n s ta tements) the painter is someone who strives to present and 
r ep re sen t the holist ic uni ty of the invisible and the visible, the presence of a 
t e m p o r a l or spatial absence in what is perce ived as p resence - this also be ing 
the r ea son for Mer l eau -Pon ty ' s disavowal of pho tography . 2 8 W h e n Bryson 
discovers in a Ch inese l andscape pain t ing the landscape to be the subject 
and, equal ly , the subject to be »the work of the brush in 'real t ime' and (...) 
a[n] ex tens ion of the pa in te r ' s own body«, 2 9 may we not say that something 
similar is t rue of C e z a n n e ' s juxtapos i t ion of individual brush strokes3 0 or 
R o d i n ' s prac t ice of r e n d e r i n g visible the connect ing welds of his sculptures? 
It wou ld seem tha t Mer leau-Pon ty ' s presenta t ion of Cezanne ' s paint ings (as 
well as R o d i n ' s or Giacomet t i ' s sculptures) shows certain similarities with 
tha t which Bryson offers in connec t ion with Chinese paint ing and which he 
s imul taneous ly presen ts as a positive alternative to the stance of tradit ional 
art h is tory and of classical perspect ival paint ing in Europe , an alternative he 
tries to c o m p l e m e n t wi th a d i f ferent reflective vantage point , one which will 
a c c e n t u a t e t h e » d e i c t i c r e f e r e n c e « , a n d t h e r e f o r e t h e b o d y as an 
u n c i r c u m v e n t a b l e theore t ic subject . It would therefore seem that (at least in 
the 1983 book) wha t Bryson a t tempts to propose or defend, is to a large 
ex ten t a l ready p resen t in Mer leau-Ponty ' s own early work. 
It m a y be that a l though Mer leau-Ponty has adumbra t ed many of Lacan 's 
theses in his Seminar XI and elsewhere, his phi losophical stature may have 
b e e n r e d u c e d by the poe t ic ized language (or wha t Bryson called the »heights 
The most explicit disclaimer of Marey's photography as a prototype of photography 
as such is probably that from the »Eye and Mind« essay. It could be argued though 
that Merleau-Ponty does a disservice to photography, for he views it only as an im-
partial (»scientific«) visual recording device, hence ignoring the fact that in his own 
time (the essay was written in August 1960) photography surpassed the perceptual 
(and creative) horizon of Marey's photographic experiments and that it was therefore 
rather simplistic to reduce it to the stature of Descartes's engravings and camera ob-
scura. 
Bryson, op. cit., p. 89. 
3 0 Bryson's accentuation of the traces of the brush strokes perhaps warrants a comment, 
for while in European painting the »deictic markers« may not be as omnipresent as in 
the Chinese one, it is nonetheless true that the artist's style or painterly writing is often 
quite unique. Merleau-Ponty thus mentions that »[t]he writing of Michelangelo is 
attributed to Raphael in 36 cases, but is correctly identified in 221 cases. We therefore 
recognize a certain structure which is common to voice, to physiognomy, to gestures 
and to the walk of each person, each person is for us nothing but this structure or this 
manner of being in the world.« - Maurice Merleau-Ponty, »Le cinéma et la nouvelle 
psychologie«, in Sens et non-sens, Gallimard, Paris 1996, p. 68. 
33 
Aleš Erjavec 
of lyricism«31) of his late writings and, finally, by the w a n i n g of interest in 
phenomenolog ica l aesthetics or ph i lo sophy of ar t in r ecen t decades . A g o o d 
case in poin t may be Lyotard 's early p h e n o m e n o l o g i c a l work Discours, figure 
(1971) whose aim was, as Lyotard expla ins m u c h later, p r imar i ly to cha l lenge 
the onslaught of Lacanian privi leging of the Symbol ic and of re lega t ing all art 
to the doma in of the Imaginary 3 2 and h e n c e ideology. Lyo ta rd later aban-
doned phenomeno logy , obviously sensing that it doesn ' t offer the appropr i -
ate theoretical apparatus for analysis of radical artists of our cen tury , such as 
D u c h a m p . As Forrest Wil l iams writes in 1954, »[d]ue to w h a t e v e r c o m m o n 
cultural format ions that may serve to link ph i losoph ica l t hough t and artistic 
insight, the dominan t phi losophical sys tem in F rance today k n o w n as 'phe-
nomenology ' , and in part icular , that of M a u r i c e Mer l eau -Pon ty , on the o n e 
hand , and the art of Cézanne , on the o the r h a n d , a p p e a r to agree in origin, 
me thod and outcome. The i r c o m m o n origin was a r e sponse to a cer ta in sub-
jectivism of much of n ine teen th-cen tury art and p h i l o s o p h y ; their c o m m o n 
method, to search by minute scrutiny of their own expe r i ence for the out-
wardly g iven, object ively real ; and the i r c o m m o n a c h i e v e m e n t , to h a v e 
avoided the opposi te of ex t reme subject ivism, by d i scover ing the real as the 
invar iant s tructure of a given appea rance .« 3 3 None the les s , whi le C é z a n n e 
retained his place in con tempora ry art his tory, Mer l eau -Pon ty ' s in te rpre ta -
tion of h im, his work, as well as his own ph i lo sophy of the pe rce ived and the 
seen, both appear problemat ic , for they offer an analysis and a p resen ta t ion 
that increasingly appear caught within the conf ines and l imi ta t ions of its own 
( p h e n o m e n o l o g i c a l ) f r a m e w o r k . A f t e r in i t i a l i n g e n i o u s a p p l i c a t i o n s of 
Husser l ' s (and partly Heidegger 's) p h e n o m e n o l o g y to the rea lms of pe rcep-
tion, combined with percept ive insights in to the logic of pa in t ing and the 
gaze, the late Mer leau-Ponty increasingly s t rove to at tain the imposs ib le dis-
cursive art iculation of Being, dr if t ing in this way into the d i rec t ion of a po ten-
tial silence.3 4 His discourse on Cézanne of ten appea r s caught wi thin the rea lm 
of that very same undif ferent ia ted f r a m e w o r k of the Car tes ian subject and , 
consequently, within the discourse on the artistic genius of the first half of this 
31 Norman Bryson, Tradition and Desire. From David to Delacroix, Cambridge University 
Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1984, p. 65. 
3 2 Cf. Jean-François Lyotard, Peregrinations. Law, Form, Event, Columbia University Press, 
New York 1988, pp. 10-11. 
3 3 Forrest Williams, »Cézanne, Phenomenology, and Merleau-Ponty«, in The Merleau-
Ponty Aesthetics Reader, p. 165. 
3 4 For a discussion of this issue in Merleau-Ponty and its relations to Schelling, see Robert 
Burch, op. cit., esp. p. 353 et passim, as well as Slavoj $i#ek, The Indivisible Remainder, 
Verso, London 1996, esp. pp. 50-51. 
34 
Seeing, Painting and Art 
cen tu ry tha t p r e c e d e d psychoanalys is . 3 5 Mer leau-Ponty ' s privileging of the 
b o d y and of the co rpo rea l features of the act of paint ing appears insufficient 
w h e n c o n f r o n t e d with the fo rmidab le task of present ing the absolute, for all 
he seems to have at his disposal - or offers - is a ph i losophy which privileges 
the visual as p r e s e n t e d to us mainly through the pictorial representat ions of a 
mode rn i s t pa in te r . W i t h his late, especially the pos thumous ly publ ished writ-
ings, he f u r t h e r m o r e gives the impression, just as the late Heidegger , of his 
d iscourse closing u p o n itself: his Being is static, his reject ion of science uni-
versal , his d iscourse in tent ional ly more and more ambiguous and cryptic, 
whi le the p rev ious ly conceptua l ly clear not ions related to percept ion, paint-
ing, visibility and the gaze, a l though pe rhaps b u r d e n e d with a »metaphysics 
of p resence« w h e n e n d o w e d with an ontological status and t ransposed into 
ex t ra -pe rcep t iona l rea lms, are replaced by those of the flesh, with phi losophy 
b e c o m i n g »Being speak ing in us«, and l i terature be ing analyzed as an »in-
scr ipt ion of Being«. 3 6 H o w can »a mean ingfu l h u m a n world be consti tuted 
out of p u r e visibil i ty«3 7 and h o w can the quest for the reunif icat ion of the 
subject and object , devo id of an historical perspect ive as it is, transgress the 
limits of existential ly des igna ted artistic and aesthetic exper ience? I shall re-
turn to this topic in the closing par t of this paper . 
Ill 
In M a r c h 1945 Mer leau-Pon ty held a lecture on the »Cinema and the 
N e w Psychology«, wh ich he ended with an observat ion similar to that m a d e 
in 1954 by Forres t Wi l l iams; it conce rned not Cézanne bu t the cinema: »If 
(...) p h i l o s o p h y and the c i n e m a are in agreement , if reflection and technical 
work go in the s ame di rect ion, this is so because the phi losopher and the 
c i n e m a m a k e r share a cer ta in m a n n e r of being, a certain view of the world 
3,1 In Merleau-Ponty's late writings such - and similar - issues appear obfuscated, such 
as in the following note from October 1959: »[T]o paint, draw, is not to produce 
something from nothing, the trace, the touch of the brush, and the visible work are 
but a trace of a total movement of the Speech, which comes from the total Being and 
this movement embraces expression by strokes, as well as expression by colors, as 
well as my expression and that of other painters.« - Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Le visible 
et I'invisible, Gallimard, Paris 1964, p. 265. 
36 Ibid., pp. 250-251. 
3 7 Robert Burch, »On the Topic of Art and Truth«, in Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, p. 
367. 
Aleš Erjavec 
which is that of the same genera t ion .« 3 8 T h e »new psychology« f r o m the title 
of the lecture is equal, or essentially re la ted , to Mer l eau -Pon ty ' s own phi lo-
sophical work, for in his early work b o t h psycho logy and ph i l o sophy consti-
tute the same phenomeno logy . T h e »ph i losopher« m e n t i o n e d at the e n d is 
therefore Mer leau-Ponty the phenome-no log i s t w h o f inds congenia l i ty wi th 
Cézanne, Matisse, Paul Klee or Rod in whose works exp l emp l i fy in the high-
est degree his views on percept ion , with this pe r cep t i on b e i n g our v e n u e into 
the lived world of which we are an indissociable organic par t . 
W h a t the art of these artists has in c o m m o n with the c i n e m a is tha t n o w 
they bo th represent traditional art forms. T h e c i n e m a t o d a y is one of the ve ry 
few art fo rms that retains its technical ly and ontological ly dist inct status, jus t 
as does classical sculpture and easel pa in t ing . M u c h of visual art or visual 
culture today is incessantly disrupt ing our es tabl i shed no t ions of art, l imit ing 
the unreserved ascription of the status of »art« p r imar i ly to the art of the pre-
modern is t and modernis t per iod. In such art it is n o t difficult to d iscover the 
existential at tr ibutes perceived and descr ibed by Mer l eau -Pon ty in paint ings , 
sculptures or even c inema. In m o d e r n i s m a n d h igh m o d e r n i s m the seen -
al though in certain cases criticized or o p p o s e d , as in D u c h a m p or concep tua l 
art - is not yet problemat ic . »Anti-ocular« d iscourse is only e m e r g i n g and 
Merleau-Ponty 's »celebration of vision«, suppor ted with concrete psychological 
analyses and exper iments , is a he lpfu l t heo ry which at tracts and inf luences 
aestheticians and phi losophers as well as pa in te rs and sculptors . His theory in 
this respect shares the special place p h e n o m e n o l o g y in genera l and existen-
tial phenomeno logy in part icular occupies unti l the a d v e n t of s t ructura l ism, 
for the existential p h e n o m e n o l o g y in par t icu lar no t only views art as an ex-
emplary but also as a privi leged e rup t ion of au thent ic i ty in the m o d e r n tech-
nological wor ld . 3 9 It hence answers to a d e e p e r n e e d of artists and their pub-
lic for a discourse that pays at tent ion to wha t could be called the »specificity 
of art«: it assigns to art works either a cent ra l ontological posi t ion or an inde-
penden t ontological status - a des ignat ion of a p a r a m o u n t i m p o r t a n c e in a 
century of ideological master narra t ives . P h e n o m e n o l o g y f u r t h e r m o r e ac-
knowledges the in terchanging role of expe r i ence and ta lent , the in te rp lay 
between consciousness and subconsciousness and the dr i f t ings of the m i n d 
between the future, the past, the present and fantasy, the latter be ing conf la ted 
3 8 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, »Le cinéma et la nouvelle psychologie«, Sens et non-sens, p. 
75. 
3 9 A similar position, but emerging from a very different background, is that of Adorno, 
Marcuse and the line of defenders of avant-garde and neo-avant-garde art in post-war 
Germany, who all view art as a unique locus of authenticity in an otherwise 
commodified world. 
36 
Seeing, Painting and Art 
in Mer l eau -Pon ty ' s no t ion of the static »Being«. The locat ion of this »primor-
dial« e x c h a n g e is wha t is n o w usually descr ibed as the doma in of the Imagi-
nary , a d is t inct ion which effectively relegated the whole realm of art to this 
d o m a i n . A good e x a m p l e of percep t ion that Mer leau-Ponty has in mind and 
on which he bases the pr ivi leged status of paint ing, is an example he offers in 
»Eye and Mind« : » W h e n th rough the water 's thickness I see the tiled bo t tom 
of the pool , I do no t see it despite the water and the reflections; I see it th rough 
t h e m and because of t hem. If there were no distortions, no ripples of sunlight, 
if it were wi thou t that f lesh that I saw the geometry of the tiles, then I would 
cease to see it as it is and whe re it is - which is to say, beyond any identical, 
specific p lace .« 4 0 It is such scenes that the painter paints and unders tands 
b e n e a t h the words depth, space and color, continues Mer leau-Ponty . H o w to 
cap tu re such a vivid p resen ta t ion with theoret ical not ions? It is obvious that 
the only possibil i ty o p e n to us is to emula te the very na ture of such an image, 
that is to say, r ender it poetically, »lyrically«, non-theoretically, in short, proving 
by this very ges ture Mer leau-Ponty ' s thesis about the totalizing nature of our 
expe r i ence and showing tha t the cogito can never exist within the same re-
flective f r a m e w o r k as the perceptual experience just offered by Merleau-Ponty. 
T h e oppos i t ion to a pure ly scientific descr ipt ion of this view draws him into a 
de fense of art and into an at tack on the Cartesian t radi t ion which would see 
in the above scene the re f rac t ion of light as the only re levant aspect. 
It was the adven t of Der r ida ' s criticism of an ahistorical »presence«, on 
w h i c h h i n g e d p h e n o m e n o l o g i c a l t radi t ion, and of psychoanalys is , which 
decons t ruc t ed the rela t ively stable t ranscendenta l na ture of noemat ic reflec-
t ion, which signalled the decl ine of phenomeno logy and its privileging of art, 
b e it p o e t r y or pa in t ing . As men t ioned , Mer leau-Ponty ' s p h e n o m e n o l o g y 
con ta ined an inbui l t self-destruct ing mechan i sm which emerged only slowly 
f r o m his ear ly works wh ich offered an insightful analysis of percept ion and 
def ic iencies of its past theor ies (and somet imes practices). It is only later, and 
especial ly in the p o s t h u m o u s works, that the need of clarifying percept ion 
and the o v e r c o m i n g of Car tes ian dualism is replaced with an explicit aim of 
o v e r c o m i n g the split b e t w e e n the authentical ly exper ienced and its philo-
sophical re f lec t ion - b u t wi thout offer ing any historically, socially, empiri-
cally and the re fo re extra-artist ically de te rmined reality as its final aim and, at 
the same t ime, increas ingly reveal ing itself as a pure fo rm of t ranscendental 
ph i losophy . It is to the discourse of ph i losophy that is assigned the difficult 
and yet l imi ted task of e n d o w i n g the direct and primit ive contact with the 
wor ld (as it exis ted be fo re the split into subject and object) with a philosophi-
4 0 Merleau-Ponty, »Eye and Mind«, The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, p. 142. 
37 
Aleš Erjavec 
cal status. »1 found«, writes Mer leau-Ponty in 1952, »in the expe r i ence of the 
perceived wor ld a new type of relat ion b e t w e e n the m i n d [ésprit] a n d t ru th . 
T h e evidence of the perce ived thing lies in its concre te aspect , in the very 
texture of its qualities, and in the equ iva lence a m o n g all its sensible p r o p e r -
ties - which caused Cézanne to say tha t o n e shou ld be able to pa in t even 
odors.«4 1 It appears as if here Mer leau-Pon ty is p r imar i ly c o n c e r n e d with a 
novel app roach to percep t ion . It needs none the les s be m e n t i o n e d tha t this 
pe rcep t ion is first and fo remos t e x p e r i e n c e and tha t t h r o u g h this n o t i o n 
Merleau-Ponty at the same t ime in t roduces p h e n o m e n o l o g y into his d iscourse 
on percept ion, while s imultaneously d is t inguishing himself f r o m Husser l ; for 
the fo rmer exper ience of p h e n o m e n a is an ev ident ly empi r ica l and e m b o d -
ied »experience of the perce ived world« and its p h e n o m e n a , whi le for Husser l 
p h e n o m e n a come »from within the i m m a n e n t h is tory of consc iousness« . 4 2 In 
his late writ ings the phenomenolog ica l analysis of pe rcep t ion , especial ly in 
its relation to painting, is (with a few except ions , such as mos t of the »Eye and 
Mind«, essay) almost wholly replaced by an exis tent ia l p h e n o m e n o l o g y in 
which the author ' s discourse strives to express the unsayab le . 
IV 
Merleau-Ponty ' s p h e n o m e n o l o g y in prac t ice n e v e r d isc la imed the tra-
ditional belief into a unif ied subject; a l though it was n o t cogito, it r e m a i n e d 
t ranscendental ly conceived. T h e p r o b l e m as such could no t really arise wi thin 
such a phi losophical f r amework , since in Mer l eau -Pon ty ' s p h e n o m e n o l o g y 
Husserl 's noemat ic reflect ion, which the f o r m e r who lehea r t ed ly accep ted , 
»remains within the object and, instead of bege t t ing it, br ings to light its fun-
damenta l uni ty«.4 3 T h e p rob l em of the subjec t is h e n c e dissolved in the eter-
nal t ranscendenta l unity of the subject and the object , a uni ty, in Mer leau-
Ponty 's view, so well carried out by pain t ing . It is u p to ph i lo sophy to reveal 
it, br ing this unity to light and continual ly keep our eyes o p e n to it. N o n e t h e -
less, the pe r son perceiving is an empir ica l and an e m b o d i e d subject , w h o 
retains h i s /he r psychological uni ty of the Gestalt. It is h e r e that psychoana ly -
sis s tepped in and deconst ructed the actual t r anscenden ta l ego of Mer leau-
Pontyan p h e n o m e n o l o g y : even if M e r l e a u - P o n t y en thus ias t i ca l ly q u o t e d 
4 1 Quoted in Burch, The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, p. 357. 
4 2 Galen A.Johnson, »Introduction to Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy of Painting«, in The 
Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, p. 8. 
4 3 Merleau-Ponty, »Preface«, Phenomenology of Perception, p. x. 
38 
Seeing, Painting and Art 
C é z a n n e or Klee saying, »Some days I felt that the t rees were looking at me, 
were speak ing to me« , 4 4 J a c q u e s Lacan in terpre ted the relation be tween the 
gaze and the pe rce ived wor ld very differently, arguing in the Four Fundamen-
tal Concepts of Psychoanalysis (Seminar XI), applying the same Sartre 's meta-
p h o r of the voyeu r wh ich Mer leau-Ponty also used, that the gaze and the 
look are in an incessant exchange , causing the subject to be an unstable and 
cont inuous ly decons t ruc t ed and reconst ructed entity and that it is the medi-
at ing role of language , of the Symbolic , which also de te rmines the visible and 
the gaze . 4 5 
Lacan ' s in te rp re ta t ion of the gaze and the look f r o m this 1964 seminar 
has b e e n sub jec ted to i n n u m e r a b l e and divergent interpretat ions. In it Lacan 
gives his d u e to Mer l eau -Pon ty and to his insistence that objects re turn the 
gaze, b u t he ascribes to the object the funct ion of the »look« which imaginarily 
looks at us f r o m the posi t ion of the Other . Lacan fu r t he rmore points out what 
Mer l eau -Pon ty has also insisted upon , that is, that the geometra l space of our 
pe rcep t ion - no t necessar i ly a visual one - differs f rom that of our gaze which 
conceives its specific visual field on the basis of which we perceive the world 
and objects in it. It is for this reason that, as Merleau-Ponty shows on innu-
m e r a b l e occasions , in paint ings the visual field causes Cézanne ' s tables to 
sp read out or curve , or that the painter shows to us the interior of an ashtray, 
a l though no rma l ly it wou ld be invisible to us, etc. The picture, to represent in 
such a way that our visual pe rcep t ion will abide by percep t ion prof fered by 
language , mus t show p re sence through absence, must represent or render it 
visible indirect ly . Mer leau-Pon ty twice 4 6 approvingly cites Cézanne explain-
ing h o w he mus t pa in t a motif f r o m Balzac's novel: not by showing the most 
eye-ca tch ing e l emen t and its traits, but those that sur round it. The invisibility 
thus r e n d e r e d , will b r ing fo r th the »tablecloth white as a layer of fresh-fallen 
snow«. This m a y be the s ame kind of media t ing visibility as that to which 
François C h e n g was re fe r r ing . 4 7 In other words , and as already observed, 
C é z a n n e ' s or R o d i n ' s works (or those of Francis Bacon, for example), reveal 
s imilar »deictic markers« as those that Bryson pointed to in the case of Chi-
nese b rush pain t ing . This similarity points to a changed relation be tween the 
wor ld and the t r anscenden ta l ego than was the one that existed within the 
Car tes ian t radi t ion. In o the r words , the previously men t ioned similarity be-
4 4 Merleau-Ponty, »Eye and Mind«, The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, p. 129. 
45 Cf. also Bryson, Tradition and Desire, pp. 66-67. 
46 Phenomenology of Perception, pp. 197-198; »Cézanne's Doubt«, The Merleau-Ponty Aes-
thetics Reader, p. 66. 
4 7 Cf. above, note 18. 
39 
Aleš Erjavec 
tween Cézanne ' s work and Mer leau-Ponty ' s p h e n o m e n o l o g y reveals a d e e p e r 
similarity be tween the work of some of the key f igures of m o d e r n E u r o p e a n 
art and p h e n o m e n o l o g y to which Bryson ascr ibes »the greates t ma tu r i ty« 4 8 
when it comes to what he calls »the human d imens ion of visuality«. T h e rea-
son for Mer leau-Ponty ' s descript ion of C é z a n n e ' s w o r k in t e rms which so 
much resemble those of Chinese paint ing, is his u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the re la t ion 
between the t ranscendental ego and the wor ld , for they bo th represen t a who le 
which is, at least in this respect , very similar to the Ch inese pe r cep t i on of the 
world and of our own place within it. It t he re fo re appea r s that Bryson could 
well discover examples of art as »material pract ice« a l ready wi th in the m o d -
ern and modern i s t t radi t ion of E u r o p e a n pa in t ing and sculpture . 
It is at this point that I would like to in t roduce the quest ion of authent ic-
ity of seeing. Bryson is correct in stressing the »Wes te rn m y t h of see ing« 4 9 
and its historical construct ion, which were bo th also so forcefu l ly cri t icized 
by Merleau-Ponty. W h a t Bryson finds lacking in Mer l eau -Pon ty is w h a t Lacan 
in t roduced into his analysis of the gaze, n a m e l y the social d i m e n s i o n of see-
ing, the vehicle of which is language. »We can neve r direct ly expe r i ence the 
visual field of another h u m a n being - that m u c h is cer ta in : the only knowl-
edge of ano ther visual field, which we are able to acquire , is that wh ich comes 
th rough description. Such descript ion p roves tha t o thers also see w h a t we see, 
but the defini t ion of what is seen originates, the re fore , no t in the visual field 
itself, but in language: originates outside sight, in the signs of the descr ip t ion 
(...).«so T h e »conscious exper ience ha[s] a strictly individual charac te r , in the 
double sense that it is the exper ience of a s i tuated and da ted individual , and 
that it is itself an exper ience which c a n n o t be r e p r o d u c e d . « 5 1 C o u l d no t the 
desire to achieve a per fec t copy, to ach ieve »the p leasure of recogni t ion« be 
at least par t ly expla ined also by the consc iousness of the impossibi l i ty to 
achieve such an aim? T h e inability to »directly expe r i ence the visual field of 
another h u m a n being« in no way p reven t s ident i f ica t ion and an essential ly 
similar or »shared« exper ience . W h a t I t he re fo re see with m y own eyes is 
even within m y own exper ience a f leet ing event , b u t o n e which can n o n e t h e -
less be, within such an individual or even collective exper i ence , immed ia t e ly 
and eternally recognizable. T h e gaze or the g lance of m y own eyes is deter-
mined by the specific features of sight and our sha red visual history. It is 
within these that our c o m m o n expe r i ence - of pa in t ing , for e x a m p l e - is 
4 8 Bryson, op. cit., p. 65. 
49 Ibid., p. 64. 
50 Ibid., p. 66. 
5 1 Jean-François Lyotard, Phenomenology, State University of New York Press, Albany 
1991, p. 77. 
40 
Seeing, Painting and Art 
pe rhaps , w h e n it comes to m o r e recent art, no t dissimilar to that offered for 
e x a m p l e by C h i n e s e art. If this is true, this signifies some broader c o m m o n 
d e n o m i n a t o r wh ich t ransgresses culturally de te rmined borders . It may be 
t ime, once again, ins tead of seeing differences, to distinguish certain com-
m o n fea tures in art. 
M e r l e a u - P o n t y ' s a ccoun t of pa in t ing leaves one th ing unaccounted for 
and tha t is h o w to establ ish any qualitative relat ionship within the fine arts or 
pa in t ing as such, even w h e n it comes to an individual painter . Since he ig-
nores the his tor ical and the social d imensions of art, the only aesthetic evalu-
at ion poss ible is o n e that is based on existential exper ience of us being one 
with the wor ld . For this reason , and since in his works he mostly talks about 
art e i ther in very genera l t e rms or comment s upon individual artists, mostly 
w h e n they suppor t his p h e n o m e n o l o g y of percep t ion and related philosophi-
cal theses, it wou ld be actually difficult to call his phenomeno logy aesthetics 
in the t radi t ional sense. W e canno t dispute though, that his presentat ion of 
visual and pictor ia l r ep resen ta t ion and percep t ion strongly influenced artists 
and aes thet ic ians ( f rom early Lyotard to Mikel Dufrenne) and that in spite of 
his t heo ry b e i n g ma in ly c o n c e r n e d with art as a means of accentuat ing his 
ph i losoph ica l theses, and his s ta tements about the un ique place of art within 
the l ived wor ld b e i n g p r imar i ly s tatements to be accepted at their face value, 
his t h e o r y r ema ins s t rongly d e p e n d e n t u p o n percept ion of art as a p a r a m o u n t 
e x a m p l e and v e n u e of bege t t ing the consciousness of our place in the world 
and our e m b o d i m e n t there in . But, again, this is done by hypothesizing the 
exis tence of a un i f ied subject - or t ranscendenta l ego - which perceives art. 
Whi le Mer l eau -Pon ty s t rongly admonishes the thesis of classical perspective 
b e i n g the mos t a p p r o p r i a t e one , 5 2 he never theless puts for th the claim that it 
»is none the l e s s poss ible that Cézanne conceived a f o r m of art which, while 
occas ioned by his n e r v o u s condi t ion , is valid for everyone«. 5 3 It remains open 
w h a t weight this s t a t emen t carries and in which ways can it be universalized 
as I suggested above , bu t it does reveal that Mer leau-Ponty had in mind a 
un i f ied subject as a p r o t o t y p e of the perceiving t ranscendenta l ego. Lacanian 
psychoana lys i s t ho rough ly deconst ructs the not ion of such a unified subject. 
O r as J e a n H y p p o l i t e has c o m m e n t e d in Lacan 's seminar in 1954/55 about 
the Gesta l t w h e n discussing Mer leau-Ponty , this is, »basically a phenomenol -
ogy of the imag ina ry in the sense in which we employ the term.« 5 4 No won-
5 2 Cf. The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, p. 86 and above, note 21. 
5 3 »Cezanne's Doubt«, The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, p. 61. 
5 4 Jacques Lacan, Le séminaire II. Le moi dans la théorie de Freud et dans la technique de la 
psychanalyse, Seuil, Paris 1978, p. 100. 
41 
Aleš Erjavec 
der, therefore, that Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological interpretat ion of the 
transcendental ego, in spite of it being conflated with the world in its different 
guises, suffered the same destiny as the notion of art itself, i.e., being pro-
claimed to be a remnant of humanist (and basically ideological - or »ideal-
ist«) way of thinking. 
Does the fact that Merleau-Ponty never at tempted to establish any nor-
mative hierarchy within art which would exceed that which is common to 
existential phenomenology as a whole, represent a deficiency of his philoso-
phy or, to the contrary, a consciousness of the impossibility or obsoleteness 
of such an endeavor? Or does his incessant linkage of the perceptual and the 
artistic (the visually perceived and painting) simply show that art is but a 
special or privileged aspect of the lived world as such? Does the fact that 
Lyotard in his 1971 book Discours, figure at tempted to continue Merleau-Ponty's 
phenomenological presentation of art and of the visible, so as to counter 
Lacan's privileging of the Symbolic at the expense of the Imaginary, but then 
gave up such an endeavor, witness to its impossibility? 
All of these questions require complex answers, all of which are crucial 
not only for a theory of perception, but especially for any contemporary dis-
cussion of art. Authors in other areas have come to the conclusion that some 
of the traditionally »unscientific« and disregarded notions, similar to those of 
art, not only deserve but warrant scrutiny. O n e such notion is that of »love« 
which Kaja Silverman has recently put forth as a notion worth revisiting f rom 
a new perspective, that of idealization. Although art falls within a very differ-
ent category from love, they both are related to the Imaginary and to ideali-
zation. Love has been declared, in various moments of history, to be defunct 
or to be a transient category. It has fur thermore »always seemed to lack re-
spectability as an object of intellectual inquiry - to represent the very quintes-
sence of kitsch.«55 
From our contemporary perspective it may be theoretically valid and 
practically relevant to reexamine the notions of aesthetic and artistic experi-
ence and to reevaluate the notion of art - not as an ontological entity but as a 
part of continued human practice and need. By arguing for such a reintro-
duction of a rather traditional notion I don ' t intend to disclaim distinctions 
and notions introduced primarily by psychoanalysis (and then applied or 
transposed into other realms mainly by various theories of ideology), but 
would like instead to point out that art, and the experience it offers, possess 
an important place in our lived world. While their continuous emergence 
may be contingent, this contingency in no way diminishes their relevance, as 
5 5 Silverman, op. cit., pp. 1-2. 
42 
Seeing, Painting and Art 
the aforement ioned comparisons of Chinese art and that championed by 
Merleau-Ponty show. From this perspective (and this is a perspective deter-
m i n e d also by the »pos tmodern« turn toward art which excludes the 
premodernis t as well as modernist belief into a unified subject) the need to 
reevaluate the Imaginary and reevaluate art as a crucial human activity and 
value appears increasingly warranted. 
43 

Marina Grzinic 
Hysteria: Physical Presence and Juridical Absence & 
AIDS: Physical Absence and Juridical Presence 
Derek Ja rman , Blue (1993) 
In the fo l lowing essay I will examine the terms »presence« and its coun-
te rpa r t »absence« f r o m two perspect ives. 1 First, f rom a historical perspective, 
as historical cons t ruc t ions si tuated within the f r amework of con tempora ry 
discourses, pract ices , and applicat ions. My question is how this b inary pair 
(which has p l ayed one of the key roles in post-structuralist theory) is to be 
conce ived today and to wha t extent it differs f rom that of the 19th century? I 
will a p p r o a c h these b ina ry te rms within the discursive contexts and represen-
tat ional systems of the 19th and 20th century in order to bet ter grasp the roll 
they play, the assumpt ions they have fostered, and the belief systems they 
have con f i rmed . W h a t is i m p o r t a n t is to de te rmine to wha t scope were / a r e 
the represen ta t iona l polit ics of p resence /absence used in the past and present . 
1 Cf. Abigail Solomon-Godeau, »Who is Speaking Thus? Some Questions about Docu-
mentary Photography«, in Lorne Falk and Barbara Fischer (Eds.), The Event Horizon, 
The Coach House Press & Walter Philips Gallery, Banff and Toronto 1985, pp. 195-
196. 
Filozofski vestnik, XVII (2/1996), pp. 45-63. 
Marina Grzinic 
Second, I will app roach the duality of p re sence and absence semiot ical ly , as 
par t of a larger system of visual and rep resen ta t iona l c o m m u n i c a t i o n , as b o t h 
a condui t and an agent of ideologies, as a sign sys tem which conta ins a con-
t ingency of visual and signifying codes which in turn d e t e r m i n e r ecep t ion 
and instrumental i ty. The »aesthetics and poli t ics of p r e s e n c e / a b s e n c e « is (if 
we refer to Victor Burgin) f u n d a m e n t a l l y c o n c e r n e d with the ar t icula t ion of 
representa t ional politics.2 If we are t rying to answer these ques t ions we h a v e 
to ask what is the »real of represen ta t ion«? 3 W e can claim tha t the b i n a r y 
terms of absence /p re sence funct ion to rat i fy and a f f i rm the c o m p l e x ideo-
logical web that, at any m o m e n t in historical t ime, is pe rce ived as real i ty tout 
court. This is also the reason why there is an initial a f o r e m e n t i o n e d r e f e rence 
to semiotics. Accord ing to Ju l ia Kristeva, »what semiot ics had d i scovered is 
the fact that there is a general social law, tha t this law is the symbol ic d imen-
sion which is given in language and that every social pract ice offers a specific 
expression of that law«.4 Kristeva »links semiotics to the social. She calls societal 
law the ' symbol ic ' , which is deeply e m b e d d e d in language ; the task of semi-
otics is to s tudy the various social pract ices wh ich express this social law«.5 
Thus, the func t ion of semiotics is to »establish a h e t e r o g e n e o u s logic of signi-
fying pract ices and locate them by way of their subject in the his tor ical ly 
de te rmined relat ions of product ions« . 6 
To grasp the politics of represen ta t ion of p r e s e n c e / a b s e n c e I will relo-
cate it within the discursive contexts and r ep resen ta t iona l systems of two 
illnesses: hysteria and AIDS, each of these r ep re sen t ing the illness par excel-
lence of a specific century (19th the fo rmer and 20th the latter). These il lnesses 
funct ion, as I in tend to show, not only in re la t ion to the dual i ty of p re sence 
and absence, but m o r e o v e r th rough specif ic ways of their r ep resen ta t iona l 
politics, as a par t of a larger v i sua l -communica t ion and social system. T w o 
other impor t an t implicat ions are presen t in m y decis ion as to why hys ter ia 
and AIDS were chosen. First, I chose hys ter ia because of the associat ion of 
2 This term was suggested by Abigail Solomon-Godeau when she referred to Victor 
Burgin's essays »Looking at Photographs« (1977) and »Photography, Phantasy, Func-
tion« (1980). Cf. Solomon-Godeau, op. cit., p. 197. 
3 Ibid., p. 199. 
4 The Kristeva Reader, Toril Moi (Ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford 1986, p. 25. For 
a helpful account on Kristeva's general approach to semiotic issues, see Heinz Paetzold, 
The Discourse of the Postmodern and the Discourse of the Avant-Garde, Jan van Eyck 
Akademie, Maastricht 1994, pp. 58-70. 
5 Paetzold, op. cit., p. 58; cf. also Julia Kristeva, Pouvoirs de l'horreur. Essai sur l'abjection, 
Editions du Seuil, Paris 1980. 
6 The Kristeva Reader, p. 32. 
46 
Hysteria: Physical Presence andJuridical Absence & A I D S . . . 
this il lness to w o m e n - hyster ia e m b o d i e d the ma ins t r eam male image of a 
w o m a n , 7 while A I D S is over t ly connec ted to another discr iminat ion main-
s t ream image, to tha t of homosexua l s . Both illnesses are used to describe 
fan tasmat ic and marg ina l i zed cor respondences , acknowledging also specific 
his tor ical condi t ions . Second , because of my interest to analyze the binary 
t e rms of p r e s e n c e / a b s e n c e in connec t ion with the way in which these terms 
c o r r e s p o n d with a specif ic represen ta t iona l strategy, one represent ing the 
h u m a n b o d y (i.e. r ep resen ta t ions of historically, gender and class-determined 
bodies) . Hyster ia , the illness of incongruence of image and thought , was rec-
ogn ized as an illness only th rough mak ing visible the w o m a n ' s hysterical 
b o d y . AIDS , the disease par excellence of our times, because of specific repre-
senta t ional t echn iques prac t iced in the media for the general public , coin-
cides with n e w m e d i a technologies , virtual env i ronments a n d / o r cyberspace. 
All of t h e m a p p e a r to be insisting on and fostering the erasure of the body . 
M y thesis is that the mass m e d i a techniques of representa t ions of AIDS are 
fos ter ing the absence of the »real« sick body , similarly to the way con tempo-
ranei ty is fos te r ing the d i s e m b o d i m e n t of the subject within new med ia tech-
nologies . N e v e r or ra re ly is it possible to see film documenta r ies of persons 
suf fer ing f r o m or dy ing of AIDS. This process has gone so far today that one 
of the theoret ica l op t ions of investigation of the politics of representa t ion of 
our p resen t is to f ind ways of put t ing the body back into the picture. 8 
In the last pa r t of this essay I will try to synthesize different interplays 
b e t w e e n p r e s e n c e / a b s e n c e a n d hys te r i a /AIDS by using the semiotic square, 
a t echn ique of discursive analysis deve loped by A . J . Gre imas . T h e semiotic 
square was des igned to disclose the implicat ions inheren t in such b inary rela-
t ionships , thus he lp ing to m a k e explicit the »hidden« meanings which »stabi-
lize« and genera te s ignif icance. 
I. Hysteria: Physical Presence andJuridical Absence 
T h e first pa r t of the title of this essay refers to a formula t ion which ap-
pears in N o r m a n Bryson ' s s tudy The Logic of the Gaze. T h e r e Bryson is inter-
p re t ing the work of T h e o d o r e Gericault , who, in the beg inn ing of the 19th 
cen tu ry (1822-23), s tudied the inf luence of menta l states on the h u m a n face 
7 Cf. Luce Iragaray, This Sex Which is Not One, Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1985. 
8 Cf. N. Katherine Hayles, »Embodied Virtuality: Or How to Put Bodies Back into the 
Picture«, in Mary Anne Moser and Douglas MacLoed (Eds.), Immersed in Technology: 
Art and Virtual Environments, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. &London 1996, p. 4. 
47 
Marina Grzinic 
and bel ieved that the face accurately r evea led the inne r charac te r , par t icu-
larly in demen t i a and in cases of instant dea th . H e m a d e studies of inmates in 
hospitals and institutions for the cr iminal ly insane, whe re he himself spent 
t ime as a pat ient . Bryson claimed that if the historic p u r p o s e of the por t ra i t 
genre is to record a precise social posi t ion, a par t icu lar ins tance of status in 
the h ierarchy of power , then Gericaul t ' s por t ra i t s of insane peop le , f r o m the 
first m o m e n t , exhibi ted a contradic t ion. For Bryson the por t ra i t of the insane 
is, therefore , an impossible object, a ca tegor ica l scandal , since the insane are 
those who h a v e been displaced f r o m any social h i e ra rchy , w h o c a n n o t be 
located on a social map , and whose por t ra i t s consequen t ly c a n n o t be pa in ted . 
Bryson conc luded that Gericaul t fused the categories of pr ivi lege and social 
void, society and asylum, and physical p r e s e n c e and jur id ica l absence . 9 
M a r t i n C h a r c o t ' s p h o t o g r a p h s of t h e h y s t e r i c a l p a t i e n t s t a k e n at 
Salpetriere hospital (1877-80) had the same p u r p o s e . 1 0 Because the under ly-
ing pa thology of hyster ia is invisible, C h a r c o t d o u b t e d tha t hyster ia was a 
disease at all. In contrast to Pierre J a n e t , one of the early explorers of hyster ia 
who bel ieved that paralysis occurred in the hyster ic because he was unab le to 
fo rm an image of his l imbs and the re fo re was u n a b l e to m o v e them, C h a r c o t 
thought that hysterics were unab le to obl i tera te the pre-exis t ing images of 
paralysis. For both , hyster ia was a p r o b l e m of r ep resen ta t ion - the incongru-
ence of image and thought , a disease occas ioned by a p r o b l e m of r epresen ta -
tion. To anchor this mobi le disease C h a r c o t enl is ted the aid of p h o t o g r a p h y . 
With pho tog raphs of the hysterics C h a r c o t a t t e m p t e d to m a k e visible this 
disease that could not be acknowledged excep t t h rough b e h a v i o u r or repre-
sentations. " J u s t like Charcot ' s photographs , Gericaul t ' s previous studies func-
t ioned »as the institution of the subject , in this case of the insane persons , 
within the visible«.1 2 
This institution of the subject within the visible was d o n e accord ing to a 
precisely chosen representa t iona l m o d e of the e p o c h - p h o t o g r a p h y - there-
fore using modes and techniques that o v e r d e t e r m i n e d visibility in a m o r e 
general way within the per iod discussed. T h e categor ies of absence and pres-
ence are therefore in a dual relat ion to the inst i tut ion of the subject within the 
visible. J o a n Copjec points out that hyster ia , an illness of the imagina t ion , 
9 Cf. Norman Bryson, Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze, Yale University Press, 
London and New Haven 1983, p. 143. 
10 Cf.Jo Anna Issak, »Mapping the Imaginary«, in The Event Horizon, p. 137. In this first 
section of my essay I am following and reconsidering Issak's thesis about hysteria 
and representation from her essay »Mapping the Imaginary«. 
11 Ibid., pp. 137-138. 
12 Ibid, p. 139. 
48 
Hysteria: Physical Presence andJuridical Absence & AIDS... 
J e a n Mart in Charcot , »Attitudes Passionelles: Menace« from Iconographie 
photographique de la Salpêtrière, 1877-80. 
t h rea tened knowledge , and in confusing categories of real and unreal illnesses, 
t rue pe r cep t i on and false images, m a d e the physician a potent ial victim of 
t r ickery and decep t ion , cast ing doub t on his senses tha t were the founda t ion 
of his k n o w l e d g e . 1 3 T h e issue therefore was no t only to discover the relat ion 
b e t w e e n r ep resen ta t ions and hysteria, but to use the mos t appropr ia te regime 
of r ep resen ta t ion for this k ind of instaurat ion. 
C h a r c o t w h o was an a d h e r e n t of Gericaul t ' s theories , learned f rom his 
works, such as the Insane Woman, Envy (1822-23), »not how malicious mis-
chief or envy would man i fes t itself on the h u m a n face, bu t what the photo-
g raphs taken at Salpetr iere hospital 50 years after Gericault should look like«.14 
13 Cf. Joan Copjec, »Flavit et Dissipati Sunt«, October 18 (Autumn 1981), p. 23. 
14 Cf. Isaak, op. cit., p. 142. 
49 
Marina Grzinic 
W h e n looking at Gericault 's Envy series, the art h is tor ian G a r d n e r a rgued 
that Gericault 's Insane Women had a pecul ia r h y p n o t i c p o w e r as well as an 
astonishing authentici ty in the presenta t ion of the psychic facts. For G a r d n e r 
The Insane Women are ano ther example of the increas ingly realistic core of 
Romant ic paint ing. The closer the R o m a n t i c invo lved himself wi th na tu re , 
sane or insane, the more clarity he ga ined, thus m o v i n g closer to the »truth«. 
Increasingly, this would m e a n for pa in t ing the opt ical t ru th , as well as t ruth 
with regard to »the way things are«.1 5 W h a t C h a r c o t l e a r n e d f r o m Ger icaul t 
was not the »authenticity in presenta t ion of psychic fact«, b u t the Renais-
sance not ion of the artist who is inst i tut ing the visible wi th in a ra t ional ized 
system of percep tua l codes . 1 6 Pho tog raphy , then be ing theor ized as bo th the 
ou tcome and in the service of posi t ivism - object ive , u n m e d i a t e d , actually 
impr in ted by the light rays of the original f o r m - was the ideal represen ta -
tional m o d e to be used in br inging the disease into a discursive const ruc-
t ion. 1 7 
In summar iz ing Charco t ' s and Ger icaul t ' s me thodo log ie s , I wou ld con-
clude first that a physical presence was no t a ques t ion of au thent ic i ty in the 
presenta t ion of psychic facts, but was, in the 19th century , a process of insti-
tuting the visible within a rat ionalized system of pe rcep tua l codes . In the case 
of Charco t this was a Renaissance no t ion ; of the artist as a quantifier wi thin 
the m e d i u m of pho tography , the latter b e i n g theor ized as b o t h the p r o d u c t of 
and subord ina te to positivism. If the r e f e rence to hys ter ia is u n d e r s t o o d to be 
a bl ind spot in the positivist genealogy of illnesses, then we can theor ize Char -
cot 's a t tempt through the way he tr ied to b r ing someth ing , which prev ious ly 
had not been subject to the rules of visibility, in to the system of »presence« 
and representa t ion . J o A n n a Isaak argues tha t C h a r c o t was do ing this t h r o u g h 
his reference to Renaissance paintings, utilizing Renaissance pe rcep tua l codes, 
such as l inear perspective. Linear perspec t ive was used to facil i tate imper -
sonal object ive statements p roduc ing ident ical m e a n i n g s wi thin all viewers, 
referr ing to the cumulat ive and repea tab le effects . 1 8 It is unnecessa ry to go 
into detail concern ing the Renaissance pe rspec t ive system. H o w e v e r , I would 
like to add, as Isaak implies, that perspect ive was ex t r eme ly useful to Europe -
ans who n e e d e d to develop a visual l anguage of and for the p r o p e r t y of newly 
discovered territories. 
15 Cf. Louise Gardner, Art Through the Ages, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York 1980, 
p. 737. 
16 Cf. Isaak, op. tit., p. 142. 
17 Ibid., p. 139. 
18 Cf. Samuel Edgerton, »The Renaissance Artist as Quantifier«, in Margaret A. Hagen 
(Ed.), The Perception of Pictures, Vol. I., Academic Press, New York 1980, p. 182. 
50 
Hysteria: Physical Presence andJuridical Absence & A I D S . . . 
But this was h a p p e n i n g in the 19th century, so wha t are these processes 
like today? I will m a k e a paral le l be tween the categories of absence /presence 
and d i f fe ren t systems of represen ta t ion with regard to AIDS, the disease par 
excellence of our t ime, a t t empt ing in this way to chart the process of the institu-
t ion of the subjec t wi thin the visible. AIDS also presents the p rob lem of ho-
m o g e n o u s r ep re sen ta t i on and depict ion - the incongruence of both the im-
age and the gaze. In the case of AIDS, in opposi t ion to hysteria, the underly-
ing pa tho logy of the disease is horr ib ly visible, and the whole process of 
representa t ion and visibility therefore operates differently, trying to erase and / 
or concea l the consp icuous na tu re of the disease. The »identification« of the 
specta tor with a sick pe r son or with the AIDS disease is t ransferred to a me-
t o n y m y , whose p u r p o s e is to h ide the presence of the »real« sick body. Those 
pe r sons w h o are affl icted with AIDS are, in general , l is tened to ra ther than 
l o o k e d at. 
A n artistic ar t iculat ion of the above thesis is the feature film Blue di-
rec ted by D e r e k J a r m a n in 1993. For 75 minutes a b lue screen is shown in 
f ron t of the specta tor . It is the sole image throughout the film, which provides 
a canvas for the aud ience , l is tening to evocative words, music and sounds. 
T h e r e are va r ious ways of d isplaying the text in the f i lm: inner speech, 
repet i t ious p r e o c c u p y i n g phrases , or unconscious spoken thoughts . 1 9 But my 
interest he re lies no t in a sociological read ing or re interpreta t ion of the text in 
the f i lm, b u t in the represen ta t iona l system super impos ing and depict ing the 
text in the film on the b lue coloured canvas. 2 0 
In J a r m a n ' s f i lm the insti tution of the subject within the visible is pre-
sented by the d i s e m b o d i e d voice of an ill pe rson who is deliriously speaking 
t h r o u g h o u t the fi lm, ancho r ing the disease into the field of discourse. If we 
m a k e a paral le l b e t w e e n this regime and the one depic t ing hysteria, we can 
state that A I D S is r ep r e sen t ed with the physical absence of an actually sick 
19 The text in the film is about AIDS, about dying from AIDS and the inner feelings of 
a sick person knowing exactly that his/her end is near. On the one hand, Jarman 
develops a strong critique about the hospitalization process of a person suffering 
from AIDS, about the amount of drugs needed to slow down not the disease but the 
process of dying, and, last but not least, about the whole societal system (medical, 
social, legal) which is unfavourable to persons affected by AIDS. On the other hand, 
Jarman meticulously describes the whole personal drama of a sick person, especially 
the loss of vision, of becoming blind: »My retina is a distant planet. I played this 
scenario for the last six years. ... My vision will never come back... The virus rages, I 
have no friends now. I lost the sight... I shall not win the battle with the virus....« -
Citation from the film Blue. 
2 0 Jarman: »1 am helpless. I can't see him. Just the sound. In the pandemonium of the 
image I present you the universe of blue.« - Citation from the film Blue. 
51 
Marina Grzinic 
body, yet with a s t rong request t h rough the text in the f i lm for the jur id ica l 
(judicial) p resence and for the legal r ights in d i f fe ren t sect ions of society wh ich 
are crossing or border ing the sick b o d y . A n o t h e r such e x a m p l e is a main-
stream fi lm about A I D S -Philadelphia (directed by J o n a t h a n D e m m e in 1994). 
In it T o m Hanks por t rays a charac ter w h o is a pa le image of a real A I D S 
patient . In spite of hav ing on the level of p re sen ta t ion the absence of an 
»authentically sick body«, we never the less see, on the o ther h a n d , in this 
particular f i lm a clear fight for a jur id ical p r e sence and for the rights per ta in-
ing to jur id ica l proceedings of the pe r sons inf l ic ted with AIDS, especial ly 
homosexua l s . 2 1 
The b ina ry terms of p resence-absence in re la t ion to the r ep resen ta t ion 
of the b o d y and its social counte rpar t in the jur id ica l system cu lmina te in two 
ways simultaneously: through technological in te rvent ions and discursive prac-
tices. It is possible though, to conceive the re la t ion of a social a rea in wh ich 
the collision of bodies and r ep roduc t ion t echno logy (pho tography , film) takes 
place within the politics of power as it func t ions t h rough the jur id ica l system. 
Such a re la t ion is also that be tween the i n v e n t i o n / d i s c o v e r y of p h o t o g r a p h y 
and the logic of the pho tog raph ' s r eg ime of r ep resen ta t ion and hyster ia , on 
the one side, and the invent ion of n e w technolog ies and m e d i a and its re-
gimes of representa t ion and AIDS, on the o ther . W h a t I am p r o p o s i n g he re is 
not to recupera te some not ion of pu re i nves tmen t of the ca tegory of absence 
and its coun te rpar t - presence , but to out l ine the discursive-visual ter ra in in 
2 1 Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) is a young lawyer with a splendid career in front of 
him, who is suddenly found incompetent by the law firm for which he works. Beckett 
knows that the real reason is him being gay and having AIDS. Beckett decides to 
fight and to defend his professional reputation and through this the rights of other 
gay people with AIDS. Joe Miller (Denzel Washington), a black lawyer of high repu-
tation, at first decides not to take the case because of his personal prejudices against 
people who are gay and HIV positive, but finally accepts the case. One of the most 
striking conclusions of the trial is, resulting from Miller's way of conducting the affair 
in court, that gay people AIDS are submitted to a double process of injustice and that 
the fight for juridical rights in the case of gay people AIDS is, more generally speak-
ing, also a fight for gay rights against society's strong prejudices. 
Joe Miller: »The people with AIDS are submitted to social death which precedes the 
physical death ... What is it all about? ...About our fears of homosexuals.« The judge: 
»Mr. Miller, justice is blind regarding race and sex in this courtroom!« Miller: »But 
your Honor, we are not living in this courtroom.« - Citation from the film Philadel-
phia. 
This specific situation recalls that modernity as a cultural and social project brought 
about the distinction between law and morality. It makes sense to measure the legal 
and political acts of the state against the criteria of morality, but it is not possible to 
conflate them into one sphere. 
52 
Hysteria: Physical Presence andJuridical Absence & A I D S . . . 
which such issues h a v e func t ioned , bo th in the past and in the present . In 
bo th cases the camera , pho tog raphy and film, p roduce representat ions - iconic 
signs - t rans la t ing the actual into the representa t ional with the categories of 
a b s e n c e / p r e s e n c e . T h e m e a n i n g s ascr ibed to the categories of absence and 
p resence , some t imes inconsis tent , a m o r p h o u s and epis temologicaly vague, 
are cons tan t ly in flux, repos i t ioned and reor iented and involve larger dis-
courses which e n g e n d e r t h e m . T h e p h o t o g r a p h s of incarcera ted hysterics 
c o m m i s s i o n e d by Dr . Cha rco t , »prove and demons t ra te the speculative na-
ture and m o r p h o l o g y of hyster ia«. 2 2 T h e success of pho tog raphy as a tech-
no logy for and of image -mak ing in anchor ing the disease had to do precisely 
with its con f i rma to ry aspects. T h e latter enab led pho tog raphy to succeed in 
the r ap id expans ion and assimilat ion within the discourses of knowledge and 
power . This s t ructura l congruence of different viewpoints (the eye of the pho-
tographer , the eye of the camera , and the spectator 's eye) in pho tography 
c o v e r s the qua l i t y of p u r e , b u t d e l u s o r y p r e s e n c e . 2 3 G a r d n e r spoke of 
G e r i c a u l t ' s i n c r e a s i n g l y rea l i s t i c core of r e p r e s e n t a t i o n , tha t is, of the 
obses ional ly in ten t iona l and representa t ional me thods of acquir ing the opti-
cal t ru th , the t ru th of the way things »were«. W h e n Abigail So lomon-Godeau 
is ana lyz ing the m e c h a n i s m s internal to the media appara tus in question -
p h o t o g r a p h y - she claims tha t the most impor t an t is the »reality effect« and 
that »a fu r the r s t ruc tur ing ins tance lies in the perspect ive system of represen-
tat ion buil t into c a m e r a opt ics in pho tography ' s infancy«. 2 4 Model led on the 
classical system of the single poin t monocu la r perspect ive invented in the 
Rena issance , c a m e r a optics were designed to yield an analogous pictorial 
s t ructure . As Abigai l S o l o m o n - G o d e a u argued, natural vision and percept ion 
have no van i sh ing point , are b inocular , wi thout boundar ies , in constant mo-
t ion and m a r k e d by the loss of clarity in the per iphery . T h e camera image, 
like m u c h of Rena i ssance paint ings, offers a static, un i fo rm field in which 
o r thogona l s conve rge at a single vanishing point . 2 5 »The world is no longer 
an ' o p e n and u n b o u n d hor izon ' . Limited by the f raming, l ined up, put at the 
p r o p e r dis tance, the wor ld offers itself up as an object endowed with mean-
ing, an in ten t iona l object , impl ied by and imply ing the action of the 'subject ' 
which sights i t .«2 6 
2 2 Cf. Solomon-Godeau, op. cit., p. 201. 
23 Ibid., pp. 208-209. 
24 Ibid., p. 209. 
25 Ibid. 
2 6 Jean-Louis Baudry, »Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus«, in 
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (Ed.), Apparatus, Tanam Press, New York 1980, p. 26. 
53 
Marina Grzinic 
Fur thermore , if we consider the act of look ing at a p h o t o g r a p h with 
respect to gender or the opera t ions of the p syche - the c o m p l e x acts of pro-
ject ion, voyeur ism, fantasy and desires tha t i n f o r m our seeing, we cannot , as 
Sa lomon-Godeau argued, a b a n d o n the earl ier , i n n o c e n t belief that the cam-
era presents us with visual facts that are s imply »out there« and which we 
now disinterestedly observe and register. W e h a v e to accept that the re are 
ideological effects inhe ren t to the p h o t o g r a p h i c appara tus , a n d that these ef-
fects inf luence relations, scopic c o m m a n d s , and the conf i rma t ion or displace-
m e n t of subject posit ions. 
In conclusion to the first es tabl ished connec t i on b e t w e e n represen ta -
tion, pho tog raphy and hysteria, we can state tha t the fus ion of physical pres-
ence and jur idical absence in the p h o t o g r a p h s of the hyster ics also offers a 
counter-reading. O n the one hand , this specific inst i tut ion of the subject within 
the visible was possible or was the result of the specific ideological m e c h a -
nisms of the optical t ruth intrinsic to the p h o t o g r a p h i c appara tus . O n the 
other hand , this same appara tus r e in fo rced the pos i t ion of ju r id ica l absence 
of the insane person. As Pierre Bourd ieu c o m m e n t e d , discussing the social 
uses of pho tog raphy : »In s tamping p h o t o g r a p h y with the p a t e n t of real ism, 
society does noth ing bu t conf i rm itself in the tautological cer ta inty tha t an 
image of reali ty that conforms to its own rep resen ta t ion of object ivi ty is t ruly 
object ive.« 2 7 
II. AIDS: Physical Absence andJuridical Presence 
I have p resen ted , re fe r r ing to J o A n n a Issak a n d Abiga i l S o l o m o n -
Godeau , the relat ionships be tween the inven t ion and d iscovery of pho tog ra -
phy, hyster ia and the not ions of a b s e n c e / p r e s e n c e as those of physical pres-
ence and jur idical absence. I shall p r o c e e d to the re la t ionships be tween the 
logic of representa t ion of new technologies and m e d i a and the r ep resen ta t ion 
of AIDS. 
T h e persons afflicted with A I D S show hor r ib le visual signs of bod i ly 
deter iorat ion: the disintegration of the skin, sa rcomas , b l indness and the de-
genera t ion of the b o d y as a whole . J a r m a n has i n c o r p o r a t e d into the f i lm his 
personal bl indness, the consequences of h im dy ing of AIDS , dep ic t ing this 
with the b lue canvas; the zero degree of r ep resen ta t ion . J a r m a n m o v e d f r o m 
the disintegration of film structure to tha t of the v iewer ' s sight. T h e inst i tut ion 
2 7 Cited in Rosalind Krauss, »A note on Photography and the Simulacra«, in October 31 
(Winter 1984), p. 57. 
54 
Hysteria: Physical Presence andJuridical Absence & AIDS... 
of the subjec t ill wi th A I D S within the visible is carr ied out by the absence of 
a »truly sick body« . M o r e o v e r , D e r e k J a r m a n not only re fused to reiterate the 
conven t iona l piet ies s u r r o u n d i n g representa t ions of an H I V positive person, 
bu t b r o u g h t to light, p a r a p h r a s i n g Sally Stein, the h idden agendas inscribed 
in the par t icu lar m o d e of represen ta t ion of our culture and t imes.2 8 In the 
f i lm Blue this is ca r r ied out less by the aid of the m e d i u m used - the film, than 
with the strategically inco rpora t ed logic of the visualization of new media 
and of the reg ime of visibility carr ied out by new med ia technologies. 
In the film Blue, J a r m a n successfully conveys the complexi t ies under-
p i n n i n g i n fo rma t ion systems and various subject posit ions with the way in 
which m e a n i n g and ident i t ies are constructed and endlessly re-negotiated. 
Wi th the ins taura t ion of b l indness in the film as the zero degree of represen-
tat ion, J a r m a n subver ts some of the basic paramete rs of the new parad igm of 
visuality p r o d u c e d by the n e w technology and the posi t ion of the eyewitness 
within it. T o d a y all m e t h o d s of p rov ing a s ta tement d e p e n d on technological 
ins t ruments and tools, and the consti tution of scientific »truth« is, to a pro-
f o u n d degree , m e d i a t e d by technology. 2 9 Pragmat ic acceptance of axioms 
and specific m e t h o d s of p roof have entered a variety of sciences. Scientific 
s ta tements have to be e f fec tua ted and are thus decisively media ted by tech-
nology. P ragmat ic pe r fo rmat iv i ty is the pos tmodern sense of t ruth. 3 0 Lyotard 
emphas izes r epea ted ly the increase of scientific knowledge through its me-
diat ion with technology . T h e whole process of seeing through lies in its me-
dia t ion th rough t echno logy . 3 1 
Let m e clarify this process »of seeing through its media t ion through tech-
nology« by r e tu rn ing for a m o m e n t to pho tog raphy - summariz ing its inner 
pr inc ip le by re ly ing on Paul Virilio, despite the fact that he was not referr ing 
to p h o t o g r a p h y : »Every th ing I see is in pr inciple within my reach, at least 
wi thin reach of m y sight, m a r k e d on the m a p of the 'can ' .« 3 2 Pho tography 
enables the e n c o d i n g of a topographica l m e m o r y by establishing a dialectical 
loop b e t w e e n seeing and mapp ing . As Virilio claims, it is possible to speak of 
genera t ions of vision a n d even of visual heredi ty f rom one generat ion to the 
2 8 Cf. Sally Stein, »Making Connections With The Camera: Photography and Social 
Mobility in the Career of Jacob Riis«, in Afterimage, Vol. 10, No. 10, (May 1983), p. 14. 
2 9 Cf. Paetzold, »Lyotard's Definitions of the Postmodern Status of Knowledge«, in 
Paetzold, op. cit., pp. 14-21. 
30 Ibid, p. 16. 
3 1 Cf. Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Univer-
sity of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1984, pp. 42-52. 
3 2 Paul Virilio, Vision Machine, British Film Institute and Indiana University Press, Lon-
don and Bloomington, Indiana 1994, p. 7. 
55 
Marina Grzinic 
next. But, fol lowing Viri l io3 3 the p e r c e p t i o n d e v e l o p e d by n e w m e d i a a n d 
technologies (which is called the »logistics of percept ion«) , des t royed these 
earlier modes of representa t ion p rese rved in the »1 can« of seeing. T h e logis-
tics of percept ion inaugurates the p r o d u c t i o n of a vis ion m a c h i n e and t h o u g h 
the possibility of achieving sightless vision, w h e r e b y the v ideo c a m e r a or 
virtual t echnology would be cont ro l led by a c o m p u t e r . T o d a y n e w m e d i a 
appara tuses (from virtual reality to cyberspace) confe r u p o n us a whole r ange 
of visual prosthet ics which conf ron t us with an eve r -chang ing pos i t ion ing of 
the subject with h i s /her body along with the systematic »produc t ion« of bl ind-
ness, and of the absence of cer tainty (of the n a k e d h u m a n eye) within the 
visibility of our world. As Virilio would say, the bu lk of wha t I see is no 
longer within my reach. W e have to ask ourse lves : W h a t does o n e see w h e n 
one 's eyes, depend ing on such ins t ruments , are r e d u c e d to a state of rigid a n d 
practically invar iable structural immobi l i ty? H o w e v e r , this is only one side of 
the pa rad igm of the new med ia t echnology . O n the o the r side, in the 20th 
century, the sciences are increasingly p e r m e a t e d with t echno logy . »Techno-
logical ins t ruments and appara tuses ho ld a cent ra l role wi thin scientific re-
search processes. These technological tools, howeve r , cost h u g e a m o u n t s of 
money . Consequent ly , the state and poli t ical inst i tut ions func t ion as impor -
tant and decisive media tors in the a c c o m p l i s h m e n t of scientif ic knowledge . 
T h e process of knowledge is increasingly j u d g e d in t e rms of inpu t (quantity) 
and output (quality). Science is l inked to the system of poli t ical power .« 3 4 
The b l indness of the naked h u m a n eye is thus pa radox ica l ly r e in fo rced 
by the g rowing t endency of using increas ingly sophis t ica ted e lec t ronic tech-
nologies, not only in science, but also in the l ead ing ideological a n d repres-
sive state apparatuses , part icular ly wi thin the legal system and the pol ice. 
Virilio is speaking of hyper-real is t r ep resen ta t iona l mode l s wi th in the pol ice 
and legal systems to the extent that h u m a n witnesses are losing their credibi l-
ity: the h u m a n eye no longer r emains an eyewitness . O n the one side of the 
pa rad igm of new m e d i a technology we are wi tness ing the systemat ic p r o d u c -
tion of bl indness , and on the other , the f r igh ten ing hyper - rea l i sm of a sys tem 
of total visibility, which is part icular ly r e in fo rced in legal and pol ice proce-
dures. T h e t endency of the leading scopic r e g i m e of the n e w m e d i a t echnolo-
gies is to p roduce bl indness while, s imul taneous ly , c rea t ing a whole r ange of 
techniques to p roduce the credibili ty of the p r e s e n c e of objects and h u m a n s , 
instead of t rying to demons t ra te their real exis tence. T o d a y this latter process 
can be illustrated by mili tary and esp ionage strategies: »It is m o r e vital to 
3 3 Cf. Ibid., Chapters 1 and 2. 
3 4 Paetzold, op. tit., p. 15. 
56 
Hysteria: Physical Presence andJuridical Absence & AIDS... 
trick the enemy about the virtuality of the missile's passage, about the very 
credibility of its presence, than to confuse him about the reality of its exist-
ence.«3 5 
Main features which are currently produced by new media technology 
(blindness of the natural human eye, hyper-realism in legal and police proce-
dures and the whole range of techniques for producing the credibility of the 
presence of objects, humans, etc.) are strategically incorporated and subverted 
in the film Blue. With the instauration of blindness in the film via the blue 
canvas as the zero degree of representation Jarman emphasizes this duality. 
The absence of the sick body and, last but not least, of any physical body in 
the film, creates the illusion of total disembodiment, and is paradoxically a 
subversive answer to the constant production of disembodiment through new 
technologies. 
The created illusion of disembodiment thus raises the question, which I 
posed in the beginning of this essay, i.e., »how to put bodies back into the 
picture«?3 6 - As juridical presence! The body of the HIV infected person, an 
»object« already lost, is shaped by its very absence. On the other hand, with 
the text heard throughout the film, which is so detailed in existential, medical 
and legal particularities about the postmodern condition of persons suffering 
f rom HIV, a clear demand for the juridical presence and the rights of those 
afflicted with AIDS within the structures of power in contemporary society is 
made. Through this relationship between the logic of representation of new 
technologies and media and the representation of AIDS, it is therefore possi-
ble to elaborate a different logic of representations of absence/presence as 
were previously proposed in the case of hysteria. Instead of physical pres-
ence and juridical absence, physical absence and legal presence is produced. 
Physical absence and legal presence, as proposed by Jarman, subvert the 
logic of a mass-produced simulated presence on the one side, and a mass 
blindness of the »natural« human eye on the other. 
Looking to the binary pair of presence/absence in connection with the 
film Blue and with the new media/virtual environments, it is also possible to 
argue that the common characteristics of emerging technologies and virtual 
environments are the elimination of duration: the collapse of time into real 
time. In the film Blue these characteristics serve as reminders of the dimen-
sion of time, which as Paul Virilio suggests, is under siege by real time tech-
nologies: »They kill 'present ' time by isolating its presence here and now for 
the sake of another commutative space that is no longer composed of our 
3 5 Cf. Virilio, op. cit., pp. 43-44. 
3 6 Cf. Hayles, op. cit., p. 4. 
57 
Marina Grzinic 
' concrete p resence ' in the world , bu t of a 'd iscrete t e lepresence ' whose en igma 
remains fo rever intact.«3 7 
III. The Experiential Reception of the Image 
If a »bounded image is seen f r o m a d is tance (...) it exists un to itself and 
offers a perceptua l exper ience . Images tha t impl ica te the v iewer in s o m e way, 
however , as is the case with interact ive or i m m e r s i v e med ia , a re u n b o u n d e d . 
T h e y require experient ia l cognit ion. T h e lat ter pu ts the critical v iewer in an 
un tenab le posi t ion: one must assimilate an image to c o m p r e h e n d it, yet it 
must also be d ismant led in order to ref lect u p o n it .«3 8 For D r u c k r e y the dis-
cursive opera t ions of the late 20th century i n fo rma t iona l systems as p r o f f e r e d 
through cyberspace are character ized by go ing b e y o n d ident i ty and m e a n i n g 
format ions to p rov ide a catalyst for agency and the re fo re e m p o w e r m e n t . T h e 
creative potent ia l of d i f ferent visual systems is r e p r e s e n t e d th rough an inter-
face or »connect ions«. 3 9 M e a n i n g and p h e n o m e n o l o g y , r ep re sen t a t i on and 
percept ion are merged . T h e m o m e n t of r e a d i n g an image wi th in such a sys-
tem has the effect »not as a navigat ion of the image , bu t of a l ived m o m e n t , so 
that the eff icacy of an image is equal to the expe r i ence of i t«;4 0 thus it is the 
lived m o m e n t of be ing connec ted which is cha rged with possibil i t ies. »It is 
the passion of this lived m o m e n t of connec t ion b e t w e e n the user , pa r t of the 
real world and the control led system of p red ic t ab le o u t c o m e s e n c o d e d into 
the software of the symbolic , accessed t h r o u g h the h a r d w a r e , which offers 
scope for disrupt ive nihilistic behaviour .« 4 1 T h e film Blue i n t roduces these 
questions of the re-examinat ion of the h u m a n b o d y exper ien t ia l i ty in an age 
of virtuality which is concerned with the a p p a r e n t de-mater ia l iza t ion of expe-
rience. Looking in more detail at the r ecep t ion of Blue's b lue canvas , we can 
argue that it is f r amed as a film screen, b u t due to its insistent and s u s p e n d e d 
3 7 Paul Virilio, »The Third Interval: A Critical Transition«, in Verena Andermatt Conley 
(Ed.), Rethinking Technologies, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1993, p. 4. 
3 8 Timothy Druckrey, »The Transient Image«, in A Symposium on the Changing Status of 
the Image, Banff, Canada, November 4 and 5, 1994, quoted in Mary Anne Moser, 
»Introduction«, in Immersed in Technology: Art and Virtual Environments, p. XVIII. 
3 9 I am referring here to Helen Cadwallder's report and evaluation of the presentation 
of Timothy Druckrey's paper »Crash, Crisis, Containment and Cyberia«, at the 5th 
International Conference on Cyberspace, Cyberconf, Madrid, June 1996, in Helen 
Cadwallder, »5th International Conference on Cyberspace«, in Mute, No. 6, London 
1996, p. 4. 
40 Ibid. 
41 Ibid. 
58 
Hysteria: Physical Presence andJuridical Absence & A I D S . . . 
immater ia l i ty , wh ich lasts for m o r e than an hour , the b lue canvas funct ions as 
an immers ive spatial con ta ine r , which slowly forces the viewer into a specific 
interactivi ty, in an immers ion of sight and body . The film confirms Druckrey ' s 
s t a t emen t r ega rd ing the recep t ion of the cinematic image by the viewer that 
has not only the effect of navigat ion by the image, bu t of a lived m o m e n t . 
T h e effect of the image is an exper ience of the encounte r not simply with the 
b lue space, bu t with a p e r s o n who is dying of AIDS, e m b o d i e d th rough his 
p r o p e r exper iant ia l i ty wi th in the b lue canvas in f ront of us. This quest ion can 
be r e p h r a s e d and we can therefore ask how this specific practice of t ex t / 
image re la tes to society? T h e pract ical d imens ion is f o u n d in emphasiz ing the 
pract ical i m p a c t which includes , first and foremost , a s t rengthening of experi-
ence cen te red in pe r sona l subjectivity. T h e r e is a d e m a n d for a »subjectivity« 
which perce ives the cont rad ic t ions within the social b o d y because this sub-
jectivi ty exp lores its o w n desires and drives.4 2 
Impl ica t ions of this shift to the experient ial f rom the perceptual recep-
t ion of the image can be d r a w n f r o m Gianni Vat t imo 's jux tapos ing of Wal te r 
B e n j a m i n a n d Mar t in He idegger . Va t t imo tried to expla in the essence of 
Ben j amin ' s essay »The W o r k of Art in the Age of Mechanica l Reproduc t ion« 
(1936) t h rough He idegge r ' s »The Or ig in of the Work of Art« (1936), empha -
sizing that bo th accen tua te the disorientat ion in the con tempora ry percep-
t ions of ar t as the d i rec t resul t of con tempora ry art works. For Heidegger as 
well as for Ben jamin the essence of technology is the manipula t ion of all 
things. T e c h n o l o g y expresses s imultaneously the comple t ion and the end of 
metaphys ics . Ben jamin as seen through Heidegger , and Heidegger in terpre ted 
via Ben jamin , offers n e w aesthetic concepts that can and will take on the 
chal lenges of a p o s t m o d e r n society which is a society of mass med ia con-
g lomera t ion . B e n j a m i n pu rpo r t ed ly links the exper ience of art within the 
m e d i a society, with the expe r i ence of a »shock«, while Heidegger makes use 
of the t e rm »Stoss« (blow). »Shock« and »Stoss« mi r ro r the urbani te nervous 
and intel lectual f luctuat ions , inconstancies and hypersensit ivity. Vat t imo ar-
gues that in aesthet ics a shift f rom the focus on work to a focus on exper ience 
mus t occu r . 4 3 This is just wha t we are witnessing in the film Blue, J a r m a n ' s 
d i smant l ing of the image , resul t ing in its zero point, causes an over lapping of 
the expe r i ence of a p e r s o n wi th AIDS with the viewer 's exper ience of immer-
sion in the b lue canvas . Ar t offers a privileged posit ion for the exper ience of 
an a l ternat ive count rys ide , of an al ternative wilderness or terrain. 
4 2 Cf. Paetzold, op. cit., p. 63. 
4 3 Cf. Gianni Vattimo, The Transparent Society, Oxford University Press, Cambridge and 
Oxford 1992, p. 58. 
59 
Marina Grzinic 
IV. The Semiotic Square 
In this final section I am using the semiot ic square to r e - examine the 
implicat ions inheren t in b inary pairs by m a k i n g expl ic i t the h i d d e n t e rms 
that help to stabilize mean ing and genera te s ignif icance, and I am, to a large 
extent , re lying on a similar appl icat ion of A. J . Gre imas ' s semiot ic square 
deve loped by N. Kather ine Hayles . 4 4 T h e semiot ic square is a t e chn ique of 
discursive analysis which begins with the choice of a b ina ry pair . P resence 
and absence can fo rm a pai r and the p r i m a r y dual i ty of such a square . T h e 
duality of p resence and absence in the semiot ic square signifies concep t s in 
dynamic interplay with each other ra ther than as i ndependen t ly exist ing terms. 
T h e purpose of choosing the second dual i ty is to de tec t the impl ica t ions con-
tained in the first pair . Since my interest lies in represen ta t ions of the b o d y in 
relation to presence-absence within the jur id ica l ter ra in , I will choose hyste-
ria (its physical presence , jur id ical absence) as the th i rd te rm. T h e fou r th 
te rm is genera ted by taking the negat ive of hyster ia : A I D S (its phys ica l ab-
sence, jur idical presence). 
Since the interplay be tween p resence a n d absence genera tes a specific 
material inscript ion in the social-political con tex t ( through the jur id ica l sys-
tem and o ther apparatuses connec ted with law), the axis connec t ing these 
terms should b e a jur idical (material) inscr ip t ion: 
jur idical (material) inscript ion 
Presence < > Absence 
T h e in terplay be tween hysteria a n d A I D S genera tes d i f fe ren t r epresen-
tational inscriptions, with the axis connec t ing these t e rms f o r m i n g rep resen-
tational regimes: 
representa t iona l regimes 
AIDS < » Hys te r ia 
N o w that both sets of duality are in place , the semiot ic square can be 
used to investigate the implicat ions of the shift f r o m the real effect of pho tog-
raphy to the impact of the virtuality of new m e d i a and t echno logy to d i f fe ren t 
systems of representa t ion , moreover , on to d i f fe ren t ways of inscr ib ing the 
body within the visible and the political context . 
4 4 Cf. N. Katherine Hayles, »Embodied Virtuality: Or How to Put Bodies Back into the 
Picture«, pp. 7-10. 
60 
Hysteria: Physical Presence andJuridical Absence & AIDS... 
These impl ica t ions are m a d e explicit by consider ing the relat ionships 
that connec t d i f fe ren t te rms . 
hyper - rea l 
m u t a t i o n s 
jur id ica l (material) inscription 
P re sence ^ — — — ^ Absence 
f ! \ 
\ 
\ 
\ 
\ / 
/ 
/ 
/ 
I 
r epresen ta t iona l regimes 
/ 
/ 
/ 
/ \ 
\ I 
X I 
s i x 
A I D S < » Hyster ia 
d o c u m e n t a r y 
/ real effect 
T h e d iagonal , connec t ing presence with hysteria, can be labelled »repli-
ca t ion«: 4 5 w h e n p re sence and hyster ia coincide, object and form are uni ted 
wi thou t d i s sonance or separa t ion . This is the rea lm of mimesis , ruled by com-
m o n sense a s sumpt ions a b o u t objects that re ta in their form. T h e diagonal 
connec t ing absence and A I D S can be label led »disrupt ion«. 4 6 Jus t as absence 
d is rupts the a b u n d a n c e of presence , AIDS disrupts the mimesis effect that 
has, until now, b e e n suff icient to anchor the disease within the social field, 
m a k i n g it visible, bu t no t go ing much fur ther than that. T h e vertical axis 
connec t ing absence and hyster ia alludes to the »real« effect of documen ta ry 
p h o t o g r a p h y . W e can label the vertical axis connect ing presence and AIDS 
(as a result of the in te rp lay be tween the axes of juridical mater ia l inscriptions 
with r ep resen ta t iona l regimes) hyper-real mutat ions. W h e n AIDS becomes 
physical ly man i f e s t ed in an image it »disappears«; the image is d i sembodied . 
A I D S is thus capab le of d is rupt ing the establ ished and accepted conformi ty 
of the p h o t o g r a p h i c d o c u m e n t a r y effect of hysteria at any momen t . 
T h e four n o d e s of the semiotic square, according to Hayles, recall the 
four quad ran t s of a Car tes ian g raph which he lp to expla in why the positive 
t e rm of the second pair , hyster ia , is placed on the lower right ra ther than 
lower lef t . 4 7 In Car tes ian grids, the lower right quadran t represents a positive 
x-value c o m b i n e d with the negat ive y-value. W e should recall that hyster ia is 
45 Ibid., p. 9. 
46 Ibid. 
47 Ibid., p. 10. Numerous commentators have pointed this out, including Fredricjameson 
and Shoshana Felman. 
61 
Marina Grzinic 
genera ted by absence of the positive first t e rm - p resence . T h e fou r th te rm, 
AIDS, is p roduced by the negative of the th i rd t e rm, hyster ia , which is al-
ready m a r k e d by negativity. »Thus the four th t e rm represen t s a nega t ion of 
negat ion. Because of this double negat ion , it is the least explici t ly specif ied of 
all the four terms and therefore the mos t p roduc t i ve of new compl ica t ions 
and insights.«4 8 It is f r o m the double (elusive) negat ivi ty of the fou r th t e rm 
that the »new« is likely to emerge , for the fou r th t e rm carries within it the 
most open and critical potent ial i ty . 4 9 
T h e same semiotic square was used by D o n n a H a r a w a y to t ravel to 
Virtual Space: »To get through the ar t i factual to e lsewhere , it wou ld he lp to 
have a little travel mach ine that also func t ions as a m a p « : 5 0 A . J . Gre imas ' s 
»infamous« (Haraway 's term) semiotic square . T h e semiot ic square , so subt le 
in the hands of Frederic J a m e s o n , was used in a m o r e rigid and li teral way in 
her essay jus t to keep four spaces in d i f ferent ia l and re la t ional separa t ion , 
while she exp lo red h o w cer ta in l o c a l / g l o b a l s t ruggles for m e a n i n g s a n d 
e m b o d i m e n t s of na ture occur within t h e m . T h e four reg ions t h r o u g h which 
Ha raway m o v e d were: (A) Real Space or Ea r th ; (B) O u t e r Space or the Extra-
terrestrial; (not-B) Inner Space or the Body; and finally, (not - A ) Vi r tua l Space 
or the SF wor ld . 5 1 Vir tua l Space takes the s ame pos i t ion as A I D S in m y 
semiotic square . 
W h a t can we learn f r o m such an app l ica t ion of the semiot ic square? It 
schematical ly shows possible relat ions tha t can e m e r g e w h e n the jur id ica l 
realm and representa t ion inf luence each o ther , thus p rov id ing a theore t ica l 
f r amework in which such apparen t ly d iverse ideas can be u n d e r s t o o d as dif-
fe rent manifes ta t ions of the same u n d e r l y i n g p h e n o m e n a . T h e devas ta t ing 
effects this interplay be tween A I D S a n d p re sence wi th in the r ea lm of repre-
sentation can have on tradit ional concepts of ident i ty appea r s in d i f fe ren t 
modes , one of them be ing that the physical durabi l i ty of the b o d y is just an 
illusion. O n the one hand , the specific inst i tut ion of the subject within the 
visible established in hyster ia was possible or at least was the result of a spe-
cific ideological mechan i sm of the opt ical »truth« which is intr insic to the 
pho tograph ic apparatus . O n the o ther h a n d , this same appa ra tus r e in fo rced 
the posit ion of juridical absence of the insane pe r son . T h e d i s rup t ion of the 
48 Ibid. 
4 9 Cf. Ibid. 
5 " Cf. Donna Haraway, »The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inap-
propriate/d Others«, in Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson and Paula A. Treichler 
(Eds.), Cultural Studies, Routledge, New York and London 1992, p. 304. 
5 1 Cf. Haraway, op. tit., p. 305. See also Fredric Jameson, The Prison-House of Language, 
Princeton University Press, Princeton 1972. 
62 
Hysteria: Physical Presence andJuridical Absence & A I D S . . . 
visibility of hysteria by AIDS is therefore as inevitable as the linkage of AIDS 
with death. 
No person in the film Blue, including the narrator, is seen on screen. As 
viewers we are eavesdroppers on a one-sided conversation from a place and 
person totally outside the depicted fictitious space of the film, a space both 
familiar and alien to that occupied by the audience. The viewer's initial 
jouissance or sense of wholeness is disrupted when it becomes evident that the 
camera, not the viewer, controls the gaze. In the film Blue, this is happening 
from the first moment . Throughout the film we are waiting for the point of 
subversion, for the unmasking by the camera - but only the colour blue re-
mains there. Thus the highlighting of the information which the camera con-
trols causes intense displeasure for the viewer. The narrative authority, often 
signified by the soundtrack of a voice-over, is displaced from its naturalized 
associations to the Other by a radical dispersion of narrative space. This radi-
cal decentralization of the narrative space is produced by the absence of a 
visible physical presence. In a traditional narrative form the speaker would 
most likely be shown. The film Blue forces the viewer to ask »who is speak-
ing« and dismantles traditional hegemonic narrative structures. The speaker, 
of whom the film is about, does not emerge as a subject, but is referred to 
indirectly, and is therefore present by his absence, existing as a void in the 
text. Maybe this alternating identification is what Ja rman was implying with 
Blue's extreme immersion into discursivity, which allows people afflicted with 
AIDS not only to be represented, but also to be the ones who will participate 
in the production and articulation and of new meanings concerning their 
own condition. 
63 

Martín Jay 
Must Justice Be Blind? 
The Challenge of Images to the Law 
Allegorical images of Jus t ice , historians of iconography tell us,1 did not 
a lways cover the eyes of the goddess , Just i t ia . In its earliest R o m a n incarna-
tions, p r e s e r v e d on the coins of Tiber ius ' reign, the w o m a n with the sword in 
one h a n d , r ep re sen t ing the power of the state, and the scales in the other, 
de r ived f r o m the we igh ing of souls in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, 2 was 
dep ic t ed as c lear-s ightedly cons ider ing the meri ts of the cases before her (fig. 
1). Med ieva l images of just ice based on figures of Christ , St. Michael, or secu-
Fig. 1: Roman coins 
dedicated to Justice 
and Impartiality. 
Justitia 's sword is not 
yet in place in these 
images, which show 
r b , 'v. - her with a staff > 'V) i ) \ 9 * instead. 
| ¡k ' ' ; ff í>\ (1) Dupondius of 
r : i J J y r 0 I Tiberius (22-23); 
?Ml t >} / (2) Dupondius of L ç ^ V Vespasian (77-78); 
(3) Aureus of Marcus 
Aurelius (168) 
1 O. E. von Möller, »Die Augenbinde der Justitia,« Zeitschrift für christliche Kunst, 18 
(1905), pp. 107-122, 141-152; Otto R. Kissel, Die Justitia: Reflexionen über ein Symbol und 
seine Darstellung in der bildenden Kunst, Beck, Munich 1984; Dennis E. Curtis andjudith 
Resnik, »Images of Justice,« Yale Law Journal, 1727 (1987); Christian-Nils Robert, La 
justice, vertu, courtisane et bourreau, Georg, Geneva 1993; Robert Jacob, Images de la 
justice: Essai sur l'iconographie judiciaire du Moyen Age à l'âge classique, Léopard d'or, 
Paris 1994. 
- Herman Bianchi, »The Scales of Justice as Represented in Engravings, Emblems, 
Reliefs and Sculptures in Early Modem Europe,« in G. Lamoine (Ed.), Images et 
representation de la justice du XVie au XIXe siècle, University of Toulouse-Le Mirail, Tou-
louse, 13, p. 8. 
Filozofski vestnik, XVII (2/1996), pp. 65-81. 
Martin Jay 
lar rulers likewise p rov ided them with the abili ty to m a k e their j u d g m e n t s on 
the basis of visual evidence {fig. 2). 
Fig. 2: The eruption of Justice in imaginary causes. T h e trial of Satan and 
the queen Ratio. The book of the king Modus and of the queen Ratio. 
But suddenly at the end of the 15th cen tury , a b l indfo ld b e g a n to be 
placed over the goddess 's eyes, p r o d u c i n g wha t has r ight ly b e e n called »the 
most enigmatic of the at tr ibutes of Jus t ice .« 3 Pe rhaps the earl iest image show-
ing the change is a 1494 wood engrav ing of a Fool cove r ing the eyes of Ju s -
tice, il lustrating Sebastian Brant 's Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools], which was rap-
idly r ep roduced in translat ions t h roughou t E u r o p e (fig. 3). Initially, as this 
engraving suggests, the b l indfold implies that Jus t i ce has b e e n r o b b e d of he r 
ability to get things straight, unable to wield he r sword effect ively or see wha t 
is ba lanced on her scales. O t h e r med ieva l and Rena i s sance al legories of oc-
3 Robert, La Justice, p. 13. 
66 
Must Justice Be Blind? The Challenge of Images to the Law 
j j j p e e Uti$am on pfeffiopans 
c?H>igcwcni* % * g\i? tiAfli 
Fig. 3: The fool ties the eyes of Justice. S. Brant, La nef desfolzdu monde; 
French transl., Lyon 1497. 
67 
Martin Jay 
e luded vision, such as those of Dea th , 
A m b i t i o n , C u p i d i t y , I g n o r a n c e o r 
Anger , were , in fact, u n i f o r m l y nega-
tive. T h e f igure of the n u d e child Cu-
pid , as Erwin Panofsky p o i n t e d out 
m a n y years ago, was dep ic t ed b l ind-
f o l d e d n o t m e r e l y b e c a u s e l o v e 
c louds j u d g m e n t , b u t also b e c a u s e 
»he was on t h e w r o n g s ide of t h e 
m o r a l wor ld .« 4 
By 1530, howeve r , this satirical 
i m p l i c a t i o n s e e m s to h a v e lost its 
p o w e r and the b l indfo ld was t rans-
f o r m e d ins t ead into a pos i t ive em-
b l e m of impar t ia l i ty and equal i ty be-
fore the law. P e r h a p s because of tra-
di t ions t r ansmi t t ed by P lu ta rch and 
D i o d o r e of Sicily f r o m anc ien t Egyp t 
tha t h a d dep ic t ed j udges as b l ind or 
h a n d l e s s , t h e b l i n d f o l d , l i ke t h e 
scales, came to imply neutral i ty ra ther 
t han helplessness . A c c o r d i n g to the 
F r e n c h scho la r R o b e r t J a c o b , 0 t he 
exp lana t ion m a y also have someth ing 
to do with the r eve r sa l of f o r t u n e s 
e x p e r i e n c e d b y the s y m b o l of t h e 
Synagogue in med ieva l Chr is t ian ico-
n o g r a p h y . T r a d i t i o n a l l y s h o w n as 
b l i nd fo lded - as well as wi th a bro-
Fig. 4: T h e Synagogue with the 
b roken lance and tied eyes. A 
sculpture of the Strasbourg Cathe-
dral, XHI th Century . 
4 Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: Humanist Themes in the Art of the Renaissance, Harper 
^ and Row, New York 1967, p. 109. 
5 Jacob, Images de la Justice, p. 234f. 
68 
Must Justice Be Blind? The Challenge of Images to the Law 
ken lance - to symbol ize he r resistance to the i l lumination of divine light, the 
Synagogue was nega t ive ly cont ras ted with the open-eyed Church as in the 
f a m o u s ear ly fou r t een th -cen tu ry statue on the south gate of Strasbourg Ca-
thedra l [fig. 4). 
W h a t h a d b e e n a sign of inferiori ty was, however , dramatical ly reversed 
w h e n the i c o n o p h o b i c R e f o r m a t i o n took seriously the H e b r e w interdict ion 
of images , the s e c o n d of the C o m m a n d m e n t s Moses b rough t down f rom 
M o u n t Sinai. N o w it was once again a virtue to resist wha t August ine had 
f amous ly called the »lust of the eyes.« A bl indfolded justice could thus avoid 
the seduc t ions of images and achieve the necessary dispassionate distance to 
r ende r verdicts impart ial ly , an a rgument advanced as early as the jurist Andrea 
Alciat i 's inf luent ia l c o m p e n d i u m of emblems, the Emblemata of 5 3 1 A c -
co rd ing to Chr is t ian-Ni ls Rober t , this impart ial i ty was requi red by the new 
u r b a n , secular , bourgeo i s cul ture of the early m o d e r n per iod, which left be-
h ind the pe r sona l i sm of pr ivate , feudal justice. It was not by chance that 
m a n y statues or foun ta ins of b l indfo lded Just i t ia were p laced in town squares 
in N o r t h e r n E u r o p e nex t to newly erected civic buildings, in which a nascent 
publ ic sphe re was in the process of emerg ing . ' Even in Catholic countries 
like France , w h e r e chu rches r ema ined f looded with images, secular edifices 
b e g a n to g row m o r e austere . 
T h e law was n o w to be presented entirely in language and justice dis-
p e n s e d only th rough language, necessitating discussion and persuasion, rather 
than appea r ing in images, which might overwhelm through dazzlement. Along 
with the iconoclastic puri f icat ion of cour t rooms of their artworks and lawbooks 
of t h e i r i l l u s t r a t i o n s , at l eas t in c o u n t r i e s i n f l u e n c e d by R e f o r m a t i o n 
i c o n o p h o b i a , went the f r e q u e n t rob ing of judges in sober black and white 
and the r e p l a c e m e n t of colorful seals by simple signatures on legal docu-
men t s . 8 N o longer would signs f rom heaven , like those in forming medieval 
ordeals , be suff icient ; n o w the words of m e n giving tes t imony about what 
they knew or h a d wi tnessed and then arguing about wha t rule might be vio-
lated would in mos t ins tances suffice. Al though it is t rue that law was to be 
increas ingly codi f ied and p rese rved in writ ten form, which has been inter-
p re t ed by some as ref lec t ing the m o d e r n privileging of sight because of its 
(l Andrea Alciati, Emblemata cum Commentariis, Garland, New York 1976. 
7 Robert, La Justice, p. 37f. 
8 Bernard J . Hibbitts, »Making Sense of Metaphors: Visuality, Aurality, and the 
Reconfiguration of American Legal Discourse,« Cardozo Law Review, 16, 2 (Decem-
ber, 1994), p. 255-56. He interprets these changes in terms of the growing ascendancy 
of an abstract, Cartesian visuality over the more concrete variant that reigned in the 
Middle Ages. 
69 
Martin Jay 
f requent use of visual metaphors , 9 the non -h i e rog lyph ic script of W e s t e r n 
languages mean t that visual revelat ions of the t ru th , i l lumina t ions of d iv ine 
will, were no longer re levant to the dec i s ion-making process . A l o n g with the 
invisible »hidden God« of the Jansenis ts , w h o increas ingly left the wor ld to its 
own devices, went a justice that appl ied genera l ru les and n o r m s r a the r t han 
looked for indications of divine d ispensat ion . As wi th the later p roh ib i t i on of 
laws referr ing to specific peop le with p r o p e r names , f amous ly b a n n e d in the 
Amer ican Const i tut ion as »bills of a t ta inder ,« so too the in te rd ic t ion on im-
ages was designed to thwart favori t ism or pe r sona l vengeance . W i t h the b l ind-
folding of Justi t ia, we are well a long the r o a d to the m o d e r n cult of the ab-
stract n o r m in juridical positivism. 
* 
If that road is paved with the p roh ib i t ion of concre te images , we h a v e to 
ask, however , whether or not bu i ld ing it h a d h i d d e n costs, wh ich we m a y still 
be paying today. In what follows, it is precise ly this ques t ion that will occupy 
us. O n e place to begin an answer wou ld be M a x H o r k h e i m e r and T h e o d o r 
Adorno ' s celebrated accusat ion in the Dialectic of Enlightenment tha t the m o d -
ern not ion of justice was still beho lden to a m y t h i c a s sumpt ion : the fetish of 
equivalence, the desire for perfec t commensurab i l i t y , the d o m i n a t i o n of the 
exchange pr inciple : 
For mythic and enlightened justice, guilt and atonement, happiness and un-
happiness were sides of an equation. Justice is subsumed in law...The blind-
fold over Justitia's eyes does not only mean there should be no assault on 
justice, but that justice does not originate in freedom.10 
Unexpec ted ly , in the light of the F r a n k f u r t Schoo l ' s o f t e n - r e m a r k e d 
embrace of the Jewish taboo on idola t rous images as a m a r k of res is tance to a 
p remature ly positive Utopian thought , H o r k h e i m e r and A d o r n o he re register 
a protest against the comple te b a n i s h m e n t of images . T h e p rese rva t ion of the 
ability to see they cryptically associate wi th f r e e d o m , a f r e e d o m that is threat-
ened when justice is r educed to law. W h a t , it has to be asked, is this f r e e d o m 
9 Ibid., p. 241. Hibbitts, however, acknowledges that in the early modern period, when 
most people were still illiterate, texts were meant mainly to be read aloud rather than 
silently (p. 256). 
Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. John 
Cumming, Continuum, New York 1972, p. 16-17. 
70 
Must Justice Be Blind? The Challenge of Images to the Law 
which the b l i nd fo ld ing o f j u s t i t i a denies? H o w does the reduct ion of justice to 
law th rea t en its ve ry exis tence? 
O n e e x p l a n a t i o n is suggested by the famous a rgumen t deve loped by 
Lessing in his classical t reaty on aesthetics, Laocoon, in favor of the Greek 
regula t ion of images , an a r g u m e n t d rawing the critical at tention of W.J.T. 
Mitchel l in his inf luent ia l s tudy of images, texts and ideologies, Iconology.n 
A c c o r d i n g to Lessing, images should be kept under legal control because of 
the i r capaci ty to dep ic t mons te rs , those indecorous amalgams of the h u m a n 
and divine or the h u m a n a n d the bestial that are a scandal to the alleged 
o r d e r of na tu re . Mitchel l in te rpre ts Lessing's i conophob ia as symptomat ic of 
an anxie ty over p r o p e r sex roles and adul terous fantasies, but it might be just 
as p laus ible to see it as a fear of b o u n d a r y transgression in general , especially 
the b o u n d a r i e s that de f ine and circumscribe our bodies. Lessing's visual mon-
sters are an a f f ron t to the law because they depar t f r o m the assumption that 
the b o u n d a r i e d ca tegor ies we use to order the world are ones under which all 
its par t icu lars can be subsumed . The image of a hybr id ized creature, at once 
m a n and beast , d iv ine and h u m a n , male and female, confounds our rel iance 
on concep tua l s u b s u m p t i o n by refus ing to be an exempla r of a general rule. 
T h e f r e e d o m of which H o r k h e i m e r and Adorno speak is thus the ability 
of the par t icu lar , the un ique , the incommensurab le , the imprope r to escape 
f r o m the d o m i n a t i n g p o w e r of the exchange pr inciple that is manifes ted in 
universa l iz ing concep t s and in the reduc t ion of just ice to the law of equiva-
lents. T h e eye, by far the mos t discr iminat ing of the senses in its ability to 
regis ter m i n u t e d i f fe rences , mus t therefore be closed to p roduce this reduc-
tion. Jus t i t ia ' s vision is vei led so that she is able to mainta in the fiction that 
each j u d g m e n t b e f o r e he r can be unde r s tood as no th ing more than a »case« 
of s o m e t h i n g m o r e genera l , equivalent to other like cases, and subsumable 
u n d e r a gene ra l p r inc ip le tha t need only be applied wi thout regard for indi-
v idual un iqueness . T h a t genera l pr inciple is under s tood to hover somewhere 
above specific cases, reca l l ing the origin of the word justice in the Latin iubeo 
(to c o m m a n d ) . This is a vers ion of justice, as Vassilis Lambropou los has re-
cent ly po in t ed out, that can be under s tood as »the r ight command , the com-
m a n d that r ight ful ly deserves obedience . W h a t is right is what is decreed as 
straight, the line of the ruler and the regime direct ing f r o m above, the regal 
control , the re ign of the s u p r e m e direction.. . . 'Justice' comes f rom above, f rom 
the r ea lm of cer ta in ty .« 1 2 It is thus unlike the Greek not ion of Dike, which in 
11 W.J. T. Mitchell, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology, University of Chicago, Chicago 1986, 
p. 10 8f. 
12 Vassilis Lambropoulos, »The Rule of Justice,« Thesis Eleven, 40 (1995), p. 18. 
71 
Martin Jay 
certain of its acceptat ions involved a dynamic , po l emica l ba l ance b e t w e e n 
contraries, an agonistic ethos based on p r o p o r t i o n and ana logy tha t cou ld no t 
be subsumed under a single nomos or l aw. 1 3 
It will doubtless have occur red to m a n y of you tha t ach iev ing this effect 
of regal control required no t mere ly a b l indfo ld , bu t also one p laced over the 
eyes of a specifically female deity. Gran t ed , as Chr is t ian-Ni ls R o b e r t has ar-
gued, 1 4 Jus t i t ia may be a somewhat a n d r o g y n o u s f igure , at least to the ex ten t 
that she wields a power fu l symbol of coerc ive au thor i ty , a sword fit for swift 
decapitat ions. Tradi t ional religious i c o n o g r a p h y had , in fact, p e r m i t t e d its 
use only inf requent ly to women , the mos t no t ab l e ins tance b e i n g J u d i t h , the 
slayer of Holofe rnes , in the Old Tes t amen t . T h e s tern and vague ly m e n a c i n g 
statues of Just i t ia in f ront of the Palaces of Jus t i ce in ear ly m o d e r n E u r o p e 
were certainly a far cry f r o m the ma te rna l images of the forgiving, m e d i a t i n g 
M a d o n n a that popula ted so m a n y med ieva l churches . N o r were they remi-
niscent of so m a n y sainted, suffering f ema le mar ty rs , whose assigned role was 
that of passive victim bear ing witness to their faith, even if one migh t de tec t a 
certain symmetry be tween the b l ind fo lded c r imina l c o n d e m n e d to die and 
the image of b l indfo lded execut ioner . 1 5 As a result , Jus t i t i a m a y p laus ib ly be 
in terpreted as a symbol of the very t e m p o r a l power , f i rmly in m a l e hands , 
that sought to displace the spiritual p o w e r that h a d acc rued to the cult of 
Mary in the late Midd le Ages. Neo-classical images with mar t ia l ove r tones 
were, after all, the source of this al legory, no t rel igious ones. 
And yet, it must be acknowledged tha t b l i nd fo lded Just i t ia , with all of 
her warlike attributes, was still p r imar i ly a f ema le f igure, as h a d b e e n the 
Egyptian Maa t (not only the Goddess of just ice , b u t also of t ru th and order) 
and the Greek Dike, who was the daugh te r of Zeus . Ma le images of d iv ine 
justice, such as that of G o d at the Last J u d g m e n t or St. Michae l , had no t b e e n 
preven ted f r o m exercising the power of vis ion. S o l o m o n famous ly could see 
how the two contest ing mothers felt abou t the d iv id ing of the chi ld they bo th 
claimed as their own. W h a t was the impl ica t ion of p r e v e n t i n g a f emale j u d g e 
f rom seeing? W h a t power might still be lurking b e n e a t h he r b l indfo ld , which , 
after all, does not pe rmanen t ly rob the Goddes s of he r sight? 
W h a t that power may be is suggested by the t radi t ional r e a d i n g of an-
other image f rom a slightly later e r a , J an V e r m e e r ' s » W o m a n Weigh ing Pearls« 
13 See the entry on Dike in F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon, 
New York 1967. For more sustained discussions, see Eric Havelock, The Greek Concept 
of Justice: From Its Shadow in Homer to its Substance in Plato, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard 
1978; Michael Gagarin, Early Greek Law, University of California, Berkeley 1986. 
14 Robert, La Justice, p. 65f. 
1 For a comparison, see Robert, La Justice, p. 92. 
72 
Must Justice Be Blind? The Challenge of Images to the Law 
of 1662-1663 (fig. 5). Dep ic ted in f ront of a picture of the Last J u d g m e n t , 
t hough t to be by Corne l i sz Enhe lbreech t , the woman with the delicate scales 
in he r h a n d s appea r s to be looking soberly and carefully at the individual 
pear ls in each tray, as if she were contempla t ive ly ponde r ing their part icular 
value. O r at least so the t radi t ional in terpre ta t ion of the canvas has assumed. 
W h e t h e r or not she is actually doing so is a question to which I will re turn 
short ly. But wha teve r the target of her gaze, there is no trace of j udgmen ta l 
ha rshness or v indic t iveness in her visage; indeed these seem to be traits that 
the blissfully serene V e r m e e r was simply incapable of depicting. As with the 
souls whose salvat ion is j u d g e d in the scene behind her , each pearl , that pre-
cious objec t m i r ro r i ng the wor ld a round it so often at the symbolic center of 
V e r m e e r ' s pa in t ings , seems wor th careful , del iberate scrutiny. The setting, 
m o r e o v e r , is a typical V e r m e e r interior, a private, in t imate , humble realm, 
far f r o m the publ ic space of the early m o d e r n statues of Just i t ia . 
T h e goddess ' s gende r as media ted by this compar i son with V e r m e e r ' s 
pa in t ing is r e levan t he re if we recall the contrast be tween male and female 
var iants of mora l r eason ing posi ted by feminists like Caro l Gilligan and Seyla 
B e n h a b i b against mora l theoris ts like Lawrence Koh lbe rg and J o h n Rawls. 1 6 
Fig. 5 : Jan V e r m e e r van 
Deft , Woman Weighing Pearls 
(1662-1663) 
16 Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development, Harvard, 
73 
Martin Jay 
Whereas male j u d g m e n t of ten t ends to b e abs t rac t ly universa l i s t , decon-
textualized, and formalist ic, its f emale coun te rpa r t , they tell us, is m o r e fre-
quently sensitive to individual detail, na r ra t ive un iqueness , and specific con-
texts. Ins tead of acknowledging only an imag ined »genera l ized other ,« it fo-
cuses instead on the actual »concrete o ther« b e f o r e it. T h e b l ind fo ld ing of 
Just i t ia is thus not a thwar t ing of the gaze per se, b u t of the specifical ly female 
gaze, or at least of those qualities that have b e e n associated with it in our 
cul ture . 1 7 It is thus ul t imately in the service of the d i s e m b o d i m e n t , d i sembed-
dedness, and decontextualizat ion that a legalistic just ice based on the reduct ive 
equivalence of the exchange pr inciple requi res . 
T h e comple te victory of what has recen t ly b e e n d u b b e d »a lgor i thmic 
just ice«1 8 because it involves fo l lowing b i n d i n g rules dec reed f r o m above is, 
to be sure, substantially modi f ied in a legal system such as the Anglo-Amer i -
can, in which concrete p receden t is o f t en as i m p o r t a n t as statute as the basis 
for j udgmen t . He re Kant ' s wel l -known cont ras t b e t w e e n ref lect ive and deter-
minan t judgments , the fo rmer appl ied to aes thet ic issues, the latter to cogni-
tive and mora l ones, might be invoked to jus t i fy the pa rad igma t i c va lue of 
pr ior specific examples over abstract rules that are universa l ly b ind ing . But 
there is still in the law of p receden t the p re suppos i t i on of at least analogical 
commensurabi l i ty f rom case to case. Even reflect ive j u d g m e n t s , af ter all, d raw 
on the p resumpt ion of a »sensus communis ,« a sha red sen t imen t that goes 
beyond the arbi t rary wh im of idiosyncrat ic taste. If no t by subsumpt ion , t hen 
by analogy, what is different is somehow compe l l ed to b e c o m e similar th rough 
resemblance . In addi t ion, the c o m m o n law of p r e c e d e n t can be said to col-
Cambridge, Mass. 1982; Seyla Benhabib, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and 
Postmodernism in Contemporary Theory, Routledge, New York 1992. 
17 Hibbitts cites certain feminists scholars who claim that the power of the gaze is inher-
ently male, whereas women's culture is more aural, and uses their arguments to but-
tress his claim that at least the American legal order until only recently was both 
ocularcentric and phallocentric (p. 267). I would qualify this generalization to the 
extent that a female gaze is not a contradiction in terms and it is precisely its occlu-
sion that may be complicitous with the type of visual regime that he shows domi-
nated American legal theory. That is, without essentializing the gender differences, 
there may be a link between realizing the abstracting potential in vision and patriar-
chal domination, which functions by repressing the more concretizing alternative 
latent in the »female gaze« denied Justitia. 
18 Alan Wolfe, »Algorithmic Justice,« in Drucilla Cornell, Michel Rosenfeld and David 
Gray Carlson (eds.), Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, Routledge, New York 
1992. He criticizes it for lacking an appreciation for »the rule-making, rule-applying, 
rule-interpreting capacities of human beings and an emphasis instead on the rule-
following character« (p. 366). 
74 
Must Justice Be Blind? The Challenge of Images to the Law 
lapse the t e m p o r a l d i f fe rence be tween past and present in its search for a 
rep l icab le s t anda rd of m e a s u r e m e n t . 
A l though images can, of course, themselves be the object of such judg-
ments , their initial, b ru t e impac t on the beho lde r ' s sense of sight may well be 
pr io r to any eva lua t ion , ref lect ive or de terminant , of their meaning . Even 
Kant ' s a pr ior i ca tegor ies do not , after all, include a necessary mechanism of 
cul tural , symbol ic c o m m e n s u r a t i o n . If H o r k h e i m e r and A d o r n o are right, 
m u t e visuali ty re ta ins t races of a m o d e of interact ion be tween humans and 
the wor ld which is p r io r to conceptua l subsumpt ion or the rule of c o m m o n 
sense, a m o d e they call mimet ic . This is not the place to launch a full-fledged 
analysis of the v e x e d concep t of mimesis in their work, an analysis I have 
tenta t ive ly a t t e m p t e d to m a k e e lsewhere . 1 9 Suffice it to say that they under-
s tood mimes is to invo lve a non -domina t i ng re la t ionship be tween subjects 
and objects in which the wor ld was not »subjected« to categorical determina-
tion or even in tersubjec t ive consensus. Mimesis mean t a m o r e passive affin-
ity b e t w e e n pe rce ive r and perce ived ra ther than a hierarchical control by 
one over the o ther . Aff ini ty , it should immedia te ly b e noted , does not mean 
ident i ty or equiva lence , as the mimesis be tween subject and object mainta ins 
a certain, i r reduc ib le d i f fe rence be tween them. Insofar as images and their 
referents , r ep resen ta t ions and originals, percept ions and objects, may be simi-
lar, bu t not ontological ly identical , they resist the full power of the exchange 
pr inc ip le . T h u s the image n e e d no t be of an imaginary monster , transgress-
ing na tu ra l bounda r i e s , to do its work of resistance; it need merely evoke the 
p r ima l power of mime t i c affinity, which acknowledges differences even as it 
seeks similarities, against the counter-power of conceptual subsumption, which 
seeks to suppress the r e m a i n d e r left b e h i n d in the act of subsuming. 
W h a t u l t imate ly dis t inguishes mimet ic f r o m conceptua l behavior , ac-
c o r d i n g to this a r g u m e n t , is the absence of violence in the former , the sym-
bol ic v io lence , that is, of categorical subsumpt ion , which f inds an echo in the 
potent ia l for literal force h e a r d in the phrase to »enforce the law.« Justi t ia, it 
should be r e m e m b e r e d , is never depic ted wi thout he r unshea thed sword. 2 0 
As J a c q u e s D e r r i d a has recent ly po in ted out in his medi ta t ion on Wal ter 
19 Martin Jay, »Mimesis und Mimetologie: Adorno und Lacoue-Labarthe,« in Gertrud 
Koch (ed.), Auge und AJfekt: Warhnehmung und Interaktion, Fischer, Frankfurt 1995. 
2 0 This raises the question of the status of images or representations of violence (or 
threatened violence, as in the case of the brandished sword). If they are understood 
as more mimetic than conceptual, does this mean that the violence in them is modi-
fied or even cancelled? Or can images participate in another kind of violence beyond 
that of subsumption? For a consideration of this theme, see Paul Crowther, »Violence 
in Painting,« in Critical Aesthetics and Postmodernism, Oxford University, Oxford 1993. 
75 
Martin Jay 
Benjamin ' s famous essay »Crit ique of Vio lence ,« the re m a y well be a mo-
men t of originary violence or b ru te force in the f o u n d a t i o n of even the mos t 
legitimate of laws: »Applicability, ' enforceabi l i ty , ' is no t an exter ior or sec-
ondary possibility that may or m a y not be a d d e d as a s u p p l e m e n t to law,« he 
writes. »It is the force essentially impl ied in the very concep t of justice as 
/aw.«21 »Here we can detect an echo of the a r g u m e n t f r o m H o r k h e i m e r a n d 
Adorno ' s Dialectic of Enlightenment that a just ice r e d u c e d to a law of equiva-
lence based on the subsumpt ion of ind iv idual cases u n d e r a genera l rule, the 
»algori thmic justice« p roduced by c o m m a n d s f r o m above , involves v io lence 
and restricts f r eedom. A different just ice tha t wou ld evade the b i n d i n g force 
of the a lgor i thm would follow instead the logic of the gra tu i tous gift, be s towed 
without an expecta t ion of reciproci ty, r a the r than that of the deb t pa id to 
even out a score, the pr imit ive act of v e n g e a n c e that Nie tzsche f amous ly saw 
at the root of m o d e r n not ions of exchange . 2 2 It wou ld be incalculable , impos-
sible to cap tu re in definit ions, i r reduc ib ly apore t ic , p e r h a p s even danger -
ously mad . Always ei ther a m e m o r y of wha t m a y have b e e n or a h o p e for a 
future that can perhaps be, but never actually is, it haunts the p ro jec t of fully 
realized justice in the present , a just ice based on b l ind ing one ' s eyes to the 
absolute alterity of each of its alleged cases, a just ice r e d u c e d to no th ing b u t 
the positive, formal , abstract law. As such, it is the basis not only of religious 
not ions of divine justice, but also of every de fense of a r evo lu t ionary »politi-
cal justice« that can claim the right to suspend the laws preva i l ing in a system 
that can itself be d e e m e d unjus t . 2 3 
But bo th dialectical and deconstruct ionist m o d e s of thinking, as we know, 
resist simple b inary opposit ions, and so too this over ly abs t ract d i c h o t o m y 
must itself be shaken. Allegedly non-violent , gra tui tous just ice based on re-
spect for absolute part iculari ty and the ben ign mimes is of na tu re canno t be 
placed entirely on the o ther side of a d ivide f r o m the putat ively sinister, coer-
cive force of law as c o m m a n d f rom above. In »Crit ique of Violence,« Benjamin 
had in fact j ux taposed a divine violence, which des t roys laws and t ransgresses 
21 Jacques Derrida, »Force of Law: The 'Mystical Foundation of Authority',« in Cornell 
et al. (eds.), Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, p. 5. 
2 2 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals, trans. Francis 
Golfing, Doubleday, Garden City, N. Y. 1956. 
2 3 For a classic account of the dilemmas of political justice, see Otto Kirchheimer, Politi-
cal Justice: The Use of Legal Procedure for Political Ends, Princeton University, Princeton 
1961. For a more recent discussion, which considers Kirchheimer's position with rela-
tion to Carl Schmitt, see William E. Scheuerman, Between the Norm and the Exception: 
The Frankfurt School and the Rule of Law, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. 1994. 
76 
Must Justice Be Blind? The Challenge of Images to the Law 
bounda r i e s , to a my th ica l one that makes and conserves them. 2 4 Al though he 
crypt ical ly desc r ibed the f o r m e r as »lethal wi thout spilling blood,« 2 5 the trou-
b l ing impl ica t ion was tha t a just ice b e y o n d the law of fo rmal equivalence, the 
l i fe-aff i rming just ice of absolute qualitative singularity based on the logic of 
the gift, was n o t itself s o m e h o w b e y o n d coercion. For without any rules or 
cri ter ia at all, wha t was to p r even t a soi-disant divine just ice f rom descending 
into n o t h i n g m o r e t han the pr inciple »might makes right.« As Der r ida him-
self uneas i ly conc ludes , »in one fo rm or another , the undec idab le is on each 
side, and is the v io lent condi t ion of knowledge or action.«2 6 
Similarly, H o r k h e i m e r and A d o r n o were never willing to pit mimetic 
aff ini ty against concep tua l ref lect ion as if they were s imple opposites, one 
inhe ren t ly super ior to the other , one the singular locus of f reedom, the other 
of m e r e repress ion . Discuss ing the res idue of mimet ic behavior that can be 
f o u n d in the work of art in his Aesthetic Theory, A d o r n o wrote, 
The desideratum of visuality seeks to preserve the mimetic moment of art. 
What this view does not realize is that mimesis only goes on living through 
its antithesis, which is rational control by art works over all that is heteroge-
neous to them. If this is ignored, visuality becomes a fetish.27 
In art, he a rgued , it was impor tan t to avoid the e i the r /o r of sensuality vs. 
spiri tuali ty, which s imply repea ts the al ienation characterist ic of mode rn life. 
Ins tead , the pa r adox i ca l mix tu re of the two must be preserved, for 
What lurks behind the false synthesis called aesthetic vision is a rigid polar-
ity between spirit and sensuality which is inadequate. At the center of the 
aesthetic of vision is the false, thing-like notion that in the aesthetic artifact 
tensions have been synthesized into a state of rest, whereas in fact those 
tensions are essential to the work.28 
2 4 Walter Benjamin, »Critique of Violence,« Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographi-
cal Writings, Peter Demetz (ed.), Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, New York 1978, p. 297. 
25 Ibid 
2 6 Derrida, »Force of Law,« p. 56. At the end of his piece, Derrida acknowledges the 
frightening potential in Benjamin's attraction to divine violence, an annihilating, ex-
piatory violence, to become a perverted justification for the Holocaust. For differing 
opinions of how successful Derrida himself has been in thwarting this potential, see 
Dominick LaCapra, »Violence, Justice, and the Force of Law,« Cardozo Law Review, 
11, 6-6 (1990), Drucilla Cornell, The Philosophy of the Limit, Routledge, New York 1992, 
chapter 6, and Gillian Rose, Judaism and Modernity: Philosophical Essays, Blackwell, 
Oxford 1993, chapter 7. 
2 7 Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, C. Lenhardt trans., Gretel Adorno and Rolf 
Tiedemann (eds.), RKP, London 1984, p. 141. 
28 Ibid., p. 143. 
77 
Martin Jay 
If we return to our poin t of depar tu re , the b l indfo ld ing of Just i t ia , we 
can now unde r s t and that it was pe rhaps no t ent i re ly wi thou t some reason that 
vision was denied even to a female gaze in the n a m e of impar t ia l i ty and the 
ban i shment of monsters . Like the o ther »fools« in med ieva l tales, w h o of ten 
speak a h igher truth, the fool who b l indfo lds the goddess on Sebast ian Brant ' s 
ship may have known what he was do ing af ter all. For like the false synthesis 
of the aesthetic artifact, a practice of j u d g m e n t ba sed solely on the p o w e r of 
an immedia te visual apprehens ion of i r r educ ib le s ingular i ty risks succumb-
ing to the illusory potent ial that always a c c o m p a n i e s sensual pe rcep t ion , how-
ever acute. 
There is also another powerfu l jus t i f ica t ion for the al legorical image of 
the bl indfold. Because her eyes are covered , Jus t i t i a mus t walk caut iously 
into the fu ture , not rushing head long to j u d g m e n t . 2 9 V e r m e e r ' s open -eyed , 
female weigher of pearls can be shown wi thou t a b l indfo ld because he r judg-
men t is allegorically l inked to that of the Last J u d g m e n t in the canvas de-
picted beh ind her. But a secular j u d g m e n t that is any th ing bu t the last, a 
justice of m e r e mortals, canno t p re tend to possess so clear-s ighted a sense of 
whose soul meri ts salvation and whose does not . It mus t acknowledge that 
imperfect general laws and the concre te j u d g m e n t s of those w h o app ly t h e m 
somehow always fall short of an absolute a n d final just ice, and yet that b o t h 
are necessary means in the endless struggle to realize tha t unrea l izab le goal. 
It must fu r the rmore accept the fact tha t even the mos t c o m p r e h e n s i v e 
not ion of just ice contains within it a plural ism of distinct logics that m a y some-
times be in confl ict .3 0 Procedura l not ions of just ice wi thin an es tabl ished or-
der, those that subordinate it to positive law, are likely to be in tens ion with 
compensa tory , distributive, restitutive and re t r ibut ive a l ternat ives that m a y 
well point b e y o n d that order . A justice tha t r e m e m b e r s and tries to redress 
the wrongs of the past and one that h o p e s to create a t ruly jus t society in the 
future can easily be at odds with fo rmal p r o c e d u r e s in the present , as any 
observer of the heated debate over af f i rmat ive act ion in the U n i t e d States can 
well attest. Ra ther than a single over -arching cr i ter ion, the re m a y be several 
that cannot be perfectly reconci led, bu t this does no t m e a n that it is be t te r to 
throw out general considerat ions a l together and j udge decisionist ical ly. 
Unexpectedly, this point is suggested in visual terms by the same V e r m e e r 
2 9 This metaphor of blindfolded Justice walking cautiously is taken from M. Petitjean, 
»Un homme de loi semurois: l'avocat P. Lemulier,« Annales de Bourgogne, LXII, 245, 
cited in Robert, La Justice, p. 130. 
3 0 In this issue, see Michel Rosenfeld, »Restitution, Retribution, Political Justice and the 
Rule of Law,« Constellations, II, 3 (January, 1996), pp. 309-332. 
78 
Must Justice Be Blind? The Challenge of Images to the Law 
pa in t ing discussed ear l ier as an example of a benign w o m a n ' s gaze at con-
crete par t iculars . For r ecen t scientific analysis of the p igments on the canvas 
has revea led that the scales do not, in fact, contain pearls, as has traditionally 
b e e n thought , b u t are e m p t y instead. 3 1 W h a t shines is apparent ly only the 
light ref lect ing off the trays. Ra ther than directed at individual cases, the wom-
an 's con templa t ive gaze, we n o w can apprecia te , falls on the apparatus itself, 
as if she were weigh ing its meri ts as an impart ial mechanism of fairness, al-
bei t one then used to j u d g e the worth of each pearl . 
A just ice, in o ther words , that tries to see only concrete , contingent , 
i n c o m m e n s u r a b l e par t icular i ty and judge without any abstract prescriptive 
cri teria wha t soever - such as that recent ly defended , for example , by Jean-
François Lyo ta rd in Just Gaming2 - may paradoxical ly be as bl ind is one that 
p r e t e n d s to be ent i rely a lgor i thmic. W h a t is needed , as A d o r n o points out in 
the case of aesthet ic j u d g m e n t , is a creative tension be tween the two, a justice 
that can t e m p e r the r igor of conceptua l subsumpt ion , or more precisely, sev-
eral such subsumpt ions , wi th a sensitivity to individual part iculari ty. T h e 
un re so lvab l e p a r a d o x of the re la t ionship be tween law and justice, as the 
Slovenian ph i lo sophe r J e l i ca Sumiè-Riha has recent ly argued, may, in fact, 
r equ i re a cer ta in measu re of b l indness . »We know,« she writes, 
that law as such is not and cannot be just. However, if we accept that and 
behave according to this knowledge, we will have lost not only justice, but 
also law. Law is namely conceived as an instance that appeals to justice which 
means that a law that does not refer to justice is simply not a law. It is there-
fore in some way necessary to blind ourselves to this knowledge. In Derrida's 
terms: even if justice cannot be reduced to rule-governed activity we must 
respect rules. We must respect them because in the very undecidability of 
justice on the one hand and the groundlessness of law on the other lies the 
danger that the right to do justice can be usurped by bad legislators.33 
Perhaps it is best , therefore , to imagine the Goddess Just i t ia nei ther as 
fully sighted no r as b l indfo lded , but ra ther as she was once visually depicted 
at the th re sho ld of the m o d e r n world, in a mid-s ixteenth century front ispiece 
to J . De D a m h o u d e r e ' s Praxis rerum civilium: Justit ia, that is, as a goddess with 
no t one face, bu t two. T h e first has eyes that are wide open, able to discern 
di f ference, alteri ty, and non- ident i ty , looking in the direct ion of the hand that 
3 1 Arthur J. Wheelock, Jr., and Ben Broos, Johannes Vermeer, Yale University, New Ha-
ven 1996, p. 141-142. 
^-Jean-François Lyotard andJean-Loup Thébaud, Just Gaming, trans. Wlad Godzich, 
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 1985. 
3 3 Jelica Sumic-Riha, »Fictions of Justice,« Filozofski Vestnik, 2 (1994), p. 80. 
79 
Martin Jay 
Fig. 6:Justice with two faces, one veiled and the other with open eyes. 
Frontspiece of J . De Damhoudere, Praxis rerum civilium..., Anvers 1567. 
80 
Must Justice Be Blind? The Challenge of Images to the Law 
wields her sword, while the second, facing the other hand with the calculat-
ing scales of rule-governed impartiality, has eyes that are veiled (fig. 6). For 
only the image of a two-faced deity, a hybrid, monstrous creature which we 
can in fact see, an allegory that resists subsumption under a general concept, 
only such an image can do, as it were, justice to the negative, even perhaps 
aporetic, dialectic that entangles law and justice itself. 
81 

Eva K. W. Man 
Experimental Painting and Painting Theories in Colonial 
Hong Kong (1940-1980): Reflection on Cultural Identity 
D u r i n g the past fifty years the art of paint ing in H o n g Kong has distin-
gu i shed itself f r o m o the r art forms, unde rgo ing a me tamorphos i s in both con-
cep t and style. Concep tua l l y , m a n y H o n g K o n g pa in te rs have deve loped 
m e a n i n g f u l and sys temat ic theor ies of paint ing and aesthetics which reflect a 
c o n c e r n for cul tural ident i ty . In doing so, they have revea led the conflict that 
they as pa in te rs h a v e e n c o u n t e r e d - a conflict be tween tradit ional Chinese 
aesthet ics and m o d e r n Wes t e rn aesthetics. Further , they have given expres-
sion to this in their pa in t ings and exper imenta l work. This article will illus-
t ra te the d e v e l o p m e n t of the conceptual and aesthetic t ransformat ion that 
t ook p lace in H o n g K o n g be tween 1940 and 1980 by examin ing the aesthet-
ics and artistic e x p e r i m e n t s of several representat ive painters. In addit ion, 
this article will p rov ide a critical discussion of this aesthetic deve lopment and 
invest igate if art and cul tural discussions in con tempora ry post-colonial dis-
course can be app l ied to the si tuation of H o n g Kong. 
Painting in Hong Kong: 1940 -1980 
Scholars agree that , s ince the mid-n ine teen th century , H o n g Kong has 
e x p e r i e n c e d m o r e cul tural in te rchange than any other Chinese city. This is 
largely due to its colonial her i tage and its geographical posit ion as the south-
ern out let of Ch ina . In the pre-war per iod of the 1940s, H o n g Kong 's paint ing 
scene was d o m i n a t e d by Wes t e rn paint ing, and local art organizat ions were 
run by W e s t e r n e r s w h o out n u m b e r e d Chinese painters creat ing tradit ional 
Ch inese art. Th i s s i tuat ion con t inued until masses of Chinese painters immi-
gra ted to H o n g K o n g f r o m Southern Ch ina dur ing the J a p a n e s e invasion of 
C h i n a in W o r l d W a r II .1 Yet still it took years before Chinese painters could 
b r ing in m o r e Ch inese inf luences to paint ing. 
T h e d o m i n a n c e of W e s t e r n artistic me thods in H o n g Kong cont inued 
for several years af ter W o r l d War II as Wes te rn pain t ing - still life and real-
1 Wucius Wong, »The Development of Hong Kong Art in the Recent Ten Years«, Ming 
Pao Monthly, Hong Kong, (1/1976), p. 169. 
Filozofski vestnik, XVII (2/1996), pp. 83-105. 
Eva K. W. Man 
ism in part icular - f lourished in galleries and m u s e u m s . 2 T h e w o r k of local 
painters was not of the highest quality at tha t t ime, because they had only 
minimal exposure to the great mas te rp ieces as well as to in te l lectual d iscourse 
regarding »foreign« art. T h e only pa in t ing classes o f fe red to H o n g K o n g art-
ists were taught by a few Chinese pa in te rs w h o h a d r e t u r n e d f r o m W e s t e r n 
art studies abroad . 3 As a result, H o n g K o n g artists still did no t get as m u c h 
recognit ion as Wes te rn painters in the years i m m e d i a t e l y af ter W o r l d W a r II. 
Yet the neglect of Chinese artistry was soon to be r e m e d i e d . Cul tu ra l 
modern iza t ion accompanied a per iod of in tense indust r ia l iza t ion in H o n g 
Kong in the post-war era. Painters in the co lony were i n t r o d u c e d to a n u m b e r 
of new Wes te rn modern art movemen t s . In addi t ion , the g o v e r n m e n t of H o n g 
Kong established new and innovat ive art colleges o f fe r ing courses that re-
flected the rapidly changing art scene. In 1958, the » M o d e r n Li te ra ture and 
Art Association« was established by a g r o u p of young , p r o m i n e n t local artists 
such as Lu Shoukun , Z h a n g Yi, W e n Lou, W u c i u s W o n g , and H a n Zh ixun . 
The association organized p rominen t art exhibi t ions , such as the » H o n g K o n g 
Internat ional Salon of Paintings« in the early 1960s. T h e exhibi t i nc luded 
m o d e r n abstract works by bo th local and fore ign artists, and , typical of the 
m o d e r n art m o v e m e n t in H o n g Kong at the t ime, was a bo ld reac t ion against 
the tradit ional Western artistic pract ices of the 1940s and the 1950s in the 
colony. N e w deve lopments like the In t e rna t iona l Salon were r e in fo rced by 
the open ing of H o n g K o n g City Hall in 1962, wh ich soon b e c a m e the m a i n 
venue for art museums, exhibi t ion galleries, art courses , and o ther events 
involving art. 
Still, in the early 1960s, H o n g Kong ' s local artistic ident i ty h a d n o t b e e n 
fully established, and the art work p r o d u c e d con t inued to ref lect W e s t e r n 
inf luence. Six years after its found ing in 1964, the » M o d e r n Li te ra ture and 
Art Association« dissolved, and some of its m e m b e r s f o u n d e d the »In Tao 
Painters Society«. This group consisted of e x p e r i m e n t a l artists a t t emp t ing to 
integrate Chinese and Weste rn styles by us ing a wide r ange of f o r m s and 
materials . T h e m e m b e r s of In 7 a o j u x t a p o s e d t rad i t iona l Ch inese t echn iques 
and materials - call igraphy and silk, for e x a m p l e - and nove l W e s t e r n meth-
ods, such as print, spray-gun paint ing, and aesthet ical ly progress ive concep t s 
included abstract and optical art of the W e s t in th ree -d imens iona l works and 
2 According to Hong Kong Artists (vol. 1), the last art exhibition prior to World War II 
was »Exhibition of Western Paintings« held at a library in the Hong Kong University. 
Cf. Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong Artists, vol. 1, The Urban Council of Hong 
Kong, Hong Kong 1995, p. 13. 
3 C/Wong, [1/1976], p. 170. 
84 
Experimental Painting and Painting Theories ... 
sculpture, as well as painting. This served to introduce an entirely fresh, though 
not uncontroversial , set of creative media. The mid-1960s, then, marked the 
beginning of H o n g Kong art. This coincided with a period of rapid economic 
growth and a move toward localization policies instituted by the British gov-
ernment in the colony, which was intended to nurture a Hong Kong iden-
tity.4 
Hong Kong's artistic rejuvenation was just underway when political ri-
ots were sparked in 1967 by local leftists objecting to British rule. During this 
time of rapid change and political upheaval came the call for a return to 
Chinese traditional art and the creation of forms of art that Hong Kong could 
call its own. The trend was led by Lu Shoukun, who, since the mid-1950s had 
promoted a »root-finding« process for local Chinese painters. He called on 
painters to first grasp the spirit of traditional painting and then turn to new 
developments once the proper tools were securely in hand. An accomplished 
painter himself, Lu combined Western styles - Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism 
and Abstractionism - with traditional Chinese painting in his experimental 
work. He later created the unique »Zen« style of painting. Lu's Zen painting 
integrated traditional Chinese ink painting with modern Abstractionism and 
served to convey Buddhist principles. Lu also launched one of Hong Kong's 
most notable movements in painting in the 1970s, which came to be known 
as the »New Ink Movement .« Members of this movement drew on tradi-
tional Chinese ink painting techniques and transformed them, yielding vari-
ous new forms of expression. A number of Hong Kong's young artists were at 
the forefront of the movement , incorporating concepts from Western mod-
ern art, abstract expressionism, for the most part. The New Ink movement in 
the colony marked the end of the dominance of Western academic oil paint-
ing and gave rise to »Hong Kong Painting«, which aims at the founding of 
local artistic identity. 
In the 1970s, more and more local artists devoted themselves to creat-
ing their own individual styles instead of conforming to Western artistic prac-
tice. In 1975, the Urban Council organized the first »Contemporary Hong 
Kong Art Biennial Exhibition« at the Hong Kong Museum of Art, a mile-
stone in exhibiting modern paintings created by local artists. The govern-
ment sponsored the exhibition, reflecting its support of local artists. The open-
ing of the H o n g Kong Arts Center in 1977 and the founding of the Fine Arts 
Depar tment at Hong Kong University further promoted art education in the 
colony. Finally, in 1978, the »Exhibition of Hong Kong Artists: the Early 
4 Ibid., p. 171. 
85 
Eva K W. Man 
Generat ion« was organized by the H o n g K o n g M u s e u m of Art . This exhibi -
tion gave a retrospect ive of the artistic p e r f o r m a n c e of local pa in te rs in ear-
lier years, demons t ra t ed H o n g Kong ' s c o m m i t m e n t to d e v e l o p i n g a local 
artistic identi ty, and encouraged a historical awareness of the ta lent wi thin its 
border . 
Communist Influences 
In 1946, dur ing the civil war in M a i n l a n d C h i n a b e t w e e n the C o m m u -
nist party and the Nat ional party, H o n g K o n g b e c a m e a sanc tuary for left-
wing artists f r o m the main land . Whi le the i r stay in the co lony was t e m p o r a r y , 
these artists-in-exile f ounded the »Yen Kan Pa in t ing Society«. Wi th the free-
d o m and stability H o n g K o n g p rov ided for them, the m e m b e r s of »Yen Kan« 
used art to p romote their socialist political views explici t ly. »Yen Kan«, wh ich 
means »the living of the proletarians,« gave a s t rong socialist message to a 
colony in which the very rich and the ve ry p o o r were l iving side by s ide; the 
contrasts were obvious and Yen Kaiis message clear. T h e society he ld exhibi -
tions and p roduced publ icat ion that also expressed their ph i l o sophy of art 
and aesthetics. Whi le the Yen Kan was in exis tence only four years , b e f o r e it 
was dissolved in 1950, it a t tempted to exer t socialist in f luences on aesthet ics 
in H o n g Kong . 
The founder of Yen Kan, H u a n g X inbo , also o rgan ized artists w h o h a d 
immigra ted f rom the ma in land regions of K u n m i n g , C h u n k i n g , a n d Qui l in 
to the British colony and a r ranged for t h e m to be m e m b e r s of the society. Yen 
Kan also used a social club for Wes te rne r s as its activity venue , and in this 
capacity masked the C o m m u n i s t ident i t ies of its m e m b e r s . Soon the Soci-
ety's art projects became very political. Its exhib i t ions d isp layed ca r toon and 
woodcraf t that symbolically demons t r a t ed first the fa i lure of the mil i tary, and 
second the shor tcomings of the political a n d e c o n o m i c pro jec ts of the Na-
tional Party in China. 5 In another bo ld m o v e , the Yen Kan issued poli t ical 
statements that linked art with socialist theory . At the close of the civil war , 
the C o m m u n i s t Party was victorious, a n d the N e w C h i n a was f o u n d e d by 
Mao Tse Dung . The society then bus ied itself by p r o d u c i n g war ca r toons and 
huge portrai ts of Mao, the new and p romis ing ruler . In the end, it sent near ly 
all of its m e m b e r s back to the ma in l and w h e r e they took u p g o v e r n m e n t 
5 Cf. Tan Shuetsung, »Memory of the Revolutionary Art Body who Fought in the South 
- The Yan Ken Painting Society«, Meixu, Renmin Meixu Press, Peking, 2, 1984, 
unpaginated. 
86 
Experimental Painting and Painting Theories ... 
posi t ions re la ted to art. T h e society's dissolution was comple te by 1950, with 
h igh h o p e s p i n n e d on the p romises offered by the N e w China . 
Dur ing Yen Karis four years in H o n g Kong, its m e m b e r s actively pro-
m o t e d M a o ' s aes thet ic ideology, as expressed in his speech, »The Yen O n 
Art and Li te rary Discussion,« del ivered in 1942. A long article in a H o n g 
K o n g n e w s p a p e r by the f o u n d e r of the society, H u a n g Xinbo , in May 1949, 
revea led no t only Yen Kan's vision of art, bu t also its political agenda for 
H o n g K o n g . 6 In the first pa r t of the article, H u a n g severely criticized the 
artistic c o m m u n i t y u n d e r the Nat ional Party in China , including part icular 
local artists and g roups tha t p r o m o t e d Wes te rn paintings. Western paint ing, 
in Yen Kan's v iew was p r o d u c e d by and displayed for the rich only. Further , 
the paint ings fai led to express concern for the social condi t ions of the poor , 
no r d id the artists themse lves denounce the political policies that pe rpe tua ted 
tha t pover ty . T h e article ident i f ied by n a m e Shanghai artists guilty of these 
charges , a m o n g t h e m Liu H a i x u and Tsu Baixiung and accused their art of 
d i sc r imina t ing against the proletar ia t . H u a n g also claimed these artists either 
uncr i t ical ly r e v e r e d W e s t e r n art and bl indly fol lowed m o d e r n Wes te rn paint-
ing or tr ied to p lease fore igners with t radi t ional Chinese art - merely a lefto-
ver f r o m a f euda l society of days gone by. Huang ' s declarat ion def ined the 
»New Art« he a n d his col leagues p r o m o t e d as neo-democra t ic art. New Art 
was to depic t the lives of the masses who, according to Mao, were the sol-
diers, f a rmers a n d fac tory workers . H u a n g and the N e w Artists insisted that 
art should offer ser ious ref lect ion on existing social condit ions, addressing 
the t hemes of ant i - imper ia l i sm and anti-feudalism. It should also take a real-
istic a p p r o a c h to solut ions to these issues, based on that reflection. Huang ' s 
article also ident i f ied two missions for artists: first, use art as a tool for educa-
t ion; second, re t r ieve art f r o m the hands of the privi leged class. It insisted 
tha t ar t should b e c o n c e r n e d with content but not with form, and that artists 
should depic t w h a t p e o p l e were familiar with in everyday life. Fur thermore , 
the society be l i eved that b o t h the style and the content of paint ing should 
c h a n g e with the t imes, as the lives and ideologies of peop le change over t ime. 
It should be n o t e d tha t Yen Kan, in its publ ic declarat ion, did not try to elimi-
na te the art of the bourgeo i s because it realized that H o n g Kong was quite 
d i f fe ren t f r o m m a i n l a n d Ch ina . H o n g Kong 's masses were fueled by the cor-
po ra t e interests of capi ta l ism. T h e society bel ieved that the bourgeois could 
advance a long with the proletar iat , but that members of the bourgeoise needed 
to prac t ice »self-correct ion«. Obvious ly , Yen Kan ul t imately failed to sway the 
6 Huang Xinbo, »Our Opinions in the Establishment of New Art«, Wen Wui Pao, Hong 
Kong, May 20, 1949. 
87 
Eva K. W. Man 
political opinions of the majority of people in the British colony, who so 
eagerly followed Western colonial values. By 1950, at the end of their t ime in 
Hong Kong, Yen Kan had won few converts to their politico-artistic theory, 
although their social and artist influence was certainly notable. 
Other artists groups and art organizations took a favorable view of West-
ern painting and were also active in the years of Yen Kan. Luis Chan , Lee 
Byng and Yee Bon, local painters who were famous at the t ime, p roduced 
Western-style paintings. Both Lee and Yee had studied in Nor th Amer ica 
and returned to the colony to found their own studios. Though C h a n had not 
traveled to the West, he became acquainted with both Lee and Yee. Appar-
ently proving Huang's charges accurate, m a n y of those who gathered in the 
studios of Chan, Lee, and Yee were indeed quite well-to-do. The three also 
offered lessons in Western painting to these same patrons . These artists were 
so devoted to Western Classical paint ing that local artistic identity was not of 
particular concern to them. Thus, as will be discussed later, their influence 
took on a very different character f rom that of the Yen Kan. 
The Local Spirit 
There were a few painters whose art not only reflected the history of 
painting in Hong Kong in the 20th century, but also represented the colony's 
spirit of experimentat ion. Luis Chan, a painter in Wes te rn classical painting, 
was one of the most prominent figures in this era. As noted above, C h a n had 
never been to Europe or North Amer ica for formal artistic training, but in-
stead was a self-trained artist. He developed the style he came to call his own 
through exchanging ideas with other local painters who had studied abroad. 
Making the most of his keen artistic sensibility, his f luency in English, and an 
indisputably charming personality, C h a n created a large circle of fr iends. 
These strengths in combination raised h im to a p rominen t position in H o n g 
Kong's art community. 
Luis Chan was also one of few local artists to cross the boundar ies of 
social class and race and had established fr iendships with a n u m b e r of Euro-
pean and American celebrities in the colony. This played in his favor among 
his local fr iends and followers as well, ranking him a m o n g the most popular 
of cultural leaders in Hong Kong. But Chan ' s acquisition of the public atten-
tion was gained over time. By organizing fund-raising balls to benefi t the arts 
and holding large art openings and parties, C h a n created opportuni t ies to 
exhibit work of his own and later founded art societies of his own as well. 
In 1934, at the age of 29, Chan was in t roduced to the H o n g Kong Art 
88 
Experimental Painting and Painting Theories ... 
C l u b by the wea l thy L a d y Shen ton . Soon the club gran ted h im executive 
m e m b e r status and s p o n s o r e d exhib i t ion of C h a n ' s work in water colors the 
fo l lowing year . Th i s was C h a n ' s first solo exhibi t and one that placed h im 
f i rmly in the cen te r of H o n g Kong ' s art circles. 
Whi l e C h a n c o n t i n u e d to paint , he earned his living by runn ing the 
family bus iness b e f o r e the war. His work in these years included Western 
a c a d e m i c paint ings , p r imar i ly landscapes in water colors and oil. After the 
war , C h a n s tar ted to concen t r a t e on oil paint ing. His s t rong relat ionship with 
the colonia l gove rno r , G r a n t h r a m , he lped to enhance his artistic influence.7 
M e a n w h i l e , the civil war in Ch ina be tween the Communis t s and the Na-
t ional par ty , as m e n t i o n e d earlier, had fueled the passions of the Yen Kan 
Pain t ing Society whose socialist or ientat ion was very different f rom that of 
C h a n . In the view of Yen Kan members , and o ther left- leaning artists groups 
in H o n g Kong, C h a n was as guilty as other local artists blasted in Huang ' s 
article of r ep re sen t ing the »bourgeois« in art and were regarded as art elites 
in the colony. M o r e o v e r , the British colonialists were enthusiastic over Chan ' s 
p r o m o t i o n of W e s t e r n pa in t ing , and fo rmed an alliance which did not share 
Yen Kan's na t iona l i sm, fu r the r fuel ing the antagonist ic relat ionship be tween 
these oppos ing local visions. 
W h i l e C h a n was a skilled organizer, he was also, quite simply, a great 
pa in te r . Ear ly in his career , C h a n was inf luenced by o ther young painters 
w h o h a d r e t u r n e d f r o m a b r o a d and who had p romoted the Realist t radit ion 
of W e s t e r n a c a d e m i c pa in t ing . Yet C h a n did not really embrace Realism. In 
the f o r e w o r d of his book , Treatise on Art (1953), he descr ibed art as »creative 
imagina t ion« and saw beau ty as »the express ion of consciousness and emo-
tion.«8 A l though he a d h e r e d to the practical pr inciples of paint ing in accord-
ance with W e s t e r n a c a d e m i c techniques , Chan had m o r e regard for creativ-
ity t han for imi ta t ion . Creat ivi ty , for Chan , was the spontaneous outgrowth of 
the art ist 's c o m m u n i c a t i o n with Na tu re or objects, an idea he bor rowed f rom 
C o n s t a b l e w h o m he q u o t e d in his writings. C h a n expressed this same idea in 
a discussion in 1954 of por t ra i t paint ing: 
... the most successful painting of a portrait, or for that matter, a figure sub-
ject, requires observant understanding and sympathy before full expression 
of the artist can be adequately made.9 
7 See the introduction written by governor Granthram to Luis Chan's, How to Paint A 
Portrait, Ming Sang Printing Co., Hong Kong 1954, p. 1. 
8 Luis Chan, Treatise on Art, Ming Sang Printing Co., Hong Kong 1953, p. 1. 
9 Chan, 1954, p. 21. 
89 
Eva K. W. Man 
Similarly, C h a n expressed his sense of aesthet ics in the p re face to his 
book, The Art of Drawing (1955): 
(The) ultimate technical accomplishment lies rather in artists' success in their 
adoption coupled with their imaginative and creative powers that may be 
developed by experience and endless experiments.1® 
O n e ' s style, according to Chan , is the way to c rea te one ' s artistic sym-
bols. His quotat ion f r o m Kandinsky s u m m e d u p C h a n ' s o w n sense of aes-
thetics: 
To any question beginning with 'must', there is no 'must' in art, because art 
is always free ... from the point of view of an inner need, no limitation can 
be made. The artist may use any form which his expression demands; his 
inner impulse must find suitable form ... The general relationship with which 
these works of art through the centuries are always more strengthened does 
not lie in the 'external' but in the roots of mystical inner content.11 
Chan ' s stress on f ree creativity and the myst ical inne r work ings of artis-
tic express ion contras ted sharply with Yen Kan's sense of art as poli t ical mani -
festo. 
Al though C h a n had se ldom prac t iced t rad i t iona l C h i n e s e pa in t ing , he 
had writ ten a related book , A Survey of Chinese Painting (1954), in an a t t emp t 
to examine the deve lopmen t of Eas tern pa in t i ng theor ies a n d to c o m p a r e 
these to deve lopments in the West . A rep resen ta t ive e x a m p l e is his r e a d i n g 
of the not ion of »spiritual resonance« (the first of the f a m o u s Six W a y s in 
Chinese painting), based on Haro ld Speed ' s analysis . Spir i tual r e sonance is a 
term used to describe the artistic process as a k ind of musica l m o v e m e n t . 1 2 
Chan ' s in terpre ta t ion, unfor tunate ly , i n c o r p o r a t e d too m a n y W e s t e r n ideas 
of art and thus showed l imited u n d e r s t a n d i n g in C h i n e s e aesthet ics , for he 
underes t imated its metaphysica l impl ica t ions . C h a n h a d also severely criti-
cized imitative practices in the Chinese artistic t radi t ion, which , to h im, should 
serve as an in t roduct ion to paint ing only. C h a n f avo red a stress on creat ivi ty 
and on Speed ' s no t ion of »internal musical m o v e m e n t « ins tead . 
By the mid-1950s, H o n g K o n g artists h a d b e g u n to jo in in on the Wes t ' s 
m o d e r n art m o v e m e n t . In 1955, Lu S h o u k u n f o u n d e d the H o n g K o n g Artists 
Association. This marked the beg inn ing of the m o d e r n art m o v e m e n t in H o n g 
10 Luis Chan, The Art of Drawing, The Artland Co. Ltd., Hong Kong 1955, p. I. 
11 Ibid., p. 62. 
12 Luis Chan, A Survey of Chinese Painting, Ming Sang Printing Co., Hong Kong 1954, pp. 
27-28. 
90 
Experimental Painting and Painting Theories 
Kong. T h e n e w m o v e m e n t th rea tened Chan ' s posi t ion as the spokesman of 
an o lder gene ra t i on i m m e r s e d in the Wes te rn academic tradit ion. At this 
t ime, C h a n act ively e n g a g e d in debates on m o d e r n ar t in newspapers and in 
his o w n wri t ings to d e f e n d his posi t ion. Meanwhi le , the New Ink M o v e m e n t 
e m e r g e d as a m a j o r local ar t m o v e m e n t dur ing this pe r iod . New ink, a style 
l a u n c h e d b y Lu S h o u k u n , sought to modern ize t radi t ional Chinese art. New 
Ink ' s cha l lenges to the old order mean t that the t radi t ional Real is t / Impres-
sionist school of 
W e s t e r n art , wh ich C h a n had represen ted so faithfully and so well, was 
fac ing severe chal lenges . Later , however , he started to exper iment with mod-
ern art , fo l lowing his des i re to explore this new and provocat ive style. 
C h a n tr ied a wide r ange of styles. His mot ivat ion to explore m o d e r n art 
was h e i g h t e n e d in 1962 af ter a reject ion of his work by the curators of »Exhi-
b i t ion of H o n g K o n g Ar t Today« , an event p romot ing the local M o d e r n art 
m o v e m e n t . This led h i m to begin an explora t ion of a n u m b e r of schools of 
m o d e r n pa in t ing inc lud ing Cubism, Expressionism, Abstract ionism, as well 
as a n u m b e r of nove l techniques , such as m o n o t y p e print ing, hard-edged 
colored-f ie ld l andscape , and spray-gun paint ing. In 1962, Chan expla ined his 
t rans i t ion f r o m Rea l i sm to Abst rac t ionism: 
(This) has been a natural part of my self-learning process. I have been mak-
ing art in both directions for a while, and I have no intention to give up 
either one of them. ... When I first attempted to make 'new style' art, I was 
exploring Cubism and Surrealism, but I found them too limiting in form. 
Then I decided to go fully abstract. Meanwhile I wanted to continue my 
realist style, but added a touch of Fauvist modification.'3 
C h a n d a b b l e d in m a n y dif ferent forms at this t ime and came up with 
new ques t ions abou t art: 
Why should we accept abstract art? That is because in our everyday experi-
ence, there is more than physical reality. We have thought, feeling and im-
agination and we cannot escape from abstract illusion. Realistic painting 
shows us physical reality, and abstract painting the mental and the emo-
tional world. An abstract painter is someone who expresses emotion with 
his imagination as abstraction links with illusion and fantasy which exist in 
our daily life, only if we care to look for it.14 
T h r o u g h these exp lo ra t ions , C h a n deve loped a theory of individual 
13 Luis Chan, »From Realism to Abstractionism«, publication information unknown, 
1962. 
14 Ibid. 
Eva K. W. Man 
percept ion, of how artists view the wor ld a n d h o w their express ions are out-
lets for their deep emot ions: 
When one needs to deal with the complexity of the world, they could either 
be optimistic or pessimistic. My abstract art is born in pessimistic mood. 
Whenever I am depressed I turn to art, for it takes away my sadness and 
depression. In the world of my own creation, I am God, and I deliver all my 
sorrow to the universe I create. The abstract art I create is the voice from 
my heart which tries to make people understand emotion and life. ... Rhythm 
is the spirit of my abstract art, I create it in my own symbols and illusions, 
and successfully form a distinctive style. ^ 
Based on these writings, it is clear tha t C h a n ' s i m m e r s i o n in this n e w art 
form, led h im along a path in which he was d i scover ing his inne r self. Ar t is 
not just s imply representa t ion of form, as he always real ized, b u t also of the 
inner workings of the artist 's own in ternal core . 
After years of exper imenta t ion , abs t rac t ar t b e c a m e C h a n ' s m a i n vehi-
cle of expression, and Weste rn aesthetics r e m a i n e d his m a i n re fe rences . Un-
like other local artists of his per iod , C h a n insisted on absolu te f r e e d o m in 
artistic expression, and this f reed h im f r o m the b u r d e n s of bo th cul tura l her-
itage and nat ional ism. Both personal ly a n d in his work as an artist, C h a n 
thrived in the colony, a bi-lingual and bi-cul tural space w h e r e East a n d Wes t 
merged. Ques t ions of cultural ident i ty a n d Ch inese t rad i t ion ve ry se ldom 
affected h im as all he asked for was a »free soul.« 
After ano ther decade of searching, C h a n revi ta l ized his ar t t h r o u g h the 
playful and skillful use of the subconscious , p r o d u c i n g dist inct ive surreal is t ic 
landscapes mixed with personal fantasy and il lusion. His work inc luded por-
traits and animal paintings in a un ique and chi ldl ike style, revea l ing only his 
own h u m o r (fig. 1). Dur ing the 1970s and 1980s, C h a n once again e m e r g e d 
as an outs tanding creative figure. U p o n his dea th in 1995, he was desc r ibed 
as: 
Questions of cultural identity and Chinese tradition have never been bur-
dens to the creative activity of Luis Chan who advocates absolute freedom 
in painting. Chan's fish paintings in later period reflect an unique and child-
like style. 
One of the outstanding figures in the history of Hong Kong art, and an 
artist who, through boundless imagination and endless creative energy, was 
able to keep up with the rapid pace of development of Hong Kong.1 6 
15 Ibid. 
16 Hong Kong Arts Centre, exhibition notes of »Retrospectives of Luis Chan, 1905-
1995«, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong 1995. 
92 
Experimental Painting and Painting Theories ... 
Fig. 1: Luis Chan , Kau Yu Tao (Nine things in harmony), 1980 
C h a n ' s adap t ive and creative spirit, his association with the West , and 
his un ique process of se l f -explorat ion parallel the deve lopmen t of m o d e r n art 
in H o n g Kong . 
The New Ink Movement 
T h e N e w Ink M o v e m e n t , led by Lu Shoukun , usurped Chan ' s eminence 
in the 1960s. At the t ime, Lu was a very influential f igure in the local art 
c o m m u n i t y , as he p r o m o t e d modern iza t ion of t radit ional Chinese pa in t ing 
a n d re la ted it to a H o n g K o n g cultural identi ty. His views he lped emerg ing 
H o n g K o n g artists address an existential crisis in the British colony - a crisis 
that b e c a m e m o r e serious w h e n political tension finally grew into riots and 
street demons t r a t i ons in 1967 as H o n g Kong's leftists protes ted against Brit-
ish colonial ru le . 1 7 
17 The radical political tensions emerged between the British government and the Chi-
nese leftists in the colony in the 60's was initiated by a group of factory workers on 
strike in San Po Kong which resulted in the 1967's riot. Thousands of workers joined 
93 
Eva K. W. Man 
While C h a n t ended to in te rp re t C h i n e s e aes thet ics a c c o r d i n g to the 
Wes te rn scheme, Lu absorbed Wes t e rn ideas in to the Ch inese t radi t ion. Lu, 
born in Can ton , l ea rned Chinese pa in t ing f r o m his fa ther . H e also l ea rned by 
copying ancient Chinese scrolls and pic tures in his fa ther ' s an t ique shop. Lu 
m o v e d to H o n g K o n g in 1948 where he impres sed the art c o m m u n i t y wi th 
his work and his teachings. Amazingly , he could r e p r o d u c e at will every tra-
ditional style. However , his desire for ind iv idual express ion caused h i m to 
b e c o m e an exper imenta l i s t in what m a y be t e r m e d »Chinese art with a West-
ern approach .« 1 8 Lu was keen on ink pa in t ing , which he later m i x e d with his 
exper imenta l ideas. Eventually, this led h i m to 'Zen ' paint ing, the style for 
which he was most f amous in his later d e v e l o p m e n t . 
Ink paint ing, deve loped dur ing the Tang Dynas ty in the e ighth cen tury , 
emphas ized individual and spiritual express ion . T h e original concep t was to 
create an al ternative to the strict outl ine and the sp lendid , colorful t r ea tmen t 
that had b e e n very popu la r in Tang. T h e N e w Ink M o v e m e n t , i n t r o d u c e d in 
H o n g K o n g in the 1960s, revised t radi t ional Ch inese ink pa in t ing . Via N e w 
Ink techniques , ink pain t ing went t h r o u g h revo lu t iona ry changes and was 
exper imen ted with, using var ious W e s t e r n m o d e r n ar t f o rms and styles. Lu 's 
intent in beg inn ing the N e w Ink m o v e m e n t was to fill a n e e d H o n g K o n g 
painters had to establish an artistic ident i ty for H o n g Kong . This g roup of 
young artists found tradit ional Chinese paint ings repet i t ive and felt it fai led 
to express feel ing related to their l iving and t imes. At the same t ime, these 
painters were not satisfied with Wes te rn academic paint ings , as they f o u n d 
them unimaginat ive . In Lu's view, n e w ink pa in t ing was a r e f o r m of the old 
Chinese t radi t ion, as well as an embe l l i shmen t to the W e s t e r n academic tra-
dition. H e also took into account the social e n v i r o n m e n t of the post -war era 
which encouraged , n,ot only f r e e d o m of express ion , b u t in tense compe t i t ion 
as well. So then, for Lu the spirit of new ink pa in t ings of fe red a men ta l bal-
ance to peop le living in a colony which was o v e r r u n with mater ia l and tech-
nological advancements . 
Lu regarded the tradit ion of ink pa in t ing as mani fes t ing the spiri tual 
pr inciple of tradit ional Chinese aesthetics, which c o n n e c t e d artistic con ten t 
and form to personal spiritual and ethical cul t ivat ion. Lu be l ieved that the 
growing prosper i ty of H o n g Kong, which by the 1960s h a d b e c o m e an inter-
in the riot which led to injuries. The riot was read as a local rebellion against the 
colonial government. After the riot, localization policy was promoted by the colonial 
government to build up a sense of belonging and local awareness among Hong Kong 
citizens. 
18 Cf. Lee Ying Ho, (ed.), Modern Edition, Hong Kong Modern Literature and Art Asso-
ciation, Hong Kong, No. 4, September 1963, p. 14. 
94 
Experimental Painting and Painting Theories ... 
na t iona l and c o m m e r c i a l city, p rov ided some favorable condit ions for the 
ink pa in t ing m o v e m e n t . First, accord ing to Lu, the H o n g K o n g Chinese peo-
ple could relate to ink pa in t ing ; they felt closer to ink pain t ing than to West-
ern pa in t ing . Secondly , the in te rna t iona l art communi ty was more interested 
in a n e w genre of work that grew out of local cultural innovat ions more than 
it in imita t ions of W e s t e r n schools. Finally, combin ing Chinese ink paint ing 
with Wes t e rn mater ia l s and techniques , p roduced intr iguing artistic effects. 
Lu's views were re f lec ted in the work of young artists who mixed ink with 
f luorescent colors or p r in t ing oil and utilized ink with concepts of Wes te rn 
design. H e classified m o d e r n ideas combined with t radi t ion as »adaptat ion« 
which should n o t be separa ted f rom the »root« or founda t ion , which, in tradi-
t ional Ch inese aesthetics, is the spiritual cultivation of the artist.1 9 T h e »root« 
of pa in t ing , accord ing to Lu, was based on ancient Confuc i an principles and 
teachings such as Chung Yung (The Doctrines of the Means) and Da Xua (The 
Teachings) b o t h of which p r o m o t e self-cultivation and self-discovery. Lu drew 
on these teachings to urge artists to return to the »root« - i.e. the inner self -
and nour i sh it, to f ind the wisdom to incorpora te new fo rms of painting. By 
re tu rn ing to the root , pa in te rs could f ind their own style which would also 
ref lect their own persona l i ty and ways of existence. Accord ing to old Confu-
cian teachings, this r e tu rn to one ' s root, or inner self, could also t ranscend 
t empora l , spacial , and cul tural differences. 
Cri t ics t e n d e d to r e a d Taois t and Buddhist messages into Lu's paint ings, 
especially in his 'Zen ' pa in t ings which ref lected life att i tudes of the two teach-
ings via b rush strokes in ink and abstract expressionism in style (fig. 2). Lu 
exp la ined his style in Taois t and Buddhis t terms and said it reflected styles of 
l iving and the re la t ionship be tween an individual and society. His vision of-
fe red solut ions to artists struggling with a crisis of cultural identi ty in H o n g 
Kong, w h o o f ten f o u n d themse lves feeling confused and u n g r o u n d e d in their 
hybr id cul tural s i tuat ion. Whi l e Lu asked his students to follow tradit ional 
ways of l ea rn ing and to copy tradi t ional paintings, he r ega rded the practice 
of imi ta t ion as an in t roduc t ion to the idea and skill of paint ing only. The re 
was m u c h to l ea rn f r o m the t radi t ion, like the principles of brush strokes and 
symbols . O n c e pa in t ing s tudents mas te red these, and only then, could they 
establish their own def ini t ive style. In other words, Lu bel ieved that artists 
should be able to b r eak with t radi t ion only after they have a good founda t ion 
and k n o w l e d g e of the t radi t ion . 
Lu saw p len ty of possibil i t ies in merging the Chinese and Wes te rn styles 
19 Lu Shoukun, Sui Mo Hua Jiang, notes of Lu's lectures recorded by a group of his 
students and published by them, Hong Kong 1972, pp. 31-33. 
95 
Eva K. W. Man 
Fig. 2: Lu Shoukun, Chuang Tzfi by himself, 1974 
A representative work of Lu's »Zen« painting and the New Ink move-
ment. Critics tended to read Taoist and Buddhist messages into his »Zen« 
paintings which are mainly experimental work in ink strokes in a style of 
Western abstract expressionism. 
96 
Experimental Painting and Painting Theories ... 
of pa in t ing . H e be l ieved tha t by combin ing the artistic t rea tment and tech-
no logy of the W e s t with the spiritual t e m p e r a m e n t and ink brush strokes of 
the Ch inese t rad i t ion o n e could create a whole new visual exper ience. The 
mos t i m p o r t a n t goal , he be l ieved, was self-discovery. For, only through self-
d i scovery could o n e f o r m original ideas, and this process should always come 
b e f o r e artistic f o rm . Lu saw a need for a new form of expression in H o n g 
K o n g which was b e c o m i n g a place so »foreign« to the peasant society of 
Ch ina . T o ach ieve innova t ion in art, as he always insisted, was to seek self-
k n o w l e d g e in one ' s t radi t ion , a founda t ion which artists could build on later. 
Lu 's own e x p e r i m e n t a l work paral le led his teaching. His at tempts to 
m o d e r n i z e ink pa in t ing had b e e n controversial as conservat ive atti tudes re-
sisted his p u s h for innova t ive exper iments in paint ing, which the following 
exce rp t f r o m a cr i t ique of his exhibi t ion demonstra tes . 
(Lu's) new approach is almost entirely Western and it would, indeed, be 
hard to differentiate where Chinese painting ends and Western painting 
begins. However, his conception, technique and execution remain Chi-
nese. ... I do think, though, that it is dangerous for Mr. Lui to assimilate a 
phase of Western art which I consider undesirable - that is vista or per-
spective painting. It has taken the Western artist hundreds of years up to 
our time to discover the disadvantage of making a hole in the canvas, 
thereby breaking the unity of the picture.20 
Never the less , t h r o u g h o u t the struggle for a new art form, Lu's was a 
s t rong voice in favor of nu r tu r ing a cultural identity in the Chinese artistic 
t radi t ion. 
From Traditionalism to Creative Freedom 
Lu's in f luence t h r o u g h his work and his articles in various newspapers 
and magaz ines was signif icant to H o n g K o n g art circle in the 1960s. While 
invo lved with the N e w Ink M o v e m e n t , Lu was also curator of the H o n g K o n g 
M u s e u m of Ar t in the 1970s where he oversaw m a n y impor tan t art exhibi-
t ions and events . Af te r his sudden dea th in 1975 at the age of fifty-six, his 
effor ts were car r ied on by his s tudent , Wucius Wong . 
W o n g h a d s tudied C h i n e s e pa in t ing u n d e r Lu in 1958 and b e c a m e his 
close fol lower . W i t h his p rovoca t ive views on art and his call to re turn to 
2 0 K. C. Wong, »Impressive Exhibition«, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, March 
5, 1957. 
97 
Eva K. W. Man 
Chinese tradi t ion, Lu inspired W o n g to a grea t ex ten t . W o n g s tud ied art in 
the U.S. in the early 1960s and was s truck by w h a t h e saw of W e s t e r n artistic 
culture. In 1966, a year af ter re tu rn ing to H o n g Kong , W o n g chron ic l ed this 
exper ience, descr ibing life as a y o u n g artist in H o n g K o n g a n d out l in ing his 
struggles be tween the inf luences of East and West , m o d e r n i s m a n d t radi t ion-
alism.2 1 Accord ing to W o n g ' s descr ipt ion, p r io r to the 1950s W e s t e r n ar t was 
available in H o n g Kong only as low-qual i ty r e p r o d u c t i o n s in ar t books . It 
was not until the 1960s that W o n g h a d the c h a n c e to see g e n u i n e W e s t e r n 
work when he studied in the U.S. This e x p e r i e n c e also ra ised ques t ions abou t 
cultural differences in artistic express ion and an artist 's re la t ion to t radi t ion . 
The West had not comple te ly displaced W o n g ' s C h i n e s e roots , ins tead he 
was integrat ing the two influences, t hough no t wi thou t struggle. H e h a d also 
found that Wes te rners he ld two c o m m o n at t i tudes toward Eas te rn art: o n e 
asked that wha t is essentially Eastern be p re se rved ; the o the r insis ted that 
Eastern artists should learn f r o m the West . A c c o r d i n g to W o n g , b o t h revea led 
noth ing b u t ignorance of Eastern art. W o n g ' s re f lec t ion is r emin i s cen t of 
Edward Said 's notion of »Oriental ism« and the p r o b l e m of the »Otherness« 
in con tempora ry post-colonial discourse. As W o n g said in 1966: 
Some Westerners tend to look for their notion of the Eastern tradition in 
our work and make elaborate significance out of it, they disregard our crea-
tivity and our relations to the contemporary world. The others only read 
our work from their own aesthetics, values and modes of perception which 
finally repel them from really entering into our world of painting.22 
W o n g regarded the »Eastern ident i ty« of y o u n g H o n g K o n g artists as 
the language they learned as they grew. Ch inese ways of living, th inking, and 
visual habits are all related to the Ch inese t radi t ion . Th i s ident i ty , b e c o m e s 
»the other« in a foreign context and can resul t in an impe tus for artistic ex-
per imenta t ion . Wong himself had a t t e m p t e d to give u p the t rad i t iona l l ines 
in Chinese paint ing and pain ted l andscapes in oil and the h u m a n f igure in 
ink. But no mat ter how hard he tr ied to c o m b i n e the East and the Wes t , the 
former was still his base and structure. Soon he dec ided to re turn , bo th to his 
home land in H o n g Kong and to his Ch inese pa in t ing t radi t ion in o rde r to 
have, in his own words »a greater freedom in creativity .«23 
2 1 Wucius Wong, »Return to the East and Get Set...«, newspaper article, publication 
information unknown, Hong Kong 1966. 
22 Ibid. 
23 Ibid. 
98 
Experimental Painting and Painting Theories ... 
W o n g ' s idea of r e tu rn is similar to Lu's notion of re turn , except W o n g 
e l abo ra t ed m o r e expl ic i t ly on the existential exper ience as a H o n g Kong 
artist. 
A return to the East does not mean just a return to the tradition or to cut 
oneself off from the West, both are impossible. We are living in a place 
where the East meets the West; we grow in our tradition while our way of 
living is under the influence of the West. To escape would only mean to 
limit one's creativity.24 
In a 1963 art icle ent i t led, »The Reconst ruct ion of the East,« W o n g de-
scr ibed the aesthet ics of Eas te rn paint ing as disinterestedness, and as embrac-
ing a h a r m o n i o u s re la t ion with Nature.2 ' ' Instead of fol lowing the rules of 
pe r spec t ive in W e s t e r n paint ing, W o n g saw Eastern pa in t ing as reflecting the 
p r inc ip le of »spiritual resonance ,« which t ranscends »style« or »technique,« 
as well as the b o u n d s of nat ional i ty and culture. The only absolute, W o n g 
said, is artistic f r e e d o m . This total f r e e d o m allows for the final t ranscendence 
of the East itself. In this sense, the incorpora t ion of Wes te rn influences into 
Eas te rn art is cer ta in ly acceptable ; it is always beneficial to learn f rom the 
Wes t ' s f o rms of express ion and mater ials and its deve lopmen t s in artistic 
m o v e m e n t s . W o n g ' s e x p e r i m e n t a l paint ing, which m e r g e d the Wes te rn and 
C h i n e s e ways, expresses his sense of the compl imentar i ty of the two cultures. 
O n e e x a m p l e in par t icu lar is his pa in t ing of a Chinese landscape, entit led 
»Puri f icat ion # 2 « f r o m 1979, using the fo rm and texture of Western paint ing 
(fig. 3). 
It should be n o t e d that W o n g was highly concerned about the role of 
the H o n g K o n g artist. For such artist, he said, 
Rebellion is necessary when he wishes to break through the confines of 
his predecessors to make way for something new, personal... What is 
around him is vague, fluctuating, and shapeless. He has no sense of be-
longing; he lacks identity. However, with exceptional determination and 
conviction, he has an ample opportunity to mold the future.2® 
W o n g was skept ical of Wes te rn art vogues and w o n d e r e d if m o d e r n art 
24 Ibid. 
2 5 Wucius Wong, »Reconstruction of the East«, newspaper article, publication informa-
tion unknown, Hong Kong 1963. 
2f i Wucius Wong, »Foreword to the Second Exhibition of the In Tao Painters«, catalogue 
of the 2nd exhibition of the In Tao painters, publication information unavailable, 
Hong Kong 1970. 
99 
Eva K. W. Man 
Fig. 3: Wucius Wong, Purification #2, 1979 
Wong's experimental painting expresses his sense of the complimentarity 
of the Western and Chinese aesthetic principles. This is an example of his 
painting of a Chinese landscape in the form and texture of Western paint-
ing. 
100 
Experimental Painting and Painting Theories ... 
m o v e m e n t s like P o p ar t h a d any th ing to relate or contr ibute to the living 
reali ty of H o n g K o n g artists. 
In the 1960s and the 1970s, when H o n g K o n g artists ' identi ty was be ing 
cons t ruc ted in pa r t by mode rn i za t i on and economic growth, the N e w Ink 
m o v e m e n t cal led for a r e tu rn to the past. Dist inction be tween Chinese and 
Wes t e rn pa in t ings p r o d u c e d by local pa inters was unnecessary, accord ing to 
Wong , because in his view «//artistic expressions produced by Chinese painters 
- no ma t t e r wha t the i r f o r m - were still Chinese paint ings. However , he 
admi t t ed tha t it was difficult to ident i fy » H o n g Kong paint ing« because it was 
ambiguous , con t rad ic to ry , and con ta ined split e lements . T h e most impor t an t 
thing, he said, was to re tu rn to t radi t ion for spiritual identif ication, which, 
accord ing to W o n g , should be the ha rmon ious relation of m a n and Nature . 
For var ious reasons , beg inn ing in the 1980s, the »Chinese complex« of 
the y o u n g e r H o n g K o n g artists had lost its vigor. As the colony progressed to 
b e c o m e a thr iv ing in te rna t iona l and commerc ia l center, these artists p re fe r red 
to fol low artistic d e v e l o p m e n t s in the internat ional communi ty ra ther than 
r e m a i n wi thin the C h i n e s e t radi t ion. T h e younger artists had m o r e f r e e d o m 
to create, i ronical ly, in a state of »rootlessness« than the genera t ion of artists 
be fo re t hem. Ch inese t rad i t ion was one of the young genera t ion ' s opt ions, 
yet they p r e f e r r ed the artistic vision in the West . - ' This m o v e m e n t can be 
v iewed as a p h e n o m e n o n of late capital ism which h a p p e n e d to parallel the 
ear ly stages of colonia l i n d e p e n d e n c e . T h e mass culture and en te r t a inment 
indust r ies had d is t rac ted peop le ' s ref lect ions on p rob lems of cultural iden-
tity, p o w e r s t ructure in colonial rule, race, and social class. Fur thermore , the 
p l a n n e d re tu rn of H o n g K o n g to C h i n a in 1997 did n o t create a real sense of 
colonial i n d e p e n d e n c e , especial ly in terms of cultural influences. As a result 
of commerc ia l i za t ion , art educa t ion curr iculum in H o n g K o n g came to focus 
on W e s t e r n t echn iques and concepts dur ing the 1980s, and the t rend contin-
ues today . 
Post-Colonial Discourse and Painting Theories 
It is said that pre-colonia l cultural puri ty can never be fully recovered, 
because colonia l cul tures are inevi tably hybridized. Colonial cultures have 
d e v e l o p e d a dialect ical re la t ionship be tween the world view and epistemol-
2 7 David Clarke, »Hong Kongness: Chineseness and Modernity: Issues of Identity in 
Hong Kong Art«, Hong Kong Cultural Studies Bulletin, CUHK, Hong Kong, Winter 
(4/1995), pp. 82-84. 
101 
Eva K. W. Man 
ogy of the colonizers and have deve loped an impulse to recons t ruc t an inde-
p e n d e n t loca l i den t i t y . As p o i n t e d o u t b y H e l e n T i f f i n , t h e so c a l l e d 
»decolonisat ion« process invokes a con t inuous dialect ic b e t w e e n h e g e m o n i c 
centrist systems and a per iphera l subvers ion of these sys tems. 2 8 T h e pa in te r s 
discussed in this essay, a long with their pa in t ing theor ies r ega rd ing the p rob-
lems of cul tural identity, co r respond to some of the ma in issues in c o n t e m p o -
rary post-colonial discourse in the West . 
The aesthetics of paint ing in H o n g Kong, re f lec ted by g roups such as 
Yen Kan and individuals such as C h a n , Lu, W o n g , and the y o u n g e r artists of 
the 1980s, reflect quite different values and perspect ives . This is due to differ-
ences in personal background , educa t ion , class, poli t ical consciousness , and 
ideologies - especially regard ing their views of the Ch inese t radi t ion. Each 
manifes ted their views in their art and u n i q u e styles. O n e c o m m o n view ex-
pressed in post-colonial discourse is that h e g e m o n i c sys tems exer t f o rms of 
control on colonized culture. This was no t the case in H o n g Kong . Af te r 
political upheava l in the 1960s, the local izat ion pol icy p r o m o t e d by the gov-
e rnment a imed to avoid fur ther rebell ions against the colonial rule. This policy 
greatly encouraged f r eedom of express ion wi th in the H o n g K o n g artistic com-
muni ty and thus a sense of be longing. T h e n e w aesthet ics and artistic m o v e -
ments that grew as a result can be in t e rp re ted as a search for an artistic iden-
tity, instead of as mere ly resistance to cul tural suppress ion . H o w e v e r , these 
views and activities can also be perce ived as a par t icu lar mani fes ta t ion of the 
process of decolonisat ion. This process is d y n a m i c : it does no t seek to sub-
vert the d o m i n a n t colonial ideology, bu t to p r o m o t e textual strategies as they 
substitute the dominan t discourse. 2 9 
It canno t be denied , however , that a p o w e r s t ructure still existed, even 
within the localization policy. In the absence of a critical awareness of coloni-
alism's ideological effects on the cul ture of H o n g Kong, p o w e r and cont ro l 
were in the hands of local Chinese art author i t ies . All too easily, these au-
thorities could have served the insti tutional func t ion of ensur ing that the domi-
nant force 's preferences in art were ma in ta ined . H o w e v e r , h e g e m o n i c projects 
were not unde r t aken by the colonialists themselves . T h e ins tance in wh ich 
Luis Chan ' s work was rejected by cura tors of the »Exhib i t ion of H o n g K o n g 
Art Today« in 1962 is one example . 
2 8 Helen Tiffin, »Post-Colonial Literatures and Counter-Discourse«, in Ashcroft, Griffiths, 
Tiffin (Eds.), The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, Routledge, London 1993, p. 95. 
29 Ibid., p . 97. 
102 
Experimental Painting and Painting Theories ... 
Conclusion: »Chineseness« and the »Third Space« 
It is a p p a r e n t that some painters had fewer p rob lems with the colonial 
cul ture than o thers . Luis C h a n , discussed earlier, is one example . He was 
b u o y e d by his f luency in English and his relat ionship with colonial celebri-
ties w h o h e l p e d to bu i ld his reputa t ion and sphere of inf luence in the local art 
f ield. H e p r o m o t e d basical ly Wes te rn academic paint ings in his earlier years 
and i n t roduced t radi t ional Ch inese paint ing unde r the in terpre ta t ion of West-
ern aesthet ics . C h a n was f r ee of the psychological complex of »Chineseness« 
that p l agued other pa in ters . Tha t is, he was not critical of Western aesthetics, 
nor d id he h a v e a p resc r ip t ion for H o n g Kong art, instead, he embod ied the 
spirit of H o n g K o n g itself - a truly mult icul tural society - by expressing and 
e x p e r i m e n t i n g in grea t en thus iasm and f r eedom. 
In contras t Lu S h o u k u n , a native of Main land China , called for a re turn 
to the t radi t ional and p r o m o t e d the not ions of »root« and »adaptation.« H o n g 
K o n g pa in te rs , accord ing to Lu, are rooted in t radi t ional Chinese aesthetics 
wh ich serves as a f o u n d a t i o n for bo th content and technique . H e claimed 
that knowledge of one ' s h is tory and tradi t ion are the keys to self-realization, 
and he cal led for expans ion and deve lopmen t of local art. Lu's aesthetics thus 
was f o u n d e d on t rad i t iona l i sm. 
Wuc ius W o n g ' s vision, as analyzed here, r e sembled Lu's, bu t offered a 
m o r e e labora te no t ion of t radi t ion. H e discussed the conflicts be tween the 
aesthet ics and t radi t ions of the East and the West f r o m his own exper ience of 
l iving and s tudying in the West . He also encouraged y o u n g artists to embrace 
Eas tern t radi t ions as a m e a n s to discover their t rue artistic ability or identity. 
Whi le H o n g K o n g pa in te rs ' artistic identi ty was based on tradit ionalism 
and na t iona l i sm, these e m e r g i n g young artists were also pushing forward and 
m a k i n g i m p o r t a n t artistic innovat ions . Dar ing exper iments like the New Ink 
and o ther m o d e r n m o v e m e n t s - wha t one post-colonial discourse descr ibed 
as the l ibera t ion processes in colonial terri tories - emerged dur ing a time of 
uncer ta in ty and of s ignif icatory or representat ional undecidabi l i ty . 3 0 These 
changes arose out of a con tex t in which mos t H o n g K o n g painters were busy 
p r o d u c i n g works i n t e n d e d to mee t Wes te rners ' expecta t ions of »Chinese art.« 
H o w e v e r , whi le a g r and t radi t ion which m a n y regarded as the p r imary source 
of creativity, Ch inese t radi t ional art had come to be seen as a l imited source 
of inspi ra t ion years later . This was because its »root« h a d been seriously dam-
aged du r ing the Cul tu ra l Revo lu t ion (1966-1976) in C o m m u n i s t China . Thus 
its in f luence in the co lony had slowly diminished. In addit ion, H o n g Kong's 
3 0 Homi K. Bhabha, »Cultural Diversity and Cultural Differences« in ibid., p. 206. 
103 
Eva K. W. Man 
intense modern iza t ion process was a cons tan t r e m i n d e r to y o u n g artists that 
they were not living in old China , wh ich m a d e the w o r k of w h a t s e e m e d a 
distant h o m e l a n d seem less than re levan t to the i r p r e sen t context . 
As H o m i Bhabha has po in ted out, the sense of the his tor ical ident i ty of 
culture as a homogeniz ing , uni fy ing force , au then t i ca ted by an or ig inary pas t 
and kept alive in tradit ions of a cul ture , was great ly cha l l enged in the so-
called »third space« in which the co lonized g r o u p is caught b e t w e e n the tra-
ditional cul ture to which it had once b e l o n g e d and the n e w colonia l cul ture . 
Looking at it in the mos t positive light, this m e a n s tha t the s ame signs can be 
appropr ia ted , translated, rehistoricized, and r ead anew. 3 1 Th i s h a p p e n e d in 
H o n g Kong because of converging social, economic , and cultural forces. Again, 
as descr ibed by H o m i Bhabha : 
assimilation of contraries, the split-space of enunciation may open the way 
to conceptualizing an inter-national culture, based on the inscription and 
articulation of culture's hybridity.32 
And in fact, emerging f rom the ref lec t ions on cul tural ident i ty by local 
painters is the search for an artistic ident i ty for H o n g K o n g itself that is differ-
ent f rom that of ei ther East or West . H o n g K o n g ident i ty has b e c o m e , in-
stead, an integrat ion of concepts , styles, and visual symbols of bo th par t s of 
the globe. 
The colonial government ' s local izat ion pol icy af ter the leftist poli t ical 
riots against British rule in 1967 was or iginal ly t ied in with p r o m o t i o n , even 
p ropaganda , for a growing and mode rn i zed H o n g Kong, yet it laid the g round-
work for the search for H o n g Kong ident i ty t h rough art. It should b e no t ed 
that, general ly speaking, people in H o n g K o n g f ind it m o r e difficult to iden-
tify themselves with C o m m u n i s t C h i n a (this was especia l ly t rue immed ia t e ly 
following the Cultural Revolut ion) than with C h i n a in a na t iona l sense. O n 
the other h a n d , they do not regard themse lves as British peop le . T h e situa-
tion again reminds us of the so-called »third space« in post -colonia l discourse . 
T h e not ion of »third space« has been desc r ibed as 
the 'inter', the cutting edge of translation and negotiation, the in-between, the 
space of what Derrida has opened up in writing itself that carries the burden 
of the meaning of culture.33 
31 Ibid., p. 208. 
32 Ibid., p. 209. 
33 Ibid., p. 209. 
104 
Experimental Painting and Painting Theories ... 
In essence, those l iving u n d e r colonial power have taken on a hybr id 
ident i ty . U n d e r this n e w identi ty, they must ensure that t radit ional signs can 
be app rop r i a t ed , t rans la ted , rehistoricized, and read anew. T h e re turn to the 
t radi t ional m a y be a strategy to establish a cultural identi ty that does not 
advoca te an i r revers ible or essential his tory of cul ture . 3 4 Wi th this under-
s tanding, ass imila t ion of Ch inese and Wes te rn tradit ions into a new m o d e r n 
t radi t ion b e c o m e s a useful strategy and is a natural ou tcome of the hybr id 
ident i ty of H o n g K o n g artists. Luis Chan , for example , whose life and work 
r ep re sen t ed the spirit of H o n g Kong, served to help def ine the colony 's artis-
tic ident i ty. Lu be l ieved that H o n g Kong 's artistic style would d e p e n d on the 
f r e e d o m of the indiv idual artist to develop whatever they wished, unrestr icted, 
as long as they had g o o d a tradit ional foundat ion . To m o d e r n artists like 
W u c i u s W o n g , the re is a s t rong historical dynamic in the art of H o n g Kong. 
As W o n g once said, its past is in China , its present is in H o n g Kong, and its 
fu tu re lies in the who le wor ld . 3 5 
34 Ibid., pp. 208-209. 
3 5 Wucius Wong, »Hong Kong Art Today«, Nan Bei Gi, Hong Kong, 58 (3/1975), p. 49. 
105 

Jos de Mul 
Disavowal and Representation 
in Magritte's »La trahison des images« 
Nothing is true about psycho-analysis 
except its exaggeration. 
Theodor Adorno 
Ceci n -&U ficu> wne, pifui. 
Perhaps psycho-analysis itself is the most 
suitable case for treatment by psycho-analysis. 
René Magritte 
The work of the Belgian Surrealist René Magritte takes us to the bounda-
ries of the aesthetics' domain . It forces the observer to abandon his attitude of 
passive viewing and invites him to reflect upon those questions which, pre-
cisely because of their everyday-ness and banality, generally escape our ob-
servation. A m o n g such questions is that of visual representation and the rela-
tionship between the visual signifier (signifiant) and the signified [signifié]. This 
epistemological connotat ion of Magritte's work has not escaped philosophi-
cal interest. Most especially, the painting La trahison des images f rom 1929 has 
elicited a large n u m b e r of commentaries, of which Foucault 's Ceci n'est pas 
une pipe (Foucault, 1973) is perhaps the most well known. 
That which strikes the reader in the various interpretations is that the 
title of La trahison des images rarely enters into the discussion. This is remark-
able because the titles of Magritte 's works deliver a valuable contribution to 
the question at issue and for precisely this reason they demand their share in 
the interpretat ion. However , because of their puzzling character the titles 
conjure up considerable resistance against their inclusion in the philosophi-
cal discussion. Magritte, comment ing about this, said: »The titles of the paint-
ings are not explanat ions and the paintings themselves are not mere illustra-
tions of the titles. The relationship is poetic, that is, it merely illuminates a 
n u m b e r of the characteristics of the objects involved, characteristics which 
are generally ignored by consciousness« (Magritte, 1979, 259). For an analy-
sis which is directed at the reception accorded to Magritte's work, the titles 
offer a tempt ing starting-point precisely because they reveal something about 
that which remains unconscious in perception. This is especially relevant for 
Filozofski vestnik, XVII (2/1996), pp. 107-126. 
Jos de Mu I 
La trahison des images because the title poin ts to a p r o b l e m which appea r s to 
be closely connec ted to that of represen ta t ion . T h e title of the pa in t ing of a 
p ipe which appears no t to be a p ipe br ings us on to the te r ra in of d isavowal : a 
disavowal of the images is po in ted at.1 
The close connect ion be tween r ep re sen t a t i on and disavowal , and the 
fact that these activities ex tend themselves to the b o u n d a r i e s of our th inking, 
makes t hem except ional ly difficult to 'mas te r ' . W e exist in the fo r tuna te cir-
cumstances , however , of be ing able to m a k e an appea l to psychoana ly t i c 
theory, in which the en tang lemen t of d isavowal and r ep resen ta t ion h a v e a 
privi leged position, for our studies of the re la t ionship . T h e texts in which 
Freud, and in his footsteps the F rench psychoana lys t M a n n o n i , deal t with 
disavowal (Verleugnung) in the context of fe t ishism especial ly deserve our at-
tent ion. 2 These texts will funct ion as a gu id ing th read in the fo l lowing s tudy 
of the expressive commen ta ry which La trahison des images p rov ides of the 
re la t ionship be tween disavowal and r ep re sen ta t i on in the expe r i ence of mi-
metic fine arts .3 Further , an inverse m o v e m e n t will b e ini t ia ted f r o m the be-
ginning of m y a rgument by my use of Magr i t t e ' s c o m m e n t a r y to in te r roga te 
the psychoanalyt ic concept ion of this re la t ionsh ip f r o m within . M y in te rpre-
tation of La trahison des images also bears t races of texts by Der r ida , Barthes , 
and Irigaray concern ing the quest ion of represen ta t ion . And , jus t as La trahison 
des images has unavoidab ly inserted itself in to the o rde r ing of language, these 
spores have carved themselves into the effect ive his tory of the pa in t ing , the 
never dry ing veneer of the aesthetic image which the pa in t ing embod ie s . 4 
1 La trahision des images, sometimes referred to by Magritte as L'usage de la parole, is 
usually translated as The treachery of images. In the original, however, the French verb 
trahir also has the meaning of disavowal. Given that, in my subsequent argument, 
Freud's theory of disavowel is central, I have chosen to use the second translation. 
- Those texts of Freud to which I refer here are Fetishism (SE XXI, \\l-51),An Outline of 
Psycho-Analysis (SE XXIII, 139-207), and Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence (SE 
XXIII, 271-8). Those works of Mannoni which are especially important are Je sais 
bien, mais quand même ... and L'illusion comique ou le théâtre du point de vue de l'imaginaire, 
both published in Mannoni, 1969. 
3 Used here the word 'mimetic' is taken in its broadest meaning as the representation 
of material and immaterial objects. In this sense, a part of abstract art (Mondriaan 
and Kandinsky, for example) also exhibits a mimetic character to the extent that it 
points to some kind of reality outside the painted surface. 
4 The interpretation nonetheless remains incomplete and imperfect. Imperfect because 
the context from within which the interpretation occurs constantly remains in move-
ment; incomplete because aesthetic ideas which are representations of the power of 
imagination give much food for thought without being able to be fully expressed and 
capable of providing insights by our concepts (Kant, 1968, 193). 
108 
Disavowal and Representation in Magritte's ... 
I. Magritte's pipe: Yes, I know, but still... 
In their texts b o t h F reud and M a n n o n i s tand still for a m o m e n t when 
cons ider ing the r e m a r k a b l e feelings they exper ienced when , for the first t ime, 
they were c o n f r o n t e d in their psychoanalyt ic practice with the p h e n o m e n o n 
of disavowal . F reud begins o n e of the articles he wrote about this phenom-
e n o n with the words : »1 f ind myself for a m o m e n t in the interesting position 
of no t k n o w i n g w h e t h e r w h a t I have to say should be regarded as something 
long famil iar a n d obv ious or as someth ing entirely new and puzzling« (SE 
X X I I I , 275). M a n n o n i expresses the same m o o d when, in Je sais bien, mais 
quand même ..., he ma in ta ins that, conf ron ted with the p h e n o m e n o n of disa-
vowal, one »feels oneself ca tapul ted be tween a feeling of banali ty and a feel-
ing of e x t r e m e surprise« (Mannoni , 1969, 11). It is precisely this feeling we 
expe r i ence w h e n we are con f ron t ed with La trahison des images for the first 
t ime. T h e na ive style shows us an unmis takable representa t ion of a pipe, with 
a text u n d e r n e a t h it r e a d i n g »This is not a pipe«. The shock occasioned when 
we perce ive this similarly carr ies us into the remarkab le borders of ex t reme 
banal i ty and al ienation. ' ' T h e shock, namely , resides not only in the first ba-
nal a m a z e m e n t c o n c e r n i n g the apparen t contradict ion (that is, that a painted 
p ipe is actually no t a pipe), b u t it also concerns the fact that we were amazed, 
that , despi te our knowledge of the fact that a painted p ipe is not actually a 
p ipe , we were none the les s shocked at the m o m e n t that the paint ing made us 
aware of this knowledge . 6 W i t h o u t the annota t ion, we realize in surprise, we 
would be l ieve that wha t we observe really is a pipe. 
T h e e x p e r i e n c e of La trahison des images makes us conscious of a charac-
teristic which we mus t a s sume is inheren t to every aesthetic observat ion of a 
mimet ic work of art, name ly , the s imul taneous exis tence of two mutual ly 
exclusive men ta l at t i tudes. In the aesthetic observat ion of these objects we 
° The term 'shocking' might appear too emotionally laden in relation to the observa-
tion of a painting. However, I use it with the special meaning with which Kaulingfreks 
accredited it in his book about Magritte: »That which is unexpected about the shock 
is its quality as a Trojan Horse within the fortress of intellect. The intellect becomes 
unsettled but recovers and adjusts itself to the disturbance. Thereby, it forgets that the 
violence of the shift and the events, from their existing character, are gradually and 
repeatedly set into an hierarchy ... However, the shock as a means of consciousness 
requires the intellect in order that it remains both unknown and new. It is only shock-
ing in relation to a situation wherein it does not fit, and can only be shocking if there 
is a rational hierarchy« (Kaulingfreks, 1984, 133-4). 
6 Cf. the following comment from Magritte: »It isn't about amazing someone, but, 
rather, about the fact, for example, that one is amazed by one's amazement« (Magritte, 
1979, 435). 
109 
Jos de Mu I 
know that what we are seeing is unreal, that it is a fiction: simultaneously, we 
deny this knowledge and abandon ourselves to the reality of that which we 
are observing. This disavowal of the images (in favour of the real object they 
signify) brings us to the sine qua non of the mimet ic exper ience . Wi thout the 
mechanism of the simultaneous existence of a quan tum of knowledge and a 
belief which is irreconcilable with that knowledge (that is: a particular form 
of not-knowing), the mimetic exper ience appears to be impossible. If the 
knowledge component is lacking, then we f ind ourselves in the legendary 
situation of the observers of the first film pe r fo rmance in Paris' Grand Café 
who ran in panic f rom the approaching train which they saw on the screen. 
The knowledge component appears in this instance to have been completely 
absorbed in the affective component . If the affective c o m p o n e n t is lacking, 
then we can equally not speak of an aesthetic experience. In Mannoni ' s words: 
»Anyone who, unprepared, attends a Chinese pe r fo rmance runs the risk of 
seeing the play as it is and the actors as they are. Viewed objectively, it is 
certainly theatre, but it is without the theatrical effect« (Mannoni , 1969, 161). 
An important part of 20th Century fine arts, especially that par t such as 
abstract non-figurative art which reject the mimetic, appears to unconsciously 
remove itself f rom the boundaries of the hybr id relat ionship of bel ieving and 
knowing. The strength of La trahison des images resides in the fact that it makes 
us conscious of this simultaneous existence of the knowledge and faith com-
ponents, and, what is perhaps an even more impor tan t effect, it saturates us 
with the complete not-self-evidentness of this relat ionship. After all, we are 
confronted with the question as to how it is possible that two mutual ly exclu-
sive attitudes can be simultaneously present in our minds. 
La trahison des images does not provide an answer to this question. The 
pleasure which thé painting affords us cannot really be described as anything 
other than an especially perverse and subversive pleasure. It is a shocking 
pleasure which does not intend to please and to explain, but, rather, to dis-
turb (a pleasure that may be called characteristic for the entire tradition of the 
no-longer-fine-arts). Magritte's painting is directed at a Verwindung of the mi-
metic tradition. It is a deconstructivist practice which, in a shocking manner , 
makes us conscious of that which must remain partially unconscious in the 
mimetic experience: the very process of representa t ion. The unref lected con-
tinuity of presenting the presence of an absent object by means of a sign 
forms the condition of the possibility for every mimetic experience. The sub-
versive character of Magritte's deconstructivist labour lies in becoming con-
scious of this disavowal of representat ion which is so necessary for the mi-
metic experience. In this becoming conscious, wherein the two mutual ly ex-
clusive attitudes are brought together in one m o v e m e n t of thought, the repre-
110 
Disavowal and Representation in Magritte's ... 
senta t ive a p p e a r a n c e of the mimet i c exper ience is wi thdrawn. 7 T h e mimet ic 
expe r i ence b e c o m e s - and this differentiates Magri t te 's work f rom non-figu-
ra t ive ar t whe re in the mimes i s were ' s imply ' a b a n d o n e d - enerva ted f r o m 
wi th in . 8 
T h e fact tha t La trahison des images p rovides the observer with a certain 
desire, despi te this Verwindung of mimet ic exper ience , consti tutes its perverse 
charac te r . This p leasure fo rms an indicat ion of the exis tence of another aes-
thet ic ' space ' on bo th sides of tradit ional representa t ion. It is this space, re-
vea led by desire , wh ich intr igues me. 
2. Sexual and aesthetic disavowal 
Is it pu re co inc idence tha t Freud, when speaking abou t pervers ion, also 
b u m p s u p agains t the e n t a n g l e m e n t of disavowal and represen ta t ion? H e 
worked out several aspects of this relat ionship more closely in his analysis of 
fet ishism. Fet ishism, in F reud ' s view, is based upon the fact that the analy-
sand, a lmos t a lways male , »does not acknowledge that a w o m a n does no t 
have a penis , s o m e t h i n g which , as proof of the possibili ty of be ing himself 
cas t ra ted , is mos t u n w e l c o m e « (SE XXIII , 203). The ana lysand , for this rea-
son, denies his sensory pe rcep t ion that the female does no t possess a phal lus 
and main ta ins a f i rm gr ip on the contrary convict ion. Accord ing to Freud, 
however , the den ied pe rcep t ion cont inues to be influential and, for this rea-
son, the fetishist a t t r ibutes the role of the phal lus to someth ing else, ano ther 
bodi ly par t or an article of clothing. We could express it as follows: the fetish 
p resen t s the pha l lus as be ing present . In this connect ion , Freud speaks abou t 
the fo rma t ion of a c o m p r o m i s e be tween two cont radic tory atti tudes which is 
r e la ted to d r e a m labour . T h e fetish forms a compromise be tween the sensory 
7 Here, the word 'representative' is conceived in a double meaning: not only is the 
mechanism of visual representation enervated from within, but, in addition, it thereby 
simultaneously loses its exemplary character within the aesthetic domain. Concern-
ing the relationship of these different connotation of the term 'representation', see 
Derrida, 1982. 
8 The subversive character of this assault on representation is even more shocking 
because in La trahisions des images »commonsense is raped in broad daylight« (Thrall-
Soby, 1965, 15). Magritte's preference carrying out his subversive activities in »broad 
daylight« distinguishes him from the French Surrealists who demonstrated a prefer-
ence for the night and the occult. In this connection it speaks volumes that Magritte 
gave the title Le surrealisme en plein soleil to the manifestos he published in 1946. Cf. 
how this imagery of light and darkness also appears in Mannoni when he speaks of 
denial. 
I l l 
Jos de Mu I 
perception which establishes the female 's absence of a phallus and the wish 
to preserve this phallus for perception. The fetish makes it possible that the 
belief in the presence of a female phallus is »maintained, but also given up« 
(SE XXI, 154). 
Octave Mannoni offered the assumption that this fetishization of the 
absent female (mother) phallus stands »for all forms of belief which, despite 
falsification by reality, remain intact« (Mannoni , 1969, 12). T h e structural 
agreement between sexual and aesthetic disavowal is indeed remarkable . After 
all, in aesthetic perception, one of the forms of belief to which Mannon i re-
fers, an object is by a sign equally posited as present on the grounds of its 
absence. A painted object (for example the pipe in La trahison des images) 
forms an aesthetic 'fetish', a compromise form be tween knowledge of an ob-
ject 's absence and the disavowal of this knowledge, and thereby makes it 
possible to preserve the absent object for percept ion. In the case of bo th 
sexual and aesthetic disavowal we travel - the term 'fetish' does not appear to 
have been arbitrarily chosen - in the terrain of the magical (or, more rigor-
ously: that of the 'magic of belief which precedes the 'belief in magic ' -
Mannoni , 1969, 29). What is remarkable is that in bo th instances disavowal, 
despite its irrational character, plays itself out »in full daylight« (Mannoni, 
1969, 30). Neither the sexual fetish nor the painted object possess anything 
mysterious; at the same time, they are able to carry us into a magical experi-
ence. 
In the foregoing comments I remarked , and this appears to call a halt to 
the specified analogy between sexual and aesthetic disavowal, that, in aes-
thetic perception and simultaneously with the exper ience of disavowal (the 
magical compromise between knowing and wishing), we have access to knowl-
edge of the object's absence. In the case of La trahison des images this is the 
absence of the real pipe. This knowledge, as I also remarked , does not in any 
way effect aesthetic disavowal. This appears to distinguish aesthetic disavowal 
f rom sexual disavowal wherein this knowledge-component is absent. In An 
Outline of Psycho-Analysis, however, Freud points to a s imultaneous existence 
of disavowal and knowledge in sexual fetishism: »The creation of the fetish 
emerged f rom the intention to destroy the evidence of possible castration so 
that one could avoid the fear of castration. W h e n the woman, just as other 
living beings, possesses a penis, then one does not have to fear the fur ther 
possession of one's own penis. Now, we encounter fetishists who have devel-
oped the same fear of castration as non-fetishists and who thus react in the 
same manner . In their behaviour they thus express two mutual ly exclusive 
attitudes: on the one hand they deny the reality of their percept ion of no 
penis being present with female genitals, and, on the other hand , they ac-
112 
Disavowal and Representation in Magritte's ... 
knowledge a woman 's lack of a penis and draw the correct conclusion from 
this acknowledgement. Both attitudes exist side-by-side for an entire life with-
out their influencing each other« (SE XXIII, 203). 
The phenomenon of the mutual existence of two mutually exclusive 
attitudes is presented by Freud with the term 'Ego-splitting' (Ich-spaltung). 
The emergence of Ego-splitting shows that the disavowal of perception by 
the fetishist is not complete; the acknowledgement is, after all, present in 
consciousness. In this case, the fetish(ism) is only partially developed: »It 
does not control the object-choice with exclusion of everything else, but, rather, 
leaves room for a more or less normal behaviour and sometimes even re-
duces itself to a modest role or a simple announcement of its presence. The 
distinction between the Ego and reality is, accordingly, never completely 
successful for the fetishist« (SE XXIII, 203). Aesthetic perception is capable 
of a similar description. The observer of La trahison des images surrenders to 
the imaginary presence of the object but, simultaneously, he realizes this sur-
render and precisely thereby elevates the experience to an aesthetic one. Just 
as, according to Freud, sexual fetishism mostly reduces itself to a modest role 
or simple announcement of itself (and the sexual goal of genital reproduction 
is preserved), so does the observer who is captured by the aesthetic experi-
ence leave open a path for a complete reproduction of knowledge. In this 
manner , both forms of fetishism remain under the domination of instrumen-
tal representation which is in the service of the reality-principle (see SE XII, 
213-226). The shock which La trahison des images engenders is only abrupt: 
the trusted frameworks of perception quickly recover. Awakened from his 
aesthetic 'd ream' the hand faultlessly goes to the ash-tray and the observer 
smokes his pipe with satisfaction. 
When fetishism becomes acute, sexual activity removes itself from re-
production. The fetishist pulls himself free from the dominance of the sexual 
goal. In analogous fashion, the aesthetic observer, when he finds himself in 
the same situation of acute fetishism, retreats into his 'unselfish pleasure' and 
thereby escapes f rom the domination of instrumental representation. In both 
cases, fore-play overmasters after-play and the perception becomes perverse (for 
the italicized terms, see Freud, SE VII, 209 ff; in relation to the aesthetic Jokes 
and their Relation to the Unconscious, SE VIII). In both cases we can therefore 
speak of an acute aestheticism. That is: that the pleasure of looking becomes a 
goal in itself, cut off f rom the everyday practice of looking which is guided by 
the demands of sexual reproduction and utilitarian representation. 
A description of these forms of fetishism which, as in the case of Freud, 
finds its ultimate criterion in the demands of the reality-principle, cannot veil 
its pejorative tone. However , the pleasure which the fetishist experiences in 
113 
Jos de Mu I 
the sexual and aesthetic game can equally not be h idden . But it is a pleasure 
that cannot be represented in an order where in sexual reproduct ion and utili-
tarian representation are the central terms. It is, in the different meanings of 
the word, a non-representative pleasure. A theoretical approach - assuming, 
that is, just as Nietzsche argued, that it always finds its origin in the 'factories 
of use' (KSA 1, 299) - can situate this pleasure at best in an a-topos. T h e 
theory is here made into a detour, perver ted by its object it can only evoke 
the pleasure at the moment that it stumbles and sets its unders tand ing teeth 
into its own tail. Is it only irony that La trahison des images he reby indicates its 
own tail to theory? 
3. The perversion of aestheticism 
The subversive character of La trahison des images is fo rmed by the fact 
that the painting breaks through mimetic pleasure. Starting f rom the order of 
the representation, it is shown that that order is empty. By no longer permit-
ting word and image to support each other, the naive-realistic conceptualization 
of the representat ion is raped f rom within and »in b road daylight«. The 
signifiers (the image of the pipe, the painted text) only point in a negative 
manner to each other, and, thereby, they become , as it were, meaningless. 
The painted sentence does not only make us realize that the image of the 
pipe is not really a pipe, but, at the same time, it makes us realize that the 
sentence refers to itself: the painted sentence, too, is not a real pipe. The 
signified (the 'real' pipe) disappears completely f rom the field of view. Foucault, 
in his essay concerning Magritte, formulates this as follows: »Magritte per-
mits the old space of the exhibition dominate , but only on the surface be-
cause it is no more than a flat surface which bears words and images; there is 
nothing underneath it« (Foucault, 1973, 25). 
La trahison des images shows us a remarkable characteristic of the sign, 
about which in structuralist semiology after Saussure, too, there has been 
substantial speculation. The language-sign was conceived by Saussure as a 
relation between sound (the signifier) and concept (the signified): the mean-
ing-content of a sound is determined by the relation which it maintains with 
the other sounds which belong to the same system. The definit ion which 
Saussure gives can be called differential because he conceives of the sign as 
an internal and external difference: internally, the sign is de te rmined by the 
difference between the signifier (signifiant) and the signified (signifie); exter-
nally, it is determined by the difference between the signifiers and the signifieds 
themselves. Radicalizing this differential language-defini t ion f rom Saussure, 
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Disavowal and Representation in Magritte's ... 
post -s t ructura l is ts such as Der r ida , Lacan, and Barthes postula te that the 
signifier and the signified do n o t fo rm a fundamenta l uni ty of sign, but , rather , 
tha t the signified e m e r g e d f r o m the art iculation (that is: combinat ion and 
substi tution) of the signifiers. A signified, it is mainta ined, always points to 
o ther e lements and the reby also always f inds itself in the posit ion of signifier. 
A c o n s e q u e n c e of this po in t is that the signified always pos tpones itself: every 
signified is pa r t of a referent ia l game which never comes to rest. In contrast to 
wha t the t radi t ional 'me taphys ics of the sign' argues, the signifier, according 
to post-structuralists , does no t represent a signified which already contains 
m e a n i n g wi thin itself, but , ra ther , it is a der ived p h e n o m e n o n , an effect of the 
systemic play of signifiers.9 
In La trahison des images one could express this by saying that this refer-
ential game b e c o m e s f rant ic , as it were. In the negative reference the referen-
tial func t ion of the represen ta t ion , which, following Saussure, is p laced in 
pa ren theses by the post-structuralists , is complete ly r e m o v e d . 1 0 T h e referen-
tial g a m e b e c o m e s an endless repet i t ion wi thout originality, a s imulacrum. 
T h e obse rve r is invo lved in a d o m a i n f rom which it is impossible to escape. 
O n a psychic level, this is expressed in the s imultaneous exper ience of the 
at t i tudes, necessar i ly separa ted for the aesthetic exper ience , of knowing and 
bel ieving. T h e obse rve r b e c o m e s conscious of his Ego-splitting. Nonetheless , 
and this is precisely that which is r emarkab le about the exper ience, this be-
c o m i n g conscious is not , as one would expect , combined with pain or fear. 
T h e ' th rea t of cas t ra t ion ' which , in this instance, concerns the object of our 
exper ience (the ' rea l ' pipe), is, after all, acute in the exper ience of the short-
circuit of the s ignif iers in La trahison des images. In cont ras t to this, the 
decons t ruc t ion del ivers a cer ta in desire, a fo rm of desire with which pe rhaps 
only pe rvers ion can p rov ide us. 
D e r r i d a main ta ins : »At the m o m e n t a signifier stops imitating the dan-
ger of pe rve rs ion is immedia te ly acute« (1968, 291). W h e n the signifiers no 
longer r ep resen t the signified, but , ra ther , only and pure ly signify each other 
(that is, are p r i soners in a p u r e inter-textuality), then they become self-lovers, 
a fetish. Magri t te , in La trahison des images, completes the transit ion f rom a 
9 See for a critical evaluation of this poststructuralist credo: J. de Mul, 1997b, chapter 8. 
10 Because structuralist linguistics directs itself at the linguistic system (langue) and ab-
stracts from concrete speech (parole) Saussure can, on methodological grounds, leave 
the referential function of language out of consideration. Among the post-structural-
ists, the referential function of language as such appears sometimes to be called into 
question. This is combined with the ambiguity of the term signifié: on the one hand, 
this term refers to a (mental) concept; on the other hand, it can also refer to the 
signified object to which the sign as a totality (sound + concept) refers. 
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Jos de Mu I 
partial fetishism of the aesthetic expe r i ence to a total fet ishism of aestheti-
cism. T h e be l ie f -component is e l imina ted in f avour of a special desire for 
knowledge of »the slippage (glissement) of m e a n i n g u n d e r the signifier« (Lacan, 
E 502). T h e dominance of the signified, wh ich is intr insic to na ive real ism, is 
here forsaken in favour of a desire for the d o m i n a n c e of the signifiers. Speak-
ing in the context of a l i terary text conce rn ing p leasure (the sexual jouissance) 
of a game where in the ul t imate m e a n i n g con t inuous ly re t reats , Bar thes in De 
l'œuvre au texte says: »The Text , on the cont ra ry , prac t ices the infini te defer -
ment of the signified, is delatory; its field is that of the signifier and the signifier 
must not be conceived of as ' the first stage of m e a n i n g ' , its mater ia l vest ibule , 
but, in comple te opposi t ion to this, as its deferred action. Similary, the infinity 
of the signifiers refers no t to some idea of the inef fab le (the u n n a m e a b l e sig-
nified) bu t to that of a playing« (Barthes, 1982, 158) 
O n the terrain of visual signifiers, La trahison des images refers to the 
extreme limits of this game, this jouissance-, the imaginary turning-point where in 
that which is signified (signifiance) b e c o m e s s u b m e r g e d in showing the sense-
lessness of the representa t ion. T h e mimet ic -aes the t ic expe r i ence , which nec-
essarily involves a be l ie f -component , is he re a b a n d o n e d in o rde r that the 
path be m a d e free for the knowledge of an aes thet ic ism which conce rns itself 
with all signifiers. Not only the signifiers wh ich are t radi t ional ly p re sen t ed as 
imaginary or artistic are dragged into this aes thet ic ism: the p ipe in the ash-
tray, too, is made into an e lement of a re fe ren t ia l g a m e wi thout any basis. 
4. The phallus as transcendental signifier 
In the foregoing I have been gu ided by the ana logy M a n n o n i n o t e d 
be tween sexual and aesthetic disavowal. T h r o u g h this reasoning , I came u p o n 
the trail of a myster ious re la t ionship b e t w e e n sexual and epis temologica l rep-
resentation. This relationship, which cont inues to emerge in unexpec t ed places 
in m o d e r n ph i losophy , 1 1 is also a rgued by Lacan , with a r e f e rence to the 
11 In the first place I am thinking here of the in every way bizarre Geschlecht und Charakter 
by Otto Weininger (1980; first published in 1903). But with Nietzsche, too, sexual 
metaphors play a constant role (cf., for example, KSA 5, 11; cf. the occasionally 
dizzying commentary which Derrida (1978) makes of this work). Derrida, inciden-
tally, points to the fact that in Heidegger's painstaking interpretation of Nietzsche's 
Wie die Wahre Welt endlich zur Fabel wurde the passages dealing with the feminine 
character of the Christian metaphysics belong to the few to which he does not ad-
dress himself. In his Nietzschean-inspired deconstruction of Heidegger's Verwindung, 
Derrida makes this unconsidered metaphor one of his entry-points. 
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Disavowal and Representation in Magritte's ... 
post-structuralist reading of Freud, on more theoretical grounds. We should 
briefly follow this detour because it makes it possible to approach La trahison 
des images f rom a rather different perspective, in the hope that a combination 
of these perspectives will provide more 'depth ' to the image with which we 
are concerned. 
Lacan's return to Freud is strongly influenced by Saussure's structuralist 
linguistics. This led Lacan to interpret the problematics of castration as a 
complex which marks the entrance of the individual into the symbolic order. 
In Lacan's view, the individual, who initially exists in an imaginary order of 
immediate experience, only receives the status of subject when he enters into 
the symbolic order. In this chain of terms, the individual and the objects of 
his experience are represented, proposed as present in their absence. The 
narcissistic identification with the mirror-image (which ensures that in an 
imaginary manner one continues to coincide with the Other) is thereby re-
lieved by the acknowledgement of the other-ness of the (symbolically articu-
lated) Other . The reality (réalité) of the subject is thus already a symbolically 
marked reality. From this, the post-structuralist character of Lacan's position 
is apparent : the meaning of an experience is not given in advance, but, rather, 
it is an effect, a 'precipitation' of the chain of signifiers. The meaning slips, as 
we have already seen, into the jeu de signifiants, the infinite game of the signifiers. 
Jus t like Freud, Lacan, too, puts a strong emphasis on the role which the 
phallus plays in the transition from the imaginary to the symbolic stage. How-
ever, he thereby firmly resists a possibly naturalistic interpretation of the cas-
tration complex. For Lacan, the phallus is »not a phantasy ... equally not an 
object ... and even less the organ which it symbolizes« (Lacan, E 690). For 
him, the phallus is actually the signifier which pre-eminently marks the tran-
sition f rom the imaginary to the symbolic stage. According to him, this is also 
the reason that Freud chose a term for this signifier which points to the 
simulacrum which, in Antiquity, was the phallus: »After all, it is the signifier, 
to the extent that it constitutes their possibility-conditions, which is destined 
to indicate the effects of the signified in their totality« (E 690). 
The phallus forms the third term which transforms the combatitive rela-
tionship of the mirror-stage, which is characteristic of the imaginary order, 
into the triangular relationship which is characteristic of the symbolic order. 
It is ' the tiniest difference' which indicates »that which the child is not, what 
the mother does not have and the father (presumably) does have« (Mooij, 
1975, 142). In Mooij 's words, a double distancing emerges: »In the first place, 
there arises a separation from the initial two-in-one whereby a chasm (une 
béance) appears between what are now two relations, two terms, and whereby 
a void [un vide) emerges in the place where originally the two-in-one existed 
117 
Jos de Mu I 
(une place vide). Hereby, the lack (le manque) emerges which is in t roduced by 
the insatiability of desire. In the second place, a separat ion emerges between 
what is now a relationship between two terms and that which names this 
relationship. The third term therefore creates a double distinction, internally 
between the two relations, and externally be tween the relation and its sym-
bolic representation. We can summarize this funct ion as: differentiat ing rep-
resentation« (Mooij, 1975, 142). 
Thus, with Lacan, the phallus funct ions as a t ranscendental signifier, 
that is, as the necessary possibility-condition for every produc t ion of mean-
ing. It is the signifier which unlocks the ent rance to the (symbolic) order of 
representation and thereby introduces a desire which cannot be satisfied. 
But, simultaneously, for Lacan the phallus also remains the specific symbolic 
signifier which indicates the penis (cf. Weber , 1978). This explains why Freud 
- and Lacan with him - gives a privileged role to the castration complex in 
relation to entering into the symbolic order . Moreover , it explains why, in 
psychoanalytic theory, the representat ion of bo th sexes and the representa-
tion of meaning in general cannot be separated f rom one another . 
5. Postmodern schizophrenia 
Now we return to the pleasure of fetishizing the signifiers. This has be-
come clear: it is a paradoxical pleasure. The insight that the signifiers only 
cherish themselves, that every access to the signified is cut off ( 'castrated'), 
really makes us suspect the opposite: a cutt ing pain. To place this pleasure we 
should first actually - a new detour - more closely delineate the distinction 
between aesthetic belief and aesthetic knowledge. 
Here, too, it is Mannoni who suggests the direction we should take. He 
maintains, associating himself with Lacanian topology, that belief continu-
ously assumes »the support of the Other« (Mannoni , 1969, 33). In L'illusion 
comique ou le théâtre du point de vue de l'imaginaire he explicates this through an 
analysis of the 'primitive' belief in masks and theatrical illusion. In the thea-
tre, he argues, everything is done to maintain the theatrical illusion while 
everyone knows that it is an illusion. Here , the issue is thus one of 'classic' 
aesthetic disavowal: an ' imaginary creduli ty ' is always present . 
Concerning this point, Mannoni remarks : »Even though we are not our-
selves the victim of a theatrical illusion or of the illusion of masks, it nonethe-
less appears that we gladly see someone who believes in such illusion. Every-
thing appears to be done to produce this illusion, but it must be by someone 
else. As if we should conspire with the actors. Here , we see who the 'you ' was 
118 
Disavowal and Representation in Magritte's ... 
in 'you could say' whereby the playful illusion is expressed. After all: for-
merly, 'one believed in the masks' ... 'Formerly' means, as we could suspect, 
'as a child'. An explanation, perhaps rather simplistic but not therefore com-
pletely inaccurate, now imposes itself as it were. Something, something from 
that child that we once were, still lives on in us, somewhere hidden within the 
Ego, perhaps in that place which Freud, following Fechner, correctly calls the 
theatre of the dream (and why precisely this metaphor?). This hidden part of 
our Self could thus be the place of the illusion, that which we actually do not 
yet really know what it is« (Mannoni, 1969, 164). 
Although Mannoni here explicitly speaks of the theatre, his description 
can, without too many problems, be applied to the illusion which appears in 
the perception of mimetic fine arts. Belief in representation, that is, in the 
possibility to immediately perceive reality itself through the transparent win-
dow of the painting, rests equally upon the credulity of an Other. Of course 
we know that a painting constitutes an imaginary representation of reality, 
but we conspire with the painter, as it were, to lead this Other up the garden 
path, or better: to lead him behind the window. Once again, an irrational 
process which occurs in broad daylight. 
If this explanation is correct, then it offers us the opportunity to more 
closely present the transition from the hybrid coincidence of belief and knowl-
edge in aesthetic perception to the 'absolute' knowledge of aestheticism. This 
transition would occur at the moment that the observer himself takes the 
place of the Other . Mannoni describes this transition by reference to a pas-
sage from Casanova's biography. It is the story of a person who believes in 
his own fabrications, someone who no longer possesses the phallus by magic 
but, rather, by deception. According to Mannoni it is precisely here that the 
transition to complete fetishism occurs and knowledge is completely aban-
doned: »We can actually see that the place of the Other is now occupied by 
the fetish. If this is missing it creates unrest, as occurred with Casanova, when 
credulity goes by default. But Casanova imagines that he knows who believes 
and who does not believe. Even if he actually makes a mistake, the problem 
can still be posed in terms of belief. After the fetish has been established, 
belief disappears. We then no longer know how the question sounds and we 
could say that it is precisely the goal of the fetishist to escape from every 
question. While everyone enters the terrain of belief with the Verleugnung, it is 
precisely this terrain which those who become fetishists, at least insofar as it 
involves their fetish, leave« (Mannoni, 1969, 32). 
We may assume that the perverse power now rests upon the fact that the 
painting brings the observer into the position wherein he realizes that he is 
himself credulous. He coincides in an imaginary manner, as it were, with the 
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Jos de Mu I 
Other to whom he originally ascribed belief and thereby causes the imple-
mentation of the fetishism of the signifiers. The signifiers cease to mean the 
Other . If we remain within Freudian terminology then we cannot fail to con-
clude that psychosis is hereby quite close. W e surrender ourselves to an un-
verifiable and uncontrollable process of mean ing which must lack an ulti-
mate signified [signifié transcendental). W e are conf ron ted with that which 
Moyaert presented as a schizophrenic discourse: »The schizophrenic discourse 
cruelly teaches us that our discourse does not derive its suppor t or its mean-
ing from the presence of a final signified or an ideal semantic fo rm which can 
unite all discourse. In a confrontat ion with schizophrenia our discourse, too, 
is in its turn pulled along with and written into a game of signifiers without 
any ultimate basis or sense. In this manner , each of his discourses loses every 
foundation or point of reference. Knowing my discourse collides with a radi-
cal not-knowing which ridicules my certainties: the schizophrenic 'futilizes' 
my knowledge to a game of signifiers« (Moyaert , 1982, 151). 
In an analogous manner , Magrit te 's La trahison des images could be called 
a schizophrenic metaphor . In the circular play of the signifiers (the words 
and the image), every access to the Othe r of the signifiers (the signified, the 
'real ' pipe) is cut off. To use another of Moyaer t ' s terms, a de-metaphoricization 
occurs (Moyaert, 1982, 142). The circular play of the signifiers, the purely 
negative reference to the words and the image, creates a vacuum where pre-
viously belief pointed the Other to 'his ' place. W h e r e first a metaphor ical 
leap to the other side of the signifiers stood, there now only exists the endless 
metonymy of signifiers. In other words, La trahison des images surprises us 
with the realization that the painting (and mimet ic art in general) is not a 
window through which we can gaze at the Other , but, rather , a glass stained 
by signifiers which betrays nothing except its one-dimensional surface. 
With the help of what we have learned so far, let us approach more 
closely the pleasure of complete fetishism, the aestheticism wherein the ob-
server of La trahison des images finds himself. The aestheticism, which permits 
us once again to coincide with the imaginary Other , removes the fear of 
castration because thereby the signified disappears completely f rom view and 
thereby can no longer be experienced as a loss. In this context, with respect 
to the analogous position wherein schizophrenia finds itself, Moyaer t remarks: 
»Every possible vulnerability occasioned by the indestructible presence of 
the Other (or the other) disappears given that his discourse is just as much a 
code of the message as a message of the code; and this has as consequence 
the fact that the subject of the psychosis himself takes the place of the Othe r 
and thus himself becomes the Other . T h e schizophrenic can peaceful ly main-
tain himself in a world of signifiers which, in his narcissistically inflated om-
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Disavowal and Representation in Magritte's ... 
n ipo tence , he can m a n i p u l a t e freely and wi thout any risk (Moyaert , 1982, 
151).1 2 
C o m p l e t e fe t i sh ism appea r s in this m a n n e r to be character ized by a 
d o u b l e p leasure . In the first place, fetishism has the f r e e d o m of the meta-
phor ica l leap in the dark: it r emains on the surface, escaping f rom the fear of 
the loss, the defec t (le manque). Here , pleasure is essentially negative, based 
u p o n the absence of fear . But, at the same time, there is the other pleasure of 
man ipu la t ion . It co inc ides with the Other , domina tes the game f r o m within 
because the fetishist has himself b e c o m e par t of it. Expressed in a classic 
F r e u d i a n image: he expe r i ences an oceanic relation with the Other . A re turn 
to ' the pa rad i se of p u r e i m m e d i a c y ' takes place. 
T h e obse rve r of La trahison des images f inds himself equally, even if only 
t emporar i ly , in this circular play of the signifiers. H e becomes , as it were, 
a b s o r b e d into the surface of the canvass. His belief in the signified makes way 
for an absorp t ion in the process of m e a n i n g (signifiance). T h e knowledge-com-
p o n e n t takes the p lace of believing, bu t it is a knowledge of a special sort 
whe re in the nega t ion (the no t -knowing of belief) is e l iminated. This lack of 
the nega t ion const i tutes the radical be ing-Other of pleasure which reveals La 
trahison des images. In Bar thes ' words, it is »a pleasure without separat ion« 
(Barthes, 1982, 164). H o w e v e r , in terms of psychoanalysis , it is also therefore 
con t inuous ly an imag ina ry pleasure . For the same reason, it is a pleasure that 
can neve r be adequa te ly con ta ined within the schemas of representa t ion, just 
as u l t imate ly the p leasure of sexual fetishism can never be adequately under-
s tood f r o m within the s chema ta of sexual reproduct ion . Al though pos tmodern 
expe r i ence is a paras i te u p o n m o d e r n exper ience , it reveals a pleasure which 
is neve r comple te ly u n d e r s t a n d a b l e f rom within the perspect ive of the real-
i ty-principle . 
12 One could refer to this schizophrenic discourse as the post-modern variant of passive 
nihilism. In my opinion, it is pre-eminently expressed in the writings of Baudrillard. 
At a theoretical level irony receives here the complete dominance over what, in this 
context, I would like to call 'the enthusiasm of the signified'. In a recent reading, the 
American psychiatrist-philosopher Sass has made an interesting attempt to show schizo-
phrenia, from within Heidegger's Sein und Zeit, as a radicalized 'theoretical' assess-
ment of Being whereby everything (including persons) can be conceived as merely 
manipulable, immediately available objects. One way of summarizing Sass's argu-
ment is to say that the schizophrenic suffers from an extremely deficient mode of 
understanding Being. Baudrillard's thesis of the obscene transparency of objects ap-
pears to me to be an affirmation of that which is criticized with regard to Heidegger: 
the technical articulation of Being (Heidegger, 1962, 14). 
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Jos de Mu I 
6. Superficiality from depth 
With this last r emark we have r e tu rned to a p lace whe re the de tours h a d 
already b r o u g h t me, someth ing which makes clear the c i rcular charac te r of 
these paths. W e have to conf i rm that, in our a t t empts to b r i n g it u n d e r the 
dominance of our theoret ical Bemachtigungstrieb, we have cons tant ly and re-
petitively pushed the pleasure f r o m the o the r - pos tu la ted - aesthet ic o rde r 
out in f ron t of us. Examin ing it f r o m the o r d e r of the represen ta t ion , tha t 
which falls outside is literally non-representat ive. 1 3 T h e image which La trahison 
des images presents to us appears at this po in t to converge with the imag ina ry 
constructs of the post-structuralists who have crossed our paths . Af ter all, the 
post-structuralists postulate that an i m m e d i a t e expe r i ence - and must it n o t 
be admit ted that this exper ience is the imag ina ry travel-goal of m y wander -
ings? - is impossible within the symbol ic o rder . H e r e b y , in the last analysis, 
the fetishistic pleasure is only c o m p r e h e n s i b l e as a regress ion to an imagi-
nary past. Lacan does speak, pe rhaps , abou t a th i rd o rde r , tha t of the real (le 
réel), but it is conceived by h im as the imposs ib le : it is imposs ib le to reach or 
take on and is ul t imately inaccessible. Does no t Magr i t te a p p e a r to say the 
same when he magically removes the ' real p ipe ' r ight in f r o n t of our eyes? 
Nonetheless, this 'psychoanalyt ic ' in te rpre ta t ion does no t appea r to agree 
with the l ight-footed pleasure which La trahison des images awakens in me . 
Does not the p ipe appea r p r edominan t l y to s u c c u m b u n d e r the weight of 
these sombre theories concern ing the Defec t? It is a cha rged in te rpre ta t ion . 
For this reason it is tempt ing, having ar r ived at this poin t , to con t inue the 
reverse m o v e m e n t - with Magri t te towards psychoana lys i s - , to ensconce 
ourselves in the exper ience which La trahison des images offers us, and f r o m 
this posi t ion to question theory. In the fo rego ing I cal led La trahison des images 
the e m b o d i m e n t of the limit of the g a m e of signifiers. This limit fo rms the 
b o u n d a r y be tween the three-d imens ional space of the signifiance (which is 
constant ly character ized by the me taphor i ca l leap towards the o ther of the 
signifiers) and the flat surface of the circular (metonymical ) d o m i n a n c e of the 
signifiers. Magri t te shows us, where post -s t ructura l i sm criticizes the domi-
nance of the t ranscendenta l signified, that the ' cha in of signifiers ' is the rat-
tling hera ld of a new dominance : that of the t r anscenden ta l signifier and the 
Eternal Defect . The legitimate quest ion which La trahison des images p re sen t s 
13 This is what Friedrich Schlegel presents as a 'cyclical progression'. We return to the 
place from whence we came, but we now see this place from an ironic distance (see 
De Mul, 1997a). 
122 
Disavowal and Representation in Magritte's ... 
to us is w h e t h e r m a k i n g the signifier absolute is not a new prison, a new 
c o l u m b a r i u m buil t wi th the rubb le of the old d u n g e o n ? 1 4 
T h e pa ths of the d i f fe ren t post-structuralists (whom I have previously 
too simplist ically s u m m a r i z e d unde r one heading) appear here to separate. If 
Magr i t t e he re s tands oppos i t e Lacan, then Der r ida and Barthes find them-
selves on his side. Samue l W e b e r , in his commen ta ry concern ing the mean-
ing of the pha l lus in Lacan ' s work, points, following Der r ida , to the danger of 
m a k i n g the signifier absolute : »Making the signifier absolute ... removes at 
the same t ime, however , its specific and de te rmin ing dif ference, and thereby 
makes it a signified« (Weber , 1978, 124). T h e phallus, the Eternal Defect , 
m o r e o v e r emerges as a signified to which every signifier ul t imately refers. 
O n e way of pu t t ing this is to say that at this poin t Lacan ' s sexual me tapho r 
fossilizes and access to every space outside the phallic representa t ion is made 
theoret ica l ly imposs ib le . Put ano ther way: when the phal lus disappears as a 
specific signifier because it is m a d e absolute, then the other of the phal lus 
also d isappears : desire. A n d it is precisely this desire a round which the circu-
lar m o v e m e n t of Magr i t te ' s La trahison des images ' revolves ' . 
But h o w should this desire be evoked? In any case, Magrit te does not 
have the des t ruc t ion of represen ta t ion as his goal. In La trahison des images it 
r ema ins demons t ra t ive ly p resen t - after all, does the naive-realistically pre-
sented p ipe no t always r e m a i n a p ipe? It appears that Magri t te he re tries to 
s u p p o r t D e r r i d a ' s c o m m e n t t h a t it is n o t p o s s i b l e »to a r t i c u l a t e a 
deconst ruct iv is t p ropos i t ion which has no t already secretely taken over the 
form, the logic, and the implici t postulates of precisely that which is be ing 
a t tacked« (Derr ida, 1981, 280-1). Magri t te 's strategy is different: he permits 
the ins t rumenta l i s t r ep resen ta t ion to s tumble in favour of the acute shock 
wh ich m o m e n t a r i l y i so la tes the image f r o m the d i f f e r en t i a t i ng chain of 
s ignif iers . ' 0 At those m o m e n t s the thing, as Kaul ingfreks expresses it in his 
14 Owens, in an article concerning the relation between feminism and post-modernism, 
comes to the same conclusion when he maintains that: »post-modernism unveils the 
tyranny of the signifier and the violent character of its law« (1983, 59). Given the 
phallocentric character of Lacan's theory, it is not surprising that this critique is pri-
marily expressed by feminist theorists. 
There is a remarkable parallel here with the tactics which a feminist such as Irigaray 
uses against Lacan phallocentricism. She, too, in Derrida's line, maintains that every 
critique absorbs the postulates of that which is criticized: »If it was only her intention 
to inverse the order of things - if, indeed, that were possible - then ultimately history 
would arrive at the same point: phallocentricism. Neither her gender, nor her imagi-
nary desires, nor her language would therein (re-)find there place« (Irigaray, 1977, 
32). A similar tactic would result in »a new dungeon, a new monastery which she 
would build for herself« (32). The alternative is to sabotage the phallic order from 
123 
Jos de Mu I 
study of Magri t te , is » u n d i f f e r e n t i a t e d ^ p resen t , wi thou t de t e rmina t ion . It 
jus t is there, and hereby , as it were, it is no longer a thing. In its conveyed 
isolation, in the presence, it emerges as a mystery« (Kaul ingfreks, 1984, 111). 
Shocked by the negative references of image and cap t ion in La trahison des 
images (cf. no t e 5, above), we learn du r ing a m o m e n t the mys te ry of »the 
experient ial g rounds of pu re presence« of the p ipe (Kaul ingfreks, 1984, 45). 
This mystery forms, to use Heidegger ' s no t ions , the »miracle of miracles : tha t 
Being exists« (Heidegger, 1955, 47).1 6 Magr i t t e himself c o m m e n t e d a b o u t 
this mystery: »The mystery is not one of the possibil i t ies of reali ty. T h e mys-
tery is that which is absolutely necessary if real i ty is to exist« (quoted by 
Kaulingfreks, 1984, 46). 
He reby , if I m a y permi t myself such an express ion , r ep resen ta t ion mo-
mentar i ly 'gets wasted' . Or , as one can express it in French , »la representation 
casse sa pipe«. Al though it is p re -eminen t ly ar t wh ich p rov ides us with this 
myster ious exper ience , it is not restr ic ted to art: »... the though t whereof a 
p ipe and the caption 'this is not a p ipe ' a re the te rms ... Such thoughts evoke 
'de iure ' the mystery, while 'de facto ' the mys te ry is evoked by a p ipe in an 
ash-tray« (Magritte, 1979, 530). T h e p ipe is at tha t m o m e n t Lacan ' s object petit 
a, the first lost partial-object, the - accord ing to Lacan - ' f o r b i d d e n ' last l ink 
in the chain of desire. Against this, in the expe r i ence of the mys te ry there is 
no quest ion of a Lack, but , ra ther , of an a b u n d a n c e (a plus-de-jouir). T h e de-
sire is not pr imari ly the result of an u n r e m o v a b l e Lack, but , ra ther , the t ran-
scendent openness or quality of be ing reso lved (Entschlossenheit) whe re in the 
world, the Being of being, appears to us. This des i re const i tutes the possibil-
i ty-condit ions of the neighbour l iness of th ings w h e r e o v e r Nie tzsche speaks 
(KSA 8, 588). Breton, at least with respect to this point , was correct : Magr i t te 
gives lessons in things. 
All of this appears r emarkab ly superf ic ia l and bana l . But it is p e r h a p s 
for precisely this reason that it escapes f r o m 'dep th -psycho logy ' . T h e r emarks 
concern ing banal i ty and al ienat ion by F reud and M a n n o n i a re an ind ica t ion 
of this point . Magrit te explicates far m o r e explici t ly his view that psychoa-
nalysis is not able to explain the mystery : »Art, to the ex ten t tha t I unde r -
stand it, r emoves itself f rom psychoanalys is : it evokes tha t mys te ry wi thout 
which the wor ld would no t be able to exist, tha t is, the mys te ry which one 
within, comparable with the manner whereby Magritte permits the order of repre-
sentation to stumble. 
The connection which, following Kaulingfreks, I make here between Magritte's view 
of the mystery and Heidegger's hermeneutic is also discernible in Magritte's texts. 
Kaulingfreks points to the fact that Magritte knew Heidegger's work and corresponded 
with Heidegger-experts such as De Waelhens (Kaulingfreks, 1984, 47, note 26). 
124 
Disavowal and Representation in Magritte's ... 
must not confuse with any problem, no matter how difficult. No sane person 
believes that psychoanalysis can explain the mystery of the world. The na-
ture of the mystery destroys curiosity. Psychoanalysis has just as little to say 
about works of art which evoke the mystery of the world« (Magritte, 1979, 
558). 
If this analysis remains on the surface then this is because things show 
themselves precisely at this point. Perhaps we should also interpret the title 
of the painting f rom this thought. That which Magritte makes an issue of in 
La trahison des image is the disavowal of immediate experience, the disavowal 
of appearance as lustre, as the tempting appearance of being. But, and this 
too makes the painting clear: afterwards, when theory dominates this experi-
ence, the experience is denied and understood as a regression, as a return to 
an imaginary past. A similar wilful 'superficial' reading of La trahison des im-
ages reminds us of Nietzsche's hymn to the Greeks: »O, the Greeks! They 
knew how to live: therefore the issue is to remain by the superficial, to wor-
ship the appearance, to belief in the forms, the sounds, the words, the entire 
Olympus of appearance! The Greeks were superficial - from depth! And 
don ' t we come, daredevils of the spirit who have climbed the highest and 
most dangerous top of current thinking and, looking around from that height, 
have looked down, there f rom anything new? In this respect, are we not 
simply - Greeks? Worshippers of forms, of sounds, of words? Not just for this 
reason - artists?« (KSA 3, 352). Perhaps the greatest achievement of La trahison 
des images resides in its boundless superficiality - in depth. 
Translation from Dutch by Allen Reeve and Jos de Mul 
Literature 
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Barthes, Roland, Image - Music - Text, Fontana, London 1982. 
Derrida, Jacques, De la grammatologie, Les Editions Minuit, Paris 1968. 
Derrida, Jacques, Eperons: Les styles de Nietzsche, Flammarion, Paris 1978. 
Derrida, Jacques, Writing and Difference, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1981. 
Derrida, Jacques, »Sending: on representation«, in: Social Research, 1982, 294-
326. 
Foucault, Michel, Ceci n'estpas unepipe, Fata Morgana, Saint Clement 1973. 
Freud, Sigmund, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works ofSigmund 
Freud (24 Vol.), Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, Lon-
don 1953-1974. (SE) 
125 
Jos de Mu I 
Heidegger, Martin, Was ist Metahysik, Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 1955. 
Heidegger, Martin, Die Technik und die Kehre, Neske, Pfullingen 1962. 
Irigaray, Luce, »Ce sexe qui n 'en pas un«, in: Ce sexe qui n'en pas un, Minuit, Paris 
1977, 23-32. 
Kant, Immanuel, Kritik der Urteilskraft, Theorie-Werkausgabe, Band X, Suhrkamp, 
Frankfurt 1968. 
Kaulingfreks, Ruud, Meneer Iedereen, Uitgeverij SUN, Nijmegen 1984. 
Lacan, Jacques, Ecrits Paris 1966. (E) 
Laplanche, J e a n and Jean-Baptiste Pontalis, Vokabular des Psychoanalyse (2 Vol.) 
Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1972. 
Magritte, René, Ecrits complets, Flammarion, Paris 1979. 
Mannoni, Octave, Clefs pour l'imaginaire ou l'Autre Scène, Editions du Seuil, Paris 
1969. 
Mooij, Antoine, Taal en verlangen, Uitgeverij Boom, Amsterdam 1975. 
Moyaert, Paul, »Een betekenisproductie zonder geschiedenis«, in: Raster, De 
Bezige Bij, Amsterdam, 24 (1982), 135-152. 
Mul, Jos de, Image without origin. On Nietzsche's transcendental metaphor . In: 
P . J . McCormick (ed.), The Reasons of Art/L'Art et ses raisons, Editions de 
l'Université d'Ottawa, Ottawa 1985, 272-284. 
Mul, Jos de, Romantic Desire in (Post)Modern Art and Philosophy, State University 
New York Press, New York 1997. (1997a) 
Mul,Jos de, The Tragedy ofFinitude.Dilthey'sHermeneutics of Life, Yale University 
Press, New Haven/London 1997. (1997b) 
Nietzsche, Friedrich, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe, De Gruyter, Ber-
lin 1980. (KSA) 
Owens, Craig, »The discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism«, in: 
Foster, H. (ed.), The Anti-Aesthetic, Essays on Postmodern Culture, Bayn Press, 
Washington 1983. 
Thrall-Soby, James, Magritte, MOMA, New York 1965. 
Weber, Samuel, Rückkehr zu Freud. Lacans Entstellung der Psychoanalyse, Ullstein, 
Frankfurt 1978. 
Weininger, Otto, Geschlecht und Charakter, Matthes & Seitz Verlag, München 
1980. 
126 
Mikhail Ryklin 
The Collapse of the Statues 
or What Can & What Cannot Be Buried? 
The Soviet Union provides an example of a state that, for more than 
seventy years, carried out a distinct policy of representation, i.e. it controlled 
and decorated public spaces according to a plan. Initially, Lenin signed the 
decree »On the Monumen t s of the Republic« on April 12, 1918. It is not 
accidental that the founder of the first socialist state valued monumental propa-
ganda so much - more than 80% of the population was at the time illiterate, 
so that, along with cinema, monuments seemed crucial for the reeducation of 
the masses in a new socialist spirit. 
In the thirties, unde r Stalin, monumenta l propaganda acquired a more 
illusionary dimension, especially with the Palace of the Soviets, which was 
supposed to have been built near the Kremlin and to surpass it in its size and 
decor. It was so huge that the architects failed to build it. Instead, seven sky-
scrapers were erected in Moscow after the war which still dominate the city 
and remind us of the unfulfi l led dream of communism. 
Filozofski vestnik, XVII (2/1996), pp. 127-139. 
Mikhail Ryklin 
Throughout Soviet rule, there existed a list of leaders whose images 
were first to be immortalized by well-known sculptors and then copied and 
dispersed (in replicas) all over the country. Lenin invariably remained at the 
top of the list. Stalin also remained number one for about thirty years fol-
lowed by Sverdlov, Dzerzhinsky, Kalinin, Voroshilov, Frunze and other other, 
less distinquished personalities. Each new reign, up to Gorbachev's , was, as a 
rule, accompanied by the destruction of monuments honour ing the immedi-
ate predecessor as well as the whole visual and literary archive, including 
books, albums, etc. It happened to Stalin and his condemned comrades un-
der Khrushchev. At the beginning of the Brezhnev era Khrushchev shared 
the same fate. 
It seems that Soviet society aspired more to oblivion than to memory, 
scrapping most of its monuments instead of storing them, like many other 
societies do. I vividly remember how, in the early sixties, in the Crimea, I 
128 
The Collapse of the Statues . 
witnessed as a chi ld the »execut ion« of a Stalin statue: a bul ldozer pul led up 
and ins tant ly it d ragged the fo rmer god away, a hoop over its neck. 
So, the re was a k ind of cont inui ty in what took place in Moscow in 
August 1991, af ter the coup d'etathad failed, that is in the demoli t ion of the 
statues which were t opp led f r o m their pedestals . The difference, however , 
should no t be u n d e r e s t i m a t e d because this t ime it was the crowd that re-
sor ted to the acts of v io lence against the m o n u m e n t s wi thout any instructions 
f r o m above . 
I c a n n o t resist the t empta t ion to quote a passage f r o m an essay of mine 
wri t ten the nex t day af ter the coup-. 
A secure old age was certainly not to be the destiny of many Stalin-era 
statues. Those who were in downtown Moscow on August 22, 1991, could 
witness agitated iconoclasts chipping pieces off the pedestals of the over-
thrown monuments to Dzerzhinsky and Sverdlov, throngs of people posing 
at the feet of former citadels. 
Those were the days of the downfall of statues. The goal of the crowd that 
attacked the statued was clear; to allow the totalitarian spaces of Moscow to 
acquire a new aestetic status, to become, irreversibly, spaces of exposition. 
Unsuccessful »rainmakers« during a drought, these idols were humiliated, 
knocked down and secretly dumped up in the backyard of some garage. 
Destruction, as we know, is the highest form of worship; it is not just an 
expression of moral illiteracy but of an unresolved feeling of guilt spilling 
out and clamoring for immediate victims. 
On Dzerzhinsky Square without Dzerzhinsky and on Sverdlov Square with-
out Sverdlov, I physically sensed that now, from this moment on, every one 
of us had become an agent of terror. The internalisation of guilt was com-
plete; that is why the crowd itself assumed repressive functions. On the 
empty pedestals reigned the final, non-anthropomorphic referent of Terror, 
the people itself. 
The Sverdlov monument was the hang-out for the the mute. In total silence, 
the mutes had climbed onto the pillar and chipped off chunks of stone. The 
crowbars sent sparks flying. 
The exultation was chilling. (Ryklin 1992:49) 
Af te r the events of Augus t 1991 an internat ional t eam of artists inspired 
by the New-York -based f o u n d e r s of Sots-art Komar & Melamid , came up 
with the idea of t empora r i ly t r ans forming Moscow, or at least a section of it, 
in to a »garden of total i tar ian sculpture«. It would have given the artists the 
possibil i ty of tu rn ing the sculptures into a kind of history lesson, pe r fo rming 
on them, for ins tance, tu rn ing them upside down, pa in t ing on their surface, 
enac t ing their des t ruc t ion and so on. In fact, artists were urged to »behave 
like angels« wi thou t be ing such. T h e question that natural ly arises is as fol-
129 
Mikhail Ryklin 
lows: are we sufficiently r emoved f r o m the age of T e r r o r to play innocen t ly 
with its referents? Is it not an obvious narcissistic a t t i tude tha t ho lds the artists 
within the confines of the imaginary? 
These doubts are just if ied and sha red by m a n y ar t h is tor ians . Let m e 
make re fe rence to one of them, F.S. Licht : 
On the face of it, the idea is admirable. It neutralizes the monuments poten-
tially damaging propaganda while salvaging the monuments' themselves, 
conferring on them an archival status. It also produces a spate of new works. 
And yet there remains a nagging doubt: is emasculation by aestheticisation 
as defensible as it seems to be?... Can we justify our right to deal with the 
monuments of a past epoch in such a high-handed manner? Are we suffi-
ciently free of fanaticisms, of the hypocrisies and manipulatory strategies 
that lie behind the monuments to point an accusing finger?... Monuments 
have behind them impulses of generosity that cannot be utterly discounted... 
(Licht 1995:55) 
The re is another p rob l em that r ema ins un reso lved , thus m a k i n g any 
possible »garden of totalitarian sculpture« despera te ly incomple te . I have in 
mind the fact that at the very top of the Soviet h i e ra rchy of s tone, b r o n z e and 
marb le m o n u m e n t s , indeed c rowning them, there is a m u m m y , the »undead« 
body of Lenin, and this » m o n u m e n t of m o n u m e n t s « , p rov id ing for t hem their 
very possibility, still lies in the M a u s o l e u m in the R e d Square . It is there 
despite the fact that since 1991 the D a m o c l e s ' sword of des t ruc t ion has b e e n 
hanging over it (or, if one prefers, he) too. 
K o m a r and Melamid themselves do no t even d o u b t the key i m p o r t a n c e 
of the m u m m y ; in their letter to the Pres iden t of Russ ia they playful ly pro-
pose to incorpora te it in their project : 
For us, the most important monument is Lenin's mausoleum. We propose 
adding a mere three letters - 'ISM' - to the leader's name. So doing, we 
would save this 20-century masterpiece and transform it into a symbolic 
grave of Leninist theory and practice. Perhaps pink flamingos could be al-
lowed to wander about the tribunal from which the leaders greeted people 
on the state holidays. (Komar & Melamid 1995:5) 
They are not the only ones w h o bel ieve in the crucial role of Len in ' s 
body for the whole mytho logy of c o m m u n i s m . S o m e emphas i ze it even m o r e 
strongly. V . Todorov , for example , writes: 
Although justified by science, pre-planned and pre-rationalized, commu-
nism had to be authorized by allegorical images, visions, ceremonies, monu-
ments. In its center was laid the mummy of the leader...The mummy is the 
130 
The Collapse of the Statues . 
materialized spectre of communism which advertises its imaginary space; it 
is its real political body. If the teaching of the leader is the rational motive of 
communism then his corpse is its irrational one. Thus communism trans-
formed both the rational and the irrational into a political mode of life, 
where both coincide. (Todorov 1993:252-253) 
If we earnes t ly accept these statements, they will force us to recognize 
that while Len in ' s dead b o d y remains where it was, c o m m u n i s m is still in its 
p lace , even t h o u g h less essential communis t insignia h a d unde rgone destruc-
t ion. It m e a n s tha t we are no t al lowed to »behave like angels« in relation to 
the mater ia l r e m n a n t s of the past. Try ing to »behave like angels«, engaging 
ourselves in a p layful demol i t ion of the left-overs of the previous per iod of 
his tory, we do n o t h i n g else bu t r ep roduce the vicious circle of violence inher-
i ted f r o m it. 
In o ther words , the t ime is not yet r ipe for »the garden of totalitarian 
sculpture« to be c rea ted in Moscow. Al though rumors constant ly circulate in 
the Russ ian press abou t the neccessity of bury ing Lenin like a Christ ian and 
the leader himself is quo ted as having said that he would like to be bur ied 
nea r his m o t h e r ' s t omb , the m u m m y is still in its shrine and one cannot say 
w h e t h e r c o m m u n i s m , like Kafka ' s hunter Grachus , is alive or dead. At least 
its defini t ive, its final bur ia l is constantly ad journed until a later t ime which 
fails to come. 
131 
Mikhail Ryklin 
I do no t share the view of those w h o be l ieve that , once Len in ' s m u m m i -
fied corpse finds its last abode, eve ry th ing else will au tomat ica l ly change , 
and the transi t ion will be seen as comple t ed . M o r e o v e r , n o t h i n g will change 
before we change ourselves enough to let »the d e a d b u r y their dead« wi thou t 
disturbing our lives to the present extent . 
In his book on Marx J acques D e r r i d a uses the w o r d »hantologie« to de-
f ine la science des revenants, the science of p h a n t o m s , ghosts , shadows and o ther 
ephemera l p h e n o m e n a whose main p r o p e r t y is to haun t , r e t u r n i n g f r o m be-
y o n d the grave . »Good« ghosts m a y at any m o m e n t b e c o m e »bad« ones , as 
has recent ly h a p p e n e d to Lenin. 
But statues are not ghosts, they are ne i the r g o o d nor bad , ins tead, if we 
do not i m b u e them with our own pa thos , they are neut ra l . T h e capaci ty to 
become exci ted by them belongs to us and no t to t h e m . O n c e we recognize 
them as neutral witnesses and learn to b e a r their g lance, they will b e c o m e 
complete ly harmless , devoid of ei ther »impulses of generos i ty« or »natural 
depravity«. W h a t has b rough t t hem to life is one thing, whereas statues are 
quite another . They have no th ing to do with the bi t ter fact tha t s o m e b o d y ' s 
past has not yet tu rned into »past perfect«, un fait accompli. A witty p e r s o n 
once r e m a r k e d that thef t is the best c o m p l i m e n t one can pay to a th ing: in 
m u c h the same way demol i t ion is the bes t dec la ra t ion of love, d e p e n d e n c e 
and guilt in relation to things demol i shed . This u rge is roo ted in us, it is no t 
theirs, and the only cure is s imply to b e c o m e aware of the logic of the situa-
tion. 
In the final account , m o n u m e n t s b e l o n g to an i m m e n s e fami ly of neu-
tral m n e m o n i c traces and in that capaci ty they can be arbi t rar i ly ascr ibed the 
qualities of be ing ei ther revo lu t ionary or r eac t i ona ry ( d e p e n d i n g on w h o 
judges). But glorified or debased, in due t ime they start to r e semble each 
other . Some believe that democracy is in p r inc ip le i n c o m p a t i b l e wi th m o n u -
menta l c o m m e m o r a t i o n s but that does n o t p r e v e n t democrac i e s f r o m erect-
ing m o n u m e n t s . If we single out m o n u m e n t s separa t ing t h e m - as self-con-
tained entities - f rom other traces, we shall be at a loss th ink ing of h o w to get 
rid of them: 
...we cannot but deplore the monumental mode. Yet much as we hate, fear 
or mock monuments, it seems we cannot do without them...we inadvert-
ently erect monuments of our own. (Licht 1995:57) 
If we conceive m o n u m e n t s as u n a v o i d a b l e traces, it will m a k e little sense 
to say »all m o n u m e n t s are react ionary« or »by def in i t ion they are against 
revolut ionary aspirations« or, on the cont rary , »they cont r ibu te to the progress 
of humani ty« . 
132 
The Collapse of the Statues . 
133 
Mikhail Ryklin 
Traces are by nature different f rom the manner in which they may be 
defined, they repeat themselves before any definition whatsoever and are 
still interchangeable within it. 
However, revenons a nos moutons. Russian politicians do not pay much 
attention to the monuments of the Soviet epoch. Some of them remain where 
they were, others have either ceased to exist or are kept in storage spaces. 
Any comparison with nazi symbols does not hold true, for communism suf-
fered no military defeat with its habitual consequence - a formal prohibit ion 
on the part of the winners on the display of the symbols of the conquered 
enemy. In our case the Russian people has to cope all by itself with its posi-
tive and negative memories, its reactions ranging f rom adoration to destruc-
tion, from »joyful irresponsibility« to evident figures of guilt. It happens some-
134 
The Collapse of the Statues . 
t imes that statues are invo lved in this process as hostages, witnesses or in 
some o ther similar capaci ty . 
T h e si tuat ion is m u c h like the one f r o m a story told by Walter Benjamin 
in Theses on the Philosophy of History. W h a t I have in mind is the opening story 
abou t an a u t o m a t o n that neve r lost a single game of chess. But the real player 
was h i d d e n b e h i n d »a system of mirrors« and »guided the puppet's hand by means 
of strings« (Benjamin 1969:253). It was »a little hunchback (Zwerg)« who re-
s p o n d e d to each of his o p p o n e n t ' s moves with a coun te rmove . Benjamin 
con t inues : 
One can imagine a philosophical counterpart of this device. The puppet 
called 'historical materialism' is to win all the time. 
(Benjamin 1969:253) 
F r o m his M o s c o w tr ip in 1926-1927 Ben jamin knew what kind of game 
was p l ayed b e h i n d the screen unde r the n a m e of historical material ism and 
whose pe r sona l interest was a factor in t ransforming privi leged »little hunch-
backs« into a neutra l »system of mirrors« posing as automatic historical neccessity. 
F r o m 1991 on, since the t ime the USSR enacted its own disappearance, it has 
b e c o m e clear tha t it was no t a material ist au tomaton constant ly winning, but 
that dwarfs or h u n c h b a c k s gu ided its lucky hand . Hav ing destroyed the »sys-
tem of mirrors creating the illusion that the table was transparent from all sides« 
(Benjamin 1969:253) they e m e r g e d - well, not as fo rmer hunchbacks , but as 
... exper t s in a n e w g a m e of capitalism. They are the first to hate the dirty 
tricks that p e r m i t t e d old h u n c h b a c k s to win; they are l ead ing others to a new, 
no less rad ian t fu ture , the out l ines of which are already discernible beh ind a 
new system of mi r ro r s tha t is c la imed to ensure true t ransparency, this t ime 
wi thou t dece iv ing anyone . A n d it is hard to p rove that these characters are 
the same »little h u n c h b a c k s « f rom Benjamin ' s tale, for n o b o d y saw them 
e m e r g i n g f r o m b e h i n d »a puppet in Turkish attire« as c landest ine chess play-
ers. As for the f o r m e r system of mirrors, they tell everyone that it b e c a m e quite 
ro t ten na tura l ly t h rough expec t ing one good kick to collapse. They them-
selves, of course, were the those who gave the first kick. 
These are just wel l -known ruses on the par t of those who want to cross 
out their past . W h a n is real ly impor tan t is the fact that the little old hunch-
back did no t lose a single g a m e of chess to the other, m o r e exper t player. H e 
lost at best to historical neccessi ty, the nature of which remains to be def ined. 
T h e idea of »a ga rden of total i tarian sculpture« (considered by both the 
M o s c o w author i t ies and in te rna t iona l artists in 1992-1993) has yet another 
d rawback : it encompasses a small group of elite Moscow m o n u m e n t s , a kind 
135 
Mikhail Ryklin 
of statuesque nomenklatura, made of bronze and marble they were meant to 
last for centuries. But during more than seventy years of its existence monu-
mental propaganda has produced millions of such statues, busts, mosaics and 
bas-reliefs. In most cases their destruction is not ideologically motivated and 
results from bad climatic conditions, spontaneous acts of barbarism on the 
part of the local populace (made mostly of clay and plaster, they are easily 
destroyed) and a whole range of other unpredictable circumstances includ-
ing natural decay. They seal the fate of the socialist visual archive in a way 
that no articulated position or deliberately chosen attitude does. 
There are artists who try to document the process of decay at the grass-
roots level travelling all over the country. A vivid example of a modest and 
yet essential effort of the kind is provided by the Moscow photographer Igor 
Mukhin whose extensive project known as »Empty spaces« carried out persist-
ently for several years (since the late eighties) aims at preserving the remain-
ing traces of what used to be one of the biggest plastic archives on Earth. He 
collected a considerable body of evidence testifying to the actual state of the 
archive and dismissed a largely shared illusion that what really matters is 
nothing but Lenin's mummy and a number of related monuments . 
Another of Mukhin's discoveries is the mainly apolitical nature of de-
cay, as distinguished from deliberate destruction or decreed demolition. Mil-
lions of gypsum young pioneers with drums or t rumpets and girls with oars 
simply decompose in parks, squares and elsewhere because of the lack of 
public interest, poor maintenance etc. It does not matter in whose honour 
they were erected; Pushkin, the eternal favorite of the Russian public, equally 
praised by Dostoevsky and by Zhdanov, is sharing now the fate of numerous 
Gorkys, Unknown Soldiers and Mother land images of. Hardships currently 
suffered by the people make them indifferent to the remnants of the past; as 
for the State, it is notorious for its lack of resources and inability to cover even 
the basic needs. 
Most of my compatriots possess a superficial impression of living in 
such a hurry that they simply have no time for the rites of mourning. Per-
haps, however, they live like that precisely because of a constant mourning, 
so deep and suppressed in them that they simply cannot allow themselves to 
notice it? They suffer badly from »thepresent moment« perceived and described 
by most of them as something unheard - of and unique. 
But they are mistaken. Benjamin once remarked that the lower classes 
permanently live in a state of emergency which is the only etat de la nature 
known to them. In this respect Russian history is hopelessly repetitious. 
In his Russian Journal J o h n Steinbeck recalls a game that was popular 
among the American journalists in Moscow in the late forties: somebody 
136 
The Collapse of the Statues . 
read out a text declaring, for instance, that Russians were afraid to meet for-
eigners because they were constantly watched after by the police, that they 
»refused to answer any questions on their life« and so on. But how, exclaimed 
a correspondent , evidently a new-comer, are you hoping to get it through the 
censorship, you will simply not be allowed! A burst of general laughter fol-
lowed, for the text in question happened to be written in the 17-th century 
by, say, a Dutch merchant or an Italian ambassador. 
The vicious circle of the same, of what is supposed to be the same seems 
to give memory no chance, it erases, deletes everything as always-already 
having taken place. The inscription automatically becomes a palimpsest and 
is doomed to fall victim to the next inscription and so on. Or, to put it differ-
ently, too much of a presence creates a gap, an enormous absence under the 
dictatorship of »present moment«. 
Can one be a historian of the potential? The answer to this question is 
crucial for everyone who studies the archives of the Revolution or of other no 
less violent events. For it may happen that archives contain more blanks than 
information, and who can guarantee that what one takes for information has 
not been many times sifted, rareified, if not indeed annuled? The notion of a 
zero archive does not at all seem too extravagant with respect to such events. 
The question then would be: how does one deal with proteic beings who 
regularly suppress their past? 
By being a witnesses to an absence, to the loss of memory (mostly an 
ontological loss that does not involve oblivion or forgetfulness, but is, per-
haps, the only form of survival for catastrophic events). By memorizing the 
immemorial , by reading texts that were written in order not to leave traces, 
being such traces themselves. By reading them, so to say, against the grain, a 
rebours. Then we shall probably see how the revolutionary arches transform 
themselves into traces, strange ones, no doubt, but still traces, belonging to a 
whole family. 
Gathering traces is not the same thing as taking a stance or systemati-
cally explaining something. Benjamin's »Moscow Diary« is itself the best ex-
ample of how to assemble traces without providing their systematic explana-
tion or, in other words, a theory. From the very beginning of his stay in 
Moscow, then the epicenter of the Great Revolution, he keeps repeating that 
»the present moment« here is so charged with unpredictable possibilities that 
an outsider must refrain f rom judging. Several times he calls Moscow »an 
impregnable fortress« and, unable to pass a verdict, confines himself to the 
closest possible observation. Here is a quotation from his letter to his friend, 
sculptress Ju la Radt, sent to her from Moscow: 
137 
Mikhail Ryklin 
I cannot assess all of this; basically, the situation here enables and requires 
one to take on a position within it ... from an outside, all you can do is 
observe it. It is totally impossible to predict what's going to come of all this 
in Russia. Perhaps a truly socialist community, perhaps something entirely 
different. The battle that is going to decide this is still in progress. (Benjamin 
1985:127) 
This passage draws a dist inction be tween col lect ing t races (Benjamin 
himself was a collector, and the list of things he b o u g h t in Moscow, most ly 
hand -made objects, is truly impressive) , obse rv ing things f r o m the outs ide 
and taking a posi t ion or theor iz ing the s i tuat ion that he d e e m s f u n d a m e n t a l l y 
uncertain bo th f rom within and f r o m wi thout . As D e r r i d a r e m a r k s in his text 
Back from Moscow, in the USSR wri t ten in 1990 af ter his first voyage to Mos-
cow, the »phenomenologica l motive« in the »Moscow Diary« is i n sepa rab l e 
f rom the fact that here , in this par t icular p lace , i.e. in pos t revo lu t ionary Mos-
cow, each fact is always-already a t heo ry (Derr ida 1995:74-75). A he rme-
neutics, as it is pract iced elsewhere, is always b locked he re by the pr ivi lege of 
»the presen t moment« , un ique to the degree of b e c o m i n g total ly unc lea r and 
thus undec ipherab le . P h e n o m e n a b r o u g h t in to b e i n g by the Revo lu t ion are 
too ex t reme to be seized by no rma l m e a n s . 
Despi te such facts as Benjamin ' s u n f o r t u n a t e love, his u n b o r n child and 
the unfulf i l led revolut ionary promise , D e r r i d a insists on the i r reduc ib le na-
138 
The Collapse of the Statues . 
ture of his Diary as a collection of traces in its own right. This text along with 
other texts is the only remnant and survivor of his stay at the epicentre of the 
World Revolution (Derrida 1995:74-94). 
I took this example in order to show that the uniqueness of »the present 
moment« is a recurrent theme in Russian history, so that we should not enter-
tain any illusions concerning the epistemological privilege of our own present 
moment and the status of some »unheard-of« that we arbitrarily ascribe to it. 
By doing so we simply rationalize our traumas. 
For this is the main reason why, not without some hesitation, Derrida 
finally refused to equate perestroyka (which almost literally means »decon-
struction«) with deconstruction proper: perestroyka is a promise postponed 
until some more or less remote and hazy »after«, it is imbued with potential-
ity, it points to still another kind of radiant future, whereas deconstruction 
deals with traces of something that has already happened, that has definitely 
taken place. The combination »presence-absence«, with inevitable reversibil-
ity it entails, cannot directly be applied to traces that are irreversibly there. 
Nothing is more human than our desire to go beyond traces, nothing is less 
possible than that. 
References 
Benjamin, W., Illuminations, Schoken Books, New York 1969. 
Benjamin, W., »Moscow Diary«, October, No. 35, 1985. 
Derrida, J. , Moscou aller-retour, Editions de l'Aube, Marseille 1995. 
Komar & Melamid, 'm Monumental Propaganda, Independent Curators Inc., New 
York 1995. 
Licht, F.S., in Monumental Propaganda, Independent Curators Inc., New York 
1995. 
Ryklin, M., »Downfall of the Statues«, in Afrika, Fisher Gallery, Los Angeles 
1992. 
Todorov V., »Introduction into the Physiognomy of Ruins«, The Yale Journal of 
Criticism, Spring 1993, Vol. 6, No. 1. 
All photos are f rom Igor Mukhin's project »Empty Spaces«. 
139 

Maryvonne Saison 
De la nostalgie à l'art: voir de tout son corps 
«... Regarder, s ' en fonce r dans les choses sans en r ien a t tendre que la 
vér i té» 1 : telle serai t l ' i n t en t ion de Cézanne , et ce p r o p o s décelé dissuade 
Mer l eau -Pon ty de che rche r le sens de l 'œuvre dans la vie du peint re ou dans 
sa «const i tu t ion nerveuse» . La réf lexion du phi losophe appel le de multiples 
c o m m e n t a i r e s : je p r o p o s e tout d ' a b o r d de souligner la constance des thèmes 
déve loppés pa r Mer l eau -Pon ty ; s'il est certes possible de chercher le dernier 
état de la ré f lex ion du ph i lo sophe dans les textes inachevés et de dresser à 
pa r t i r de l eur s i lence les u l t imes voies d ' u n e pensée en évolut ion, il est 
souha i t ab l e é g a l e m e n t de dégager dans les p remières œuvres les germes 
u l t é r i e u r e m e n t déve loppés . O r la phi losophie de la percep t ion élaborée par 
Mer leau-Ponty dès 1945 p e r m e t de déceler l ' importance de l 'expérience vécue 
avan t m ê m e la cons t i tu t ion du sujet c o m m e tel. 
Si l ' on est capab le de r ega rde r c o m m e l 'a fait Cézanne , c'est parce que 
l 'on a d ' e m b l é e été un corps en foncé dans les choses avant de s 'en différencier 
c o m m e sujet consc ien t et connaissant . C'est un originaire vécu par chacun 
dans son his toire individuel le , qui scelle à jamais l ' entente avec le m o n d e et 
la p rox imi t é avec autrui . J e le désignerai c o m m e le m o m e n t de l ' anonymat ; il 
es t v é c u p a r le c o r p s et d é c r i t p a r M e r l e a u - P o n t y sous des c o u l e u r s 
pa rad i s i aques ses t races pers is tantes t émoignent d 'une nostalgie p rofonde . 
O r la nostalgie , f igure de la mélancol ie , ne cesse que par le re tour au pays 
na ta l 2 . 
Seul l 'ar t peu t r é p o n d r e à un tel désir, après l 'avoir réélaboré, et, en 
re tour , il s ' en t rouve ra p r o f o n d é m e n t et du rab lemen t t ransformé dans son 
p ropos . L 'ar t is te ne se soucie plus de p romouvo i r une représenta t ion ni de 
viser u n e r e s semblance : «pe indre le monde» selon Cézanne , c'est «faire voir 
c o m m e n t il n o u s touche.» U n tel «voir» renvoie à une expér ience pr imordia le 
qui ne conce rne pas l 'opéra t ion de l 'organe des sens dans son usage coutumier: 
1 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, «Le doute de Cézanne», in Sens et Non-sens, Nagel, Paris 
1948, p. 28. 
2 Cf. le travail de doctorat, à ce jour inédit, soutenu par le metteur en scène Olivier 
Besson en décembre 1993: «Histoires d'instants passés: le travail théâtral». 
Filozofski vestnik, XVII (2/1996), pp. 141-157. 
Maryvonne Saison 
il appar t ient à un corps défini par la motr ic i té et la mul t isensor ia l i té ; un corps 
cosmique en quelque sorte, par t i c ipan t f u s i o n n e l l e m e n t d ' u n m o n d e dans 
lequel aucune conscience n ' a in t rodui t de d i f fé renc ia t ion . La tâche ass ignée à 
cet art issu de la nostalgie est on to logique . Mer l eau -Pon ty ind ique la voie 
p o u r toute la réflexion p h é n o m é n o l o g i q u e u l té r ieure sur l 'art . 
Le pays natal 
Dès 1945, dans la Phénoménologie de la perception*, M e r l e a u - P o n t y m o n t r e 
que la p roduc t ion individualisée de pensées et d ' œ u v r e s réal isée pa r un sujet 
au faîte de ses moyens , repose sur u n e re la t ion au m o n d e don t la descr ip t ion 
reste à faire. Il évoque alors un é t range sujet n o n car tés ien qui pa r son corps 
individué et concret s ' accorde au m u r m u r e du m o n d e . 
Le premier anonymat 
L'analyse et la descript ion de la p e r c e p t i o n p e r m e t t e n t à Mer l eau -Pon ty 
de rectifier la doxa cartésienne sur laquel le nous reposons , de me t t r e à j o u r 
un niveau primitif et p r imord ia l d ' e x p é r i e n c e dans lequel on d é c o u v r e u n e 
«subjectivité finie», la subjectivité vouée à la «sensoriali té» (278). U n «autre 
moi» appara î t (250), le «sujet sentant» de la sensat ion (249), qui const i tue 
avec le sensible deux faces d ' une opéra t ion u n i q u e (248); la sensat ion n 'es t 
pas le p ropre d 'un sujet qui naît et m e u r t avec elle, «elle re lève d ' u n e sensibilité 
qui l 'a p r écédée et qui lui survivra» (250). Avec la sensibil i té surgissent d o n c 
des «horizons prépersonnels» (250); («toute sensat ion, dit enco re Mer leau -
Ponty, p. 249, compor te un ge rme de rêve ou de dépersonna l i sa t ion» , ou 
encore , p. 251, «la vision est p répe r sonne l l e .» ) . La sensor ia l i té i m m e r g e 
l ' individu dans la général i té et l ' anonymat : «toute pe r cep t i on a lieu dans u n e 
a tmosphère de général i té et se d o n n e à nous c o m m e a n o n y m e » , c o m m e n t e 
Merleau-Ponty, p. 249. Un peu plus loin, il écrit encore: «la sensat ion s 'appara î t 
nécessa i rement à e l le-même dans un mil ieu de généra l i té , elle v ien t d ' en-
deçà de moi -même, elle relève d ' une sensibilité qui l 'a p r é c é d é e et qui lui 
survivra, c o m m e m a naissance et m a m o r t a p p a r t i e n n e n t à u n e natal i té et à 
une mortal i té anonymes» (250). 
Loin que la percept ion installe un sujet car tés ien dans le m o n d e , elle est 
3 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception, Gallimard, Paris 1945. 
La pagination indiquée entre parenthèses dans les pages qui suivent renvoie au même 
texte. 
142 
De la nostalgie à l'art: voir de tout son corps 
le lieu où disparaît le sujet dans l 'anonymat: «toute perception a quelque 
chose d 'anonyme» (275). Il faudrait même que la grammaire prenne acte de 
cette évidence peu à peu oblitérée en substituant au «je» du sujet le «on» de 
l ' anonymat : «si je voulais traduire exactement l 'expérience perceptive, je 
devrais dire qu'on perçoit en moi et non pas que je perçois» (249). Parce que 
le sujet n'est pas constituant, la sensation le renvoie à l 'anonymat et à une 
existence qui n'est plus individuée: «j'éprouve la sensation comme modalité 
d 'une existence générale, déjà vouée à un monde physique et qui fuse à travers 
moi sans que j 'en sois l 'auteur.» (250). Par rapport à la généralité de l'existence 
et à la profondeur du monde, le sujet sentant est spécialisé et la sensation 
partielle et limitée. 
L 'examen phénoménologique de la perception signe donc l'acte de décès 
du sujet autonome: «la perception est toujours dans le mode du «on». Ce 
n'est pas un acte personnel par lequel je donnerais moi-même un sens neuf à 
ma vie. Celui qui, dans l 'exploration sensorielle, donne un passé au présent 
et l 'oriente vers un avenir, ce n'est pas moi comme sujet autonome, c'est moi 
en tant que j 'ai un corps et que je sais «regarder». Plutôt qu'elle n'est une 
histoire véritable, la perception atteste et renouvelle en nous une 'préhistoire'» 
(277). Lorsqu'il perçoit sur le mode du on, le sujet sentant a élargi son exist-
ence au-delà de ses limites corporelles propres, la synthèse qu'il effectue n'est 
pas intellectuelle, elle est «effectuée par le corps phénoménal» (269). On voit 
se préfigurer le concept de «chair» qui dissout le sujet: «mon corps, écrit 
Merleau-Ponty (272), est la texture commune de tous les objets.» Certes, cette 
expérience pré-réflexive sera transformée par l'attitude critique: «l'analyse 
parviendra à l 'objet de science, à la sensation comme phénomène privé, et au 
sujet pur qui pose l 'un et l 'autre . Ces trois termes sont à l 'horizon de 
l 'expérience primordiale» (279), mais le sujet autonome ne pourra plus jamais 
feindre de croire qu'il est constituant et premier. «L'autre moi», synchrone 
avec le monde constitue pour toujours la part obscure et anonyme de «l'être 
propre» que Merleau-Ponty définit, à l 'opposé, comme «celui dont je suis 
responsable et dont je décide» (250). 
Plus avant, dans la Phénoménologie de la perception, le philosophe retrouve 
les mêmes accents: il ne faut pas concevoir la conscience comme «conscience 
constituante», comme «un pur-être-pour-soi», «mais comme une conscience 
perceptive, comme le sujet d 'un comportement, comme être au monde ou 
existence» (404). L'individu est individu-dans-la nature avant de devenir sujet 
conscient séparé, autonome, responsable: la «vie anonyme première» pose 
ensemble nature et individu: «la conscience découvre en elle-même avec les 
champs sensoriels et avec le monde comme champ de tous les champs, 
l 'opacité d 'un passé originaire» (403). 
143 
Maryvonne Saison 
L'être-dans-le-monde ainsi découvert, sol préréflexif de mon existence 
subjective future, inscrit l 'individu et son corps dans la continuité d 'un monde 
avec lequel il ne fait qu'un et auquel il est adapté: dans la foulée, Merleau-
Ponty poursuit «le sujet percevant apparaît pourvu d 'un montage primordial 
à l ' éga rd du monde»(404) . Ceci c o r r e s p o n d aux r e m a r q u e s é m i s e s 
préalablement: «je suis, comme sujet sentant, tout plein de pouvoirs naturels» 
(249). La foi originaire contemporaine de la perception témoigne pour une 
harmonie vécue par le corps (278). Lorsque, dans l 'expérience de la percep-
tion rendue à sa vérité, on renonce à une conception de la subjectivité comme 
non être absolu de toute inhérence corporelle, on fait surgir un niveau de 
coexistence et de communion qui signe la remise en cause radicale de 
l'alternative du pour soi et de l'en soi (247): «ni l 'objet ni le sujet ne sont 
posés» (279). 
Subjectivité et temporalité 
Une fois mise en évidence la perception, et à ce seul niveau, Merleau-
Ponty fait intervenir la subjectivité sans trop d'artifice par l ' intermédiaire du 
temps. La seule véritable caractéristique et prérogat ive du sujet, c'est la 
temporalité: «la subjectivité, au niveau de la perception n'est rien d 'autre que 
la temporalité» (276). L'histoire et le sujet ont la même naissance, l ' anonymat 
ne renvoie qu'à une préhistoire. Temporalité et subjectivité désignent le même 
événement: «le temps n'est que pour une subjectivité» et cette subjectivité est 
le temps lui-même» (278). Les trois figures du temps présent passé et avenir 
n'existent que pour un sujet ou sont les modalités d 'existence du sujet. Sur un 
fond adamique se profile une rupture et le sujet naît dans un désir de connaître 
et une attitude critique, qui font surgir sujet et objet, en soi et pour soi: «je 
pose une matière de la connaissance lorsque, rompant avec la foi originaire 
de la perception, j 'adopte à son égard une attitude critique et que je me 
demande 'ce que je vois vraiment'» (278). 
Le second anonymat 
Peut-on désormais ouvrir l 'examen de l 'existence subjective? Ce serait 
aller trop vite: non seulement le sujet est lesté d 'une conscience perceptive 
qui lui donne à tout jamais le poids d 'une existence phénoména le , non 
seulement donc, nous avons définitivement perdu le sujet cartésien, mais tout 
se passe comme si ce qui avait été établi au niveau du corps et de la chair se 
144 
De la nostalgie à l'art: voir de tout son corps 
devait aussi d 'être dit au niveau de ce qui n'est pas matériel: au niveau de la 
pensée. J e ne suis pas un sujet autonome et libre de la liberté absolue et 
radicale exigée par Sartre, ma liberté est inscrite dans un contexte et je 
l 'infléchis de mes parcours antérieurs; mais ma pensée elle-même n'indique 
pas une direct ion dans laquelle il faudrait inscrire la subjectivité; deux 
anonymats se superposent dans la Phénoménologie qui contestent l 'hégémonie 
du sujet; le premier subordonne le «je» à un «on», dans le contexte d'un 
monde «matériel» dont font partie les corps; à ce niveau le corps d'autrui 
rentre dans le même anonymat que mon corps, les corps et les choses font en 
quelque sorte le tissu du monde: «le corps d'autrui et le mien sont un seul 
tout, l 'envers et l 'endroit d 'un seul phénomène et l'existence anonyme dont 
mon corps est à chaque moment la trace habite désormais ces deux corps à la 
fois» (406). 
Mais Merleau-Ponty ne met pas vraiment sur le même plan les choses et 
les corps ni les choses et les objets nés d 'une volonté humaine. Un monde 
humain se profile qui prolonge et complète le monde naturel tout en s'en 
distinguant. Tout se passe comme si un second anonymat subordonnait le 
«je» à un monde «social», formant avec le monde naturel un «champ perma-
nent», «une dimension d'existence» (406). Le «je» est subordonné dans cette 
dimension sociale à un «je en général». Le pronom indéfini «on» peut encore 
désigner l 'anonymat, mais il ne recouvre que des caractéristiques humaines 
et sociales: «dans l 'objet culturel, écrit Merleau-Ponty, j 'éprouve la présence 
prochaine d'autrui sous un voile d 'anonymat. On se sert de la pipe. Comment 
une action ou une pensée humaine peut-elle être saisie dans le mode du «on», 
puisque, par principe, elle est une opération en première personne, inséparable 
d 'un Je? Le p ronom indéfini n'est ici qu'une formule vague pour désigner 
une multiplicité de J e ou encore un J e en général» (400). 
L'harmonie primordiale 
Une harmonie fondamentale caractérise le monde social, comme elle 
caractérisait le monde naturel: le corps absorbe le culturel «à travers un 
compor tement adéquat adopté par mimétisme et manipulandum» (407). Si 
l 'on fait intervenir la césure que représente «l'irruption du langage» (407), 
r i e n ne s e m b l e v r a i m e n t t r a n s f o r m é en ce qui c o n c e r n e les d e u x 
caractéristiques qui nous intéressent: une existence anonyme préexiste à une 
conscience subjective et cette existence anonyme semble harmonieuse. 
Les pages dans lesquelles Merleau-Ponty décrit le dialogue font écho à 
celles qui décrivent le corps sentant: «dans l 'expérience du dialogue, il se 
145 
Maryvonne Saison 
constitue ent re autrui et moi un terrain c o m m u n , m a p e n s é e et la s i enne ne 
font qu 'un seul tissu, mes p ropos et ceux de l ' in te r locu teur sont appe lés pa r 
l 'état de la discussion, ils s ' insèrent dans u n e opé ra t ion c o m m u n e d o n t aucun 
de nous n 'es t le créateur» (407). De m ê m e que m o n corps est fait de l 'é toffe 
des choses, mes p ropos sont faits de l 'é toffe de la pensée . La symbiose et 
l 'harmonie sont égales à celles qui scellent m o n accord avec le m o n d e matér ie l 
ou nature l : «il y a là un être à d e u x (...) n o u s s o m m e s l ' un p o u r l ' au t r e 
col laborateurs dans une réciprocité parfa i te , nos perspec t ives glissent l ' une 
dans l 'autre, nous coexistons à t ravers un m ê m e m o n d e » (407). 
Alors que le corps limite le po in t de vue, la pensée ouvre m ê m e un 
monde plus large qui ne pâtit plus de telles astreintes: «dans le dialogue présent , 
je suis l ibéré de moi-même, les pensées d ' au t ru i sont b ien des pensées s iennes, 
ce n 'est pas moi qui les fo rme, bien que j e les saisisse aussitôt nées ou que j e 
les devance, et même , l 'object ion que m e fait l ' in te r locu teur m ' a r r a c h e des 
pensées que je ne savais pas posséder , de sorte que si j e lui p rê t e des pensées , 
il me fait penser en retour» (407). Le «je en généra l» fo rmule d o n c de la 
pensée et construi t un m o n d e h u m a i n sans q u ' a u c u n e ass ignat ion ne r o m p e 
l ' a n o n y m a t . De fait, nous s o m m e s tou jou r s , p o u r e m p r u n t e r des t e r m e s 
auxquels Michel Foucault d o n n e r a de l 'éclat , dans un m o n d e sans au teur 4 . 
Merleau-Ponty décrit ce m o n d e c o m m e un m o n d e h a r m o n i e u x au fonc t ionne-
m e n t adéquat . 
L'exil 
A ce double a n o n y m a t co r r e spond u n e d o u b l e cassure , vécue à c h a q u e 
fois c o m m e un drame aussi bref qu ' in tense . Le sujet ind iv iduel consc ien t naî t 
de ces ruptures . 
L'inhumanité du réel 
Considérons d ' abo rd la cassure qui sépare le co rps et les choses. Elle 
intervient après des pages lyriques dans lesquelles Mer l eau -Pon ty a cé lébré 
les épousail les du sujet-sentant et du m o n d e , r e t rouvan t des accents p roches 
de ceux de Camus 5 . C'est p. 372, lorsque la «pensée object ive» et ses p ré jugés 
4 Michel Foucault, conférence du 22-XI-1969: «Qu'est-ce qu'un auteur?» in Dits et Ecrits, 
Gallimard, Paris 1994, t. 1, p. 811. 
5 Albert Camus, Noces, Gallimard, Paris 1950, pp. 19, 23, 25, 35, 78, 80, 90. 
146 
De la nostalgie à l'art: voir de tout son corps 
rompent l 'harmonie : «elle a pour fonction constante de réduire tous les 
phénomènes qui attestent l 'union du sujet et du monde et de leur substituer 
l ' idée claire de l 'objet comme en soi et du sujet comme pure conscience. Elle 
coupe donc les liens qui réunissent la chose et le sujet incarné « (370). A 
feindre de n 'ê tre plus corps, la conscience crée les conditions du malheur et 
la possibilité de l'altérité: «on ne peut, disions-nous, concevoir de chose perçue 
sans quelqu 'un qui la perçoive. Mais encore est-il que la chose se présente à 
celui-là même qui la perçoit comme chose en soi et qu'elle pose le problème 
d 'un véritable en-soi-pour-nous. Nous ne nous en avisons pas d'ordinaire 
parce que notre perception, dans le contexte de nos occupations, se pose sur 
les choses juste assez pour retrouver leur présence familière et pas assez pour 
redécouvrir ce qui s'y cache d' inhumain. Mais la chose nous ignore, elle re-
pose en soi. Nous le verrons si nous mettons en suspens nos occupations et 
portons sur elle une attention métaphysique et désintéressée. Elle est alors 
hostile et étrangère, elle n'est plus pour nous un interlocuteur, mais un Autre 
résolument silencieux, un soi qui nous échappe autant que l'intimité d'une 
conscience étrangère» (372). Alors que la perception quotidienne finalisée et 
superficielle nous préserve de sentir l'altérité du réel (375), la perception 
objectivante et réflexive constitue le réel en son altérité et en son inhumanité, 
et celle-ci, rétrospectivement, se donne comme hostilité. Le travail de la rup-
ture produi t la per te d ' une harmonie ; l 'autonomie se découvre dans la 
séparation et se paie de la constitution de l'en soi comme altérité. La dichotomie 
sujet/objet fait lever le spectre de l'inimitié des choses et de leur résistance. 
L'hostilité d'autrui 
Si le corps, devenu conscient a perdu son entente avec le monde et 
trouvé l 'absence de statut qui le caractérise dans la philosophie classique, une 
mésaventure parallèle advient à la pensée. Après l 'harmonie et le bonheur 
du dialogue producteur de pensée anonyme, la subjectivité dans sa dimen-
sion temporelle est capable de réflexion; le scénario de la rupture donnant 
naissance à l'altérité et à l'hostilité se renouvelle; «c'est seulement après coup, 
quand je me suis retiré du dialogue et m'en ressouviens, que je puis le réintégrer 
à ma vie, en faire l 'épisode de mon histoire privée et qu'autrui rentre dans 
son absence, ou, dans la mesure où il reste présent, est senti comme une 
menace pour moi» (407). 
Le cogito sous la forme d'un «je me souviens» n'est pas originaire; il 
génère une appropriat ion de la pensée solidaire de la représentation d'un 
autrui hostile et menaçant . Autrui devient hostile en premier lieu en son ab-
147 
Maryvonne Saison 
sence, alors que, dans l 'anonymat des présences, on connaissait une coexist-
ence paisible. La conscience comme conscience pr ivée, dés incarnée et 
revendiquant la propriété de la pensée est à l 'origine des luttes et des rivalités. 
On peut sans doute se demander si une telle appropriat ion de la pensée 
par un sujet qui se veut progressivement indépendant du monde et d 'autrui 
est inévitable. La rupture du second anonymat n'est pas le prix à payer de la 
pensée mais du désir de s 'approprier la pensée. Merleau-Ponty, à sa manière , 
prépare la possibilité, pour Foucault, Barthes et Lacan d'affirmer qu'une pensée 
libre de toute assignation peut circuler sans auteur et que délivrée de la 
subjectivité une telle pensée ne saurait que proliférer. 
La résistance 
La subjectivation désignerait-elle alors un processus qui mène au malheur 
et contre lequel il serait judicieux de faire acte de résistance? 
Les réflexions précédentes nous fondent à coup sûr à faire l 'hypothèse 
d 'un rousseauisme de Merleau-Ponty. C o m m e n t n 'y pas penser en évoquant 
après l 'harmonie et le bonheur de l 'existence originaire dénuée des notions 
de subjectivité et de propriété (même au regard de la pensée), la solitude, le 
malheur et les effets nocifs de l 'appropriation? Ce qui est part iculièrement 
intéressant chez Merleau-Ponty, c 'est la place faite à une appropr ia t ion 
fondamentale qui est celle du nom. L 'anonymat prépersonnel est plus riche 
que l'existence nominale, plus heureux aussi. L'assignation et la revendica-
tion d'un nom «propre» signent l 'apparition d 'une personne séparée, soumise 
avec la conscience du temps qui la caractérise, à la réflexivité, tout à la fois 
menacée et menaçante dans son isolement artificiel. L 'autonomie du sujet, 
établie au terme d 'un long processus de subjectivation, passe par la rupture 
de l 'anonymat et la perte du bonheur dans l 'expérience de la solitude. Le 
langage est au centre de la chaîne des ruptures successives et dans le cadre du 
monde social, on passe du «je en général», d 'une «conscience silencieuse», à 
une conscience explicite (463): c'est la distinction introduite par Merleau-
Ponty entre un cogito tacite et un cogito parlé (462). Tout laisse pourtant à 
penser que Merleau-Ponty ne renonce pas à trouver une forme de pensée qui 
échappe aux errances du cogito parlé, qui résiste à l 'appropriat ion et à la 
rupture de l 'anonymat. 
Ce reste d'utopie est possible grâce aux effets de l 'entente originaire: le 
bonheur laisse des traces silencieuses qui r enden t sensible son absence 
ultérieure, lorsque la rupture est consommée. La marque négative prend alors 
la tonalité du remords: «l'objectivation de chacun par le regard de l 'autre, 
148 
De la nostalgie à l'art: voir de tout son corps 
écrit Merleau-Ponty, n 'est ressentie comme pénible que parce qu'elle prend 
la place d 'une communicat ion possible» (414). 
La dimension nostalgique 
C'est sous le signe de la nostalgie que se profile la résistance aux méfaits 
de la subjectivation. L'art y a sa place comme manifestation nostalgique. La 
nostalgie marque sans doute l ' impulsion même qui donne naissance à la 
Phénoménologie: dégager le moment perceptif et substituer le sujet sentant au 
sujet «propre», c'est faire retour aux origines du sujet et au fond dont elles 
surgissent. Alors que notre naissance et notre mort nous échappent («ni ma 
naissance ni ma mor t ne peuvent m'appara î t re comme des expériences 
miennes» (249)), la question du commencement garde son acuité: «pour faire 
apparaître la réflexion comme une possibilité de mon être», il faut partir de 
«l 'expérience irréfléchie du monde» et placer le processus de subjectivation 
en regard de la généralité et de l 'anonymat premiers: «Qu'avons-nous donc 
au commencement?» demande le philosophe (279). Si la réponse oriente le 
sujet vers ses origines prépersonnelles et vers sa préhistoire, comme nous 
l 'avons vu, elle met à jour un passé qualifié d'»originel» (280) ou d'»originaire» 
(403). La curiosité et la quête des origines ne peut néanmoins générer qu'un 
échec: ce fond qui se profile lors du retour réflexif n ' a jamais été présent au 
sens où il n 'a jamais fait l 'objet d 'une conscience réflexive. Ce qui se découvre 
n 'a jamais été pleinement vécu puisque la réflexivité et le langage faisaient 
défaut. L 'expérience primitive est ainsi en tant que telle inaccessible à jamais. 
Cela redouble la nostalgie, puisque retrouver le passé permettrait cette fois 
de le vivre pleinement. 
Le paradis perdu 
Un autre passé semble pourtant plus proche et plus accessible, c'est mon 
propre passé individuel, tel qu'il est évoqué dans la deuxième partie de la 
Phénoménologie. Les mondes naturels (381) et sociaux (407) sont effectivement 
vécus comme tels par l 'enfant avant qu'il n 'occupe de plein droit sa position 
de sujet. La perception originaire est sans doute proche de celle de l'enfant: 
du moins de celle effectivement vécue par l 'enfant avant qu'il ne se découvre 
comme conscience sensible et conscience intellectuelle, dans le drame d'une 
rupture qui se présente alors comme un sevrage (408). Jusque là, «l'enfant vit 
dans un monde qu'il croit d 'emblée accessible à tous ceux qui l 'entourent, il 
149 
Maryvonne Saison 
n ' a a u c u n e c o n s c i e n c e de l u i - m ê m e n i d ' a i l l e u r s d e s a u t r e s , c o m m e 
subjectivités privées, il ne soupçonne pas que nous soyons tous et qu ' i l soit 
lui-même limité à un certain poin t de v u e sur le m o n d e » (407). 
Si Mer leau-Ponty est un psycho logue t rop c o m p é t e n t p o u r p r é t e n d r e 
que la percep t ion primit ive renvoie à la pe rcep t ion de l ' enfan t , il la ré fère 
néanmoins sans doute à une enfance de la pe rcep t ion qui n 'es t pas sans l ien 
avec m o n enfance réelle. L ' in térê t du r e t o u r à l ' e n f a n c e est d o u b l e : n o n 
seulement on y re t rouve un cl imat p ro tégé et cha leu reux , mais on y décè le 
une m o i n d r e inf luence des s chèmes cu l tu re l s qui a v e u g l e n t l ' a d u l t e . La 
proximité de l ' enfance par r appor t à l 'or ig inai re (et n o n au pr imit i f , c o m m e 
le précise Mer leau-Ponty dans ses cours 6 ), est telle que « l ' enfant laisse m i e u x 
voir un certain fond c o m m u n à toute l ' humani té» . C e qui caractér ise le sujet-
sentant qui a remplacé le sujet désincarné, c 'est que ce «sujet se sent coextensif 
à l 'être» et que cette c royance très forte chez l ' en fan t «subsiste chez l 'adul te» 
(202). Ainsi un acquis res te ra à l ' adu l t e d ' avo i r é té e n f a n t : «la ce r t i t ude 
pr imordia le de toucher l 'être même», de par t i c iper à un m o n d e intersubject i f 
de coexistence paisible (408). 
C'est parce que Mer leau-Ponty r e t rouve la t race de l 'o r ig ina i re dans 
notre histoire personnelle , dans notre en fance réelle, qu'i l peu t faire appara î t re 
sa persistance affective et son inscription dans no t re corps : c 'est ce qui génè re 
et autorise la d imension nostalgique. Il ne s 'agit pas d ' u n m y t h e des or igines 
mais d 'une enfance perdue que le ph i losophe revêt de couleurs paradis iaques . 7 
La structure un ique de la p résence est r e n v o y é e au passé (492). Seule la 
n o s t a l g i e la g a r d e v i v a n t e en m o i . Le p h i l o s o p h e , p r i s d ' u n e v e i n e 
au tobiographique laisse m ê m e para î t re l ' ind iv idu dans un «je» qui ne vau t 
plus que p o u r lui: «c'est à présent que je c o m p r e n d s mes vingt-cinq p r emiè re s 
années c o m m e une enfance p ro longée qui devai t ê t re suivie d ' u n sevrage 
difficile p o u r aboutir enfin à l ' au tonomie» (398). 
Cer ta ines analyses in terprè tent la posi t ion de Mer l eau -Pon ty à par t i r 
d 'é léments b iographiques livrés par le ph i l o sophe lu i -même; dans un article 
des Temps Modernefi, Sartre brosse le por t ra i t d ' u n « jeune Œ d i p e r e t o u r n é sur 
ses origines»: «la Nature qui l ' enve loppa tout d ' a b o r d , ce fut la Déesse Mère , 
sa mère, don t les yeux lui donna ien t à voi r ce qu' i l voyai t ; elle fu t Yalter ego.». 
J e ne crois pas que l 'on puisse rédui re la p e n s é e de Mer l eau -Pon ty à cet 
6 M. Merleau-Ponty, Bulletin de psychologie, novembre 1964, p. 173. 
7 On pourrait ici ouvrir une parenthèse et montrer comment la Phénoménologie de 
l'expérience esthétique de Mikel Dufrenne réfère ces bonheurs premiers non à un paradis 
perdu, mais à un âge d'or (p. 426-427). 
8 Jean-Paul Sartre, «Merleau-Ponty vivant» in Les Temps Modernes, n° 184/185, 1961, p. 
309/310. 
150 
De la nostalgie à l'art: voir de tout son corps 
a t t achemen t : l 'on to logie était présente dès La Phénoménologie de la Perception, 
au n iveau du p r e m i e r a n o n y m a t . Le re tour nostalgique don t nous avons parlé 
eng lobe la m è r e , mais ne s 'y résout pas. Par ailleurs, l 'ar t r é p o n d à la nostalgie 
en i n f i rman t l ' idée na ïve selon laquelle un simple re tour à l 'enfance aurait été 
souha i té pa r Mer l eau -Pon ty . 
J ' e s p è r e avoi r fait appara î t r e la mot ivat ion qui d o n n e impulsion à la 
r e c h e r c h e du pa rad i s p e r d u et des valeurs qui lui é ta ient attachées: la non 
personna l i sa t ion , la n o n rivalité, l ' absence de proprié té , le bonheur fusionnel 
dans un m o n d e et dans u n e cul ture encore intacts de toute subjectivation. 
P o u r ce t te q u ê t e là, le c o n c e p t ne sera d ' a u c u n r e c o u r s (408); la p lace 
s t ructurel le de l ' i n te rven t ion du langage dans le processus de matura t ion et 
de subjec t iva t ion est telle que seuls des recours très particuliers au langage 
p o u r r o n t r é p o n d r e à la mot iva t ion nostalgique du phi losophe: re t rouver un 
état qui n ' a j a m a i s été vécu c o m m e tel et le réinscrire dans m o n histoire, faire 
acte de rés is tance cont re la subject ivat ion dans l ' impossible désir de vivre en 
sujet ce cont re quoi le sujet s 'est défini. O n se rend compte ici que la proximité 
avec le p ro je t p rous t i en est e x t r ê m e m e n t impor tan te et que les nombreuses 
r é fé rences à Prous t dans la Phénoménologie n ' on t rien d 'arbi t ra i re 
L'art comme ressourcement 
Le langage par t icul ier qui r épond à ce désir irréalisable, c 'est celui de 
l 'art . L 'ar t ne r ecour t pas au concept et p r end d ' emblée la voix (terme que 
l ' on pour ra i t i n d i f f é r e m m e n t écrire avec x ou avec e) de la poésie. Dans «Le 
langage indi rec t et les voix du silence»9, Mer leau-Ponty oppose au parler 
quo t id ien le «langage au then t ique» ou la «parole vraie» qui cor respond à 
«l 'usage créa teur» du langage (LS 56). Il invoque Mal la rmé et ajoute: «la 
pa ro le vraie, celle qui signifie, qui rend enfin présente l '»absente de tous bou-
quets» et dél ivre le sens captif de la chose, elle n'est, au regard de l 'usage 
empi r ique , que silence, puisqu 'e l le ne va pas jusqu 'au n o m commun.» C'est 
e n c o r e u n e fois au t an t que le concept , le n o m qui est responsable de la 
déch i ru re dans le tissu du m o n d e . Et l 'écrivain qui sait t rouver au-delà du 
« langage e m p i r i q u e » «un l angage à la s econde puissance» re t rouve u n e 
opéra t ion ana logue à celle du peintre : «les signes m è n e n t la vie vague des 
couleurs , et (...) les significat ions ne se l ibèrent pas tout à fait du commerce 
des signes» (LS 56-57). 
9 M. Merleau-Ponty, «Le langage indirect et les voix du silence» in Signes, Gallimard, 
Paris 1960. Dans le texte, les références à cet article seront précédées de LS. 
151 
Maryvonne Saison 
La modestie 
L'art capable de répondre au besoin de régénérat ion que nous avons 
fait apparaître a dû opérer certains renoncements et se priver de recours 
installés par la tradition. Il a été amené, en particulier, à refuser toute figura-
tion d'une perception factice liée à la représentation d 'une perspective unique: 
«en précipitant sur le papier l'étroit secteur d 'une perspective, je cesse aussi 
de voir comme un homme, qui est ouvert au monde parce qu'il y est situé.(...) 
Tout le tableau est dans le mode du révolu ou de l 'éternité; tout prend un air 
de décence et de discrétion; les choses ne m'interpellent plus et je ne suis plus 
compromis par elles» (LS 62-63). L'artiste qui peint «d'un certain point de 
station», «l'œil immobile fixé sur un certain 'point de fuite' d 'une certaine 
'ligne d'horizon', perd, en sacrifiant à la convenance, l 'ubiquité qui lui est 
naturelle: le regard non entravé ar t i f ic ie l lement pa rcour t ' l i b rement la 
profondeur, la hauteur et la largeur' sans être 'assujetti à un point de vue' 
parce qu'il les adopte et les rejette tour à tour. 
La perspective classique apparaît ainsi comme «l'invention d 'un monde 
dominé». Par bonheur, l'histoire de la peinture montre que le grand artiste 
échappe à la logique unitaire qu'il croit instaurer: «les visages du portrait 
classique, toujours au service d 'un caractère, d 'une passion ou d 'une humeur , 
- toujours signifiants, - les bébés et les animaux de la peinture classique, si 
désireux d 'entrer dans le monde humain , si peu soucieux de le récuser, 
manifestent le même rapport «adulte» de l 'homme au monde, si ce n'est quand, 
cédant à son bienheureux démon, le grand peintre ajoute une nouvelle di-
mension à ce monde trop sûr de soi en y faisant vibrer la contingence. . .» (LS 
63). 
Le peintre d'aujourd'hui, conscient de la véritable tâche de l'art, vise à 
provoquer grâce au tableau une expérience perceptive pure, dégagée de la 
doxa et des concepts qui dénaturent la perception; il ne cherche plus «la 
présentation objective et convaincante pour les sens», «parce que l 'expression 
désormais va de l 'homme à l 'homme à travers le monde commun qu'ils vivent, 
sans passer par le domaine anonyme des sens ou de la Nature» (LS 64). Ainsi 
l 'œuvre, qui n'existe pas en soi comme une chose, invite-t-elle le spectateur 
«à reprendre le geste qui l'a créée» «sans autre guide qu 'un mouvement de la 
ligne inventée» (LS 64): «Pourquoi, poursuit Merleau-Ponty un peu plus loin, 
l 'expression du monde serait-elle assujettie à la prose des sens ou du concept? 
Il faut qu'elle soit poésie, c'est-à-dire qu'elle réveille et reconvoque en entier 
notre pur pouvoir d 'exprimer, au-delà des choses déjà dites ou vues» (LS 65). 
Nous devons donc faire disparaître, pour penser l'art, tout rapport à un individu 
(contrairement à la théorie de l 'expression développée par Malraux): «la 
152 
De la nostalgie à l'art: voir de tout son corps 
peinture moderne pose un tout autre problème que celui du retour à l'individu: 
le problème de savoir comment on peut communiquer sans le secours d 'une 
Nature préétablie et sur laquelle nos sens à tous ouvriraient, comment nous 
sommes entés sur l 'universel par ce que nous avons de plus propre.» 
Le témoin instituant 
Ce que l'artiste possède en propre, «ce n'est pas le soi immédiat, la nu-
ance même du sentir» (LS 65), c'est ce que Merleau-Ponty nomme son «style», 
et qu'il lui faut conquérir; le style ramène au sujet concret, puisqu'il corre-
spond à un schéma intérieur» (LS 66) et que, comme le suggère une remarque 
de Malraux, que cette fois Merleau-Ponty reprend à son compte, tel tableau, 
par exemple La Chaise pour Van Gogh, devient «un brutal idéogramme du 
nom même de Van Gogh». Le style nous ramène à une existence originaire 
qui chercherait à se saisir et se communiquer par le langage artistique: le 
schéma intérieur, précise encore Merleau-Ponty, «est cette vie même en tant 
qu'elle sort de son inhérence, cesse de jouir d'elle-même, et devient moyen 
universel de comprendre et de faire comprendre, de voir et de donner à voir, 
- n o n pas donc renfermé aux tréfonds de l'individu muet, mais diffus dans 
tout ce qu'il voit» (LS 66). 
Le style, et là Merleau-Ponty se sépare de nouveau de Malraux, n'est 
pas recherché par l'artiste, il est découvert par l'analyste: «le peintre au tra-
vail» «est bien trop occupé d 'exprimer son commerce avec le monde pour 
s'enorgueillir d 'un style qui naît comme à son insu.» Et un peu plus loin, du 
style: «il faut le voir apparaître au creux de la perception du peintre comme 
peintre: c'est une exigence issue d'elle» (LS 67). Le style s'ébauche donc pour 
l'artiste dès qu'il perçoit, il est ensuite «le système d'équivalences que (le 
peintre) se constitue pour cette œuvre de manifestation, l 'indice universel de 
la «déformation cohérente» par laquelle il concentre le sens encore épars 
dans sa perception et le fait exister expressément» (LS 68). 
L'artiste est donc toujours ramené à ce commerce initial qui le fascine et 
le retient: «comment le peintre, demande Merleau-Ponty, ou le poète diraient-
ils autre chose que leur rencontre avec le monde?» (LS 70). De fait, pas plus 
que le peintre classique ne se contente de représenter le monde, le peintre 
moderne ne cherche à s 'exprimer à travers les choses: «quand une zébrure 
du pinceau remplace la reconstitution en principe complète des apparences 
pour nous introduire à la laine ou à la chair, ce qui remplace l'objet, ce n'est 
pas le sujet, c'est la logique allusive du monde perçu» (LS 71). C'est le rapport 
du sujet au monde qui est l 'enjeu du tableau: «la rencontre du regard avec les 
153 
Maryvonne Saison 
choses qui le sollicitent, de celui qui a à être avec ce qui est» (LS 71). Le 
peint re ne se dit pas: il faut le remet t re «au contac t de son m o n d e » (LS 72). Il 
poursui t un travail jamais clos, sans que lu i -même «puisse j amai s dire , pa r ce 
que la distinction n ' a pas de sens, ce qui est de lui et ce qui est des choses, ce 
que le nouvel ouvrage a joute aux anciens, ce qu' i l a pr is aux autres et ce qui 
est sien» (LS 73). Le peintre n 'est pas d e v e n u le sujet que d 'aut res sont devenus , 
il reste tou jours soumis à cette «triple repr ise»; son a t t a c h e m e n t aux or ig ines 
l ' incite à opére r u n e t ransmuta t ion telle que l ' expé r i ence en soit d o n n é e : 
«c'est ainsi que le m o n d e dès qu'il l 'a vu , ses p r emiè re s tentat ives de pe in t re 
et tout le passé de la pe in ture l ivrent au pe in t re u n e tradition, c'est-à-dire 
c o m m e n t e Husserl , le pouvoir d'oublier les origines et de d o n n e r au passé , n o n 
pas une survie qui est la fo rme hypocr i t e de l 'oubl i , mais u n e nouve l le vie, 
qui est la f o r m e noble de la mémoi re» (LS 74). 
L ' a r t o c c u p e u n e p lace t rès p a r t i c u l i è r e p u i s q u ' i l es t u n e r é p o n s e 
nostalgique au bonheur des origines alors qu' i l ne t o m b e j amai s dans le p r o p o s 
naïf de simple retour aux origines. Il ne s 'agit pas de r e t rouve r ce qui a été 
v ra iment présent (280), mais de vivre avec consc ience , après avoir r e c o n n u 
l 'illusion qui nous a amenés à méconna î t r e le sujet concre t que nous s o m m e s , 
ce qui nous rat tache à un m o n d e nature l et cul turel , à u n ê t re et à u n e tradi-
tion. L'artiste fait donc f o n d a m e n t a l e m e n t œ u v r e de m é m o i r e en t héma t i s an t 
un passé qui, sans lui, n ' appar t i endra i t pas au sujet qu ' i l est d e v e n u . Le n o y a u 
fondamen ta l d 'une subjectivité n o n cons t i tuante est b ien le t emps . L 'ar t is te 
reste toujours le témoin des origines p e r d u e s et oubl iées (232). Ce t émoin est 
insti tuant: «si le sujet était instituant, n o n const i tuant , on c o m p r e n d r a i t (...) 
qu'il ne soit pas instantané, et qu 'au t ru i ne soit pas seu lemen t le négatif de 
moi -même. Ce que j ' a i c o m m e n c é à cer ta ins m o m e n t s décisifs ne serai t ni au 
loin, ni dans le passé, c o m m e souvenir object if , ni actuel c o m m e souven i r 
assumé, mais v ra iment dans l ' en t re -deux , c o m m e c h a m p de m o n deven i r 
p e n d a n t ce t t e p é r i o d e . (...) O n e n t e n d a i t d o n c ici p a r i n s t i t u t i o n ces 
événements d ' une expér ience qui la do ten t de d imens ions durables , pa r rap-
por t auxquel les toute u n e série d 'au t res expé r i ences a u r o n t sens, f o r m e r o n t 
une suite pensable ou une histoire, - ou e n c o r e les é v é n e m e n t s qui déposen t 
en moi un sens, non pas à titre de survivance et de rés idu , mais c o m m e appe l 
à une suite, exigence d 'un avenir .» 1 0 
10 M. Merleau-Ponty, Résumés de cours, Gallimard, Paris 1968, p. 60/61. 
154 
De la nostalgie à l'art: voir de tout son corps 
Le style 
L' ind iv idua l i t é de l 'ar t is te ne peu t donc pas ê t re pensée à travers la 
subjec t iva t ion mais con t re elle, et telle est la finalité du concept de style: 
«c'est que le n o m de V e r m e e r et celui de chaque g rand peint re en vient à 
dés igner que lque chose c o m m e une insti tution (...) U n e vraie histoire de la 
pe in tu re devra i t r eche rche r , à travers l 'aspect immédia t des toiles dites de 
V e r m e e r , u n e s t ructure , u n style, un sens contre lesquels ne peuvent prévaloir , 
s'il en est, les détai ls d iscordants arrachés à son p inceau par la fatigue, la 
c i rcons tance ou l ' imi ta t ion de soi-même» (LS 76-77). Certes, il faut s ' insurger 
con t re toute idée de p e i n t u r e objective: ne pas fe indre de croire, c o m m e 
Descar tes 1 1 , que n o u s p o u r r i o n s produi re «mé thod iquemen t de parfai tes im-
ages du m o n d e , u n e pe in tu re universel le dél ivrée de l 'ar t personnel , c o m m e 
la l angue universe l le n o u s dél ivrerai t de tous les r appor t s confus qui t ra înent 
dans les langues exis tantes « Mais il faut également éviter de réduire l 'œuvre 
à u n e in t e rp ré t a t ion en t e rmes de personne . Le style vit en chaque peintre 
c o m m e «la pulsa t ion de son cœur» (LS 78), les œuvres «sont nées de la chaleur 
d ' u n e vie», elles cons t i tuent u n e réponse à des données très singulières (LS 
80), mais si l 'art iste me t «sa marque» sur les choses, ce n 'es t pas en tant que 
sujet, c 'est en tant qu 'ê t re de percept ion et de langage. O n vit dans «le langage», 
«le p r e m i e r dessin aux m u r s des cavernes ne fondai t une tradit ion que parce 
qu' i l en recuei l la i t u n e autre : celle de la percept ion» (LS 87). Un peu plus 
loin, on lit: «les mots , m ê m e dans l 'art de la prose, t ranspor tent celui qui 
pa r le et celui qui les e n t e n d dans un univers c o m m u n . (...) Cette spontanéi té 
du langage qui nous un i t (...) est nous -mêmes avec nos racines, notre poussée 
et, c o m m e on dit, les frui ts de no t re travail» (LS 94). Le style pe rmet de passer 
de l ' ind iv iduel à l 'universel en faisant l ' économie du sujet: «l 'intimité de toute 
express ion à tou te express ion , leur appa r t enance c o m m u n e à un seul ordre 
que le p r e m i e r acte d ' express ion a institué, réalisent par le fait la jonct ion de 
l ' individuel et de l 'universel , et l 'expression, le langage, pa r exemple , est b ien 
ce que nous avons de plus individuel , en m ê m e temps que s 'adressant aux 
autres, il le fait valoir c o m m e universel .»1 2 
Nous œ u v r o n s sur un doub le fond unitaire, celui de la nature et celui de 
la cul ture: Mer l eau -Pon ty décè le une «unité du style h u m a i n qui rassemble 
les gestes de tous les pe in t res en une seule tentative, leurs product ions en une 
seule his toire cumula t ive , en un seul art. L 'uni té de la culture é tend au-delà 
11 M. Merleau-Ponty, L'œuil et l'Esprit, Gallimard, Paris 1994, p. 44. Les références à cet 
ouvrage seront précédées de OE. 
12 M. Merleau-Ponty, La prose du monde, Gallimard, Paris 1969, p. 120. 
155 
Maryvonne Saison 
des limites d ' une vie individuelle le m ê m e gen re d ' e n v e l o p p e m e n t qui réuni t 
par avance tous les m o m e n t s de celle-ci à l ' ins tant de son inst i tut ion ou de sa 
naissance» (LS 86). 
Il faut aff i rmer que l 'artiste r end sensible «l 'é toffe c o m m u n e » d o n t sont 
faits «les choses et m o n corps» (OE 21), qu' i l fait r e tour sur ce qui scelle no t re 
entente c o m m u n e : ainsi Cézanne s ' intéresse-t-i l à «la ma t i è re en t rain de se 
d o n n e r f o r m e , l ' o r d r e na i s san t p a r u n e o r g a n i s a t i o n s p o n t a n é e » ; «nous 
percevons des choses, nous nous e n t e n d o n s sur elles, n o u s s o m m e s ancrés en 
elles et c 'est sur ce socle de 'na ture ' que nous cons t ru isons des sciences. C 'es t 
ce m o n d e pr imord ia l que Cézanne a voulu p e i n d r e , et voi là p o u r q u o i ses 
tab leaux d o n n e n t l ' impress ion de la n a t u r e à son or ig ine» 1 3 . Il n ' e s t pas 
contradictoire de penser qu 'alors , réal isant u n e epoche qui m e t en suspens nos 
habi tudes, l 'artiste «révèle le fond de na tu re i n h u m a i n e sur lequel l ' h o m m e 
s'installe», ce que Mer leau-Ponty dés igne e n c o r e c o m m e u n « m o n d e sans 
familiarité» (DC 28). Le pa radoxe a p p a r e n t ne t ient q u ' à des po in t s de vue 
différents: la familiarité est donnée lorsque l 'ar t is te r e n o n c e à la pe r spec t ive 
cartésienne pour re t rouver une «pro fondeur» on to log ique , lorsqu ' i l r e m e t le 
sujet en son corps et ce dernier au m o n d e : « l ' in ter rogat ion de la pe in tu re vise 
en tout cas cette genèse secrète et f iévreuse des choses dans no t r e corps» (OE 
30), «la vision du pe in t re est une naissance con t inuée» (OE 32). L ' i n h u m a n i t é , 
elle, apparaît au sujet parlant qui fait la dist inction entre l ' huma in et l ' i nhumain 
et découvre dans l 'affinité qui le lie au «on» h u m a i n , l ' é t range té radica le du 
m o n d e inan imé . 
La pe in ture a donc au sein des arts u n e pos i t ion pr ivi légiée pu isqu 'e l le 
nous situe au croisement de l ' humain et de l ' i nan imé , en t re les d e u x m o n d e s 
naturel et social, entre les choses et les h o m m e s . C ' e s t sur ce te r ra in qu 'éc lô t 
peu à peu l ' idée de la réversibilité: le paysage , disait C é z a n n e «se pense en 
moi et je suis sa conscience» (DC 30), ou encore : « l ' én igme t ient en ceci que 
m o n corps est à la fois voyant et visible» (OE 18). T o u t e au t re p r é o c c u p a t i o n 
pour la pe in tu re lui apparaî t ra i t c o m m e anecdo t ique : «la pe in tu re n e cé lèbre 
jamais d 'au t re énigme que celle de la visibilité» (OE 26). Vo i r n ' es t d o n c pas 
un pouvoir à por ter à l'actif d ' un sujet: «la vision n 'es t pas un cer ta in m o d e de 
la pensée ou présence à soi: c'est le m o y e n qui m 'e s t d o n n é d ' ê t re absen t de 
moi -même, d'assister du dedans à la fission de l 'Etre , au t e rme de laquel le 
seulement je m e fe rme sur moi» (OE 81). 
13 M. Merleau-Ponty, «Le doute de Cézanne», in Sens et non-sens, Gallimard, Paris 1963, 
p. 23. Les références à ce texte seront précédées de (DC). 
156 
De la nostalgie à l'art: voir de tout son corps 
L'art et la philosophie 
D e la ph i losoph ie à l 'art , les appor ts dev iennent indissociables: dans 
u n e circular i té in f rang ib le , le r enouve l l ement de la théor ie de la percept ion 
pa r le ph i l o sophe a p o u r effet de «réinstaller le peint re dans le m o n d e visible 
et r e t rouve r le co rps c o m m e express ion spontanée» (LS 81) et la peinture 
t émoigne p o u r u n e «p ro fondeu r» définie c o m m e «ma part icipat ion à un Etre 
sans restr ict ion» (OE 46); elle cherche la «déflagration de l 'Etre» (OE 65). La 
seule dif férence entre le phi losophe et l 'artiste reste la spontanéité de ce dernier, 
laquel le , à c o u p sûr, est é t r angère au ph i losophe : «l 'art et n o t a m m e n t la 
pe in tu re pu i sen t à cette n a p p e de sens b ru t don t l 'act ivisme ne veut rien 
savoir . Ils sont m ê m e seuls à le faire en toute innocence» (OE 13). 
Ph i l o sophe et art iste pa r cont re se re t rouvent à s 'adresser au m ê m e 
in te r locuteur : le sujet inca rné que chacun recèle en soi. Ce qu'ils visent, c'est 
l 'évei l chez l ' in te r locu teur d ' u n e mémoi re des origines: «un peintre comme 
C é z a n n e , un artiste, un ph i losophe , doivent n o n seulement créer et expr imer 
u n e idée, mais enco re révei l ler les expér iences qui l ' enrac ineront dans les 
aut res consciences» (DC 33). Nostalgique en son impuls ion, l 'œuvre ne l'est 
pas dans sa réal isat ion et ne l 'est plus dans son effet, lorsqu'el le opère comme 
m é d i u m d 'accès à la mémoi r e : «alors l 'œuvre d 'art aura jo in t ces vies séparées, 
elle n ' ex i s te ra plus seu lemen t en l 'une d 'el les c o m m e un rêve tenace ou un 
dél i re pers is tant , ou dans l ' espace c o m m e une toile coloriée, elle habi te ra 
indivise dans p lus ieurs esprits, p ré sompt ivemen t dans tout esprit possible, 
c o m m e u n e acquis i t ion p o u r toujours» (DC 34). L'unité de la peinture repose 
sur l 'unici té de la «tâche du peintre» à travers l 'espace et le temps (LS 75) et 
r envo ie à u n e or ig ine c o m m u n e : c'est à p ropos du romanc ie r cette fois que 
Mer l eau -Pon ty écrit : «le romanc ie r tient à son lecteur, et tout h o m m e à tout 
h o m m e , un langage d ' ini t iés: initiés au monde , à l 'univers de possibles que 
dé t ien t un corps h u m a i n , u n e vie humaine» (LS 95). 
Le poè te p e u t écr i re en son n o m et au n o m du phi losophe «le je qui 
p a r l e d a n s m e s réc i t s n ' e s t pas u n e vo ix pe r sonne l l e . » 1 4 Les diff icul tés 
ép rouvées pa r Mer l eau -Pon ty à échapper à une phi losophie de la conscience, 
à pense r un sujet ins t i tuant et une subject ivi té rédui te à un processus de 
subject ivat ion, on t été telles que sa plus g rande lucidité se manifesta dans sa 
p e n s é e de l 'ar t c o m m e espace alternatif de réponse à la nostalgie. 
14 Louis-René des Forêts, Voies et détours de la fiction, Fata Morgana, Paris 1985, p. 31-32. 
157 
Social Theory 
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An International and Interdisciplinary Journal of Social Philosophy 
Volume 22, Number 1 Spring 1996 
Mandatory Retirement and Justice 
J.H. Chandler 
Dewey's Philosophical Approach to Racial Prejudice 
Gregory Fernando Pappas 
Acceptable and Unacceptable Levels of Risk: The Case of Pornography 
Alix Nalezinski 
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Steven Lee 
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Ann E. Cudd 
After Kant: Ventures in Morality Without Respect for Persons 
Christopher Gowans 
Subscriptions (3 issues): Individuals $15; Institutions $36; Foreign postage $4 
Department of Philosophy, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1054 
Ken-ichi Sasaki 
The Sexiness of Visuality 
A Semantic Aanalysis of the Japanese Words: Eye and Seeing 
0. The Scrutinizing Eye of Modern Western Culture 
It is an u n d e n i a b l e fact that visuality dominates m o d e r n Western aes-
thetics. For a start, the crystall ization of the m o d e r n generic concept of art 
was m a d e poss ible by the canoniza t ion of visual arts. T h e not ion of »beaux-
arts« is symbol ic : a l though ar t was different ia ted f rom other arts (knowledge 
and powers of making) by beau ty as its differentia, the n a m e »beaux-arts« 
was and is par t icular ly given to the visual arts.1 Indeed , the beaut i ful belongs 
above all to the eye, as T h o m a s Aquinas says in his f amous formulat ion. 2 
Aesthet ics as ph i l o sophy of art that insists on the beaut i ful implies, therefore , 
a t e n d e n c y to p r o m o t e visuality. 
T h e p r iv i l eged p lace of visuali ty in m o d e r n aesthet ics is con f i rmed 
th rough some basic concepts of this discipline other than the beautiful . Such 
concep t s as form, representation, symbol, image, imagination, figure, schema, etc. 
a re in themse lves visual not ions . T h e French word »ouvrage«, which was 
used at the b e g i n n i n g of m o d e r n t imes for the art work, originally mean t 
a rch i tec tura l cons t ruc t ion . T h e word expression also b e c a m e a technical term 
in aesthetics, firstly in the field of paint ing.3 
This impor t ance of visuality in m o d e r n aesthetics was supported by some 
o the r cons idera t ions . T h e first belongs to nature : among the five senses vi-
sion is by far the mos t i m p o r t a n t and useful for our survival. Living without 
sight for one h o u r wou ld p r o b a b l y be more difficult than living without hear-
ing for one day. This does no t necessarily mean , however , that vision is also 
the m o s t i m p o r t a n t sense for our spiritual and intellectual life: everyone would 
1 Cf. Paul O. Kristeller, »The Modern System of the Arts «-Journal of the History of Ideas, 
vols. XII-XIII (1951-52). 
2 »...we call beautiful things which give pleasure when they are seen«. (Thomas Aquinas, 
Summa theologiae, I q. 5 a 4 ad 1, in Wladislaw Tatarkiewicz, History of Aesthetics, II, 
Mouton, The Hague 1970, p. 257. 
3 The most basic text on this subject is: Charles Le Brun, Conférence sur l'expression 
générale et particulière des passions (1668). Cf. Nouvelle Revue de Psychanalyse, No. 21, 
printemps 1980. 
Filozofski vestnik, XVII (2/1996), pp. 159-170. 
Ken-ichi Sasaki 
hesitate to say that a pa in t ing is by its o w n na tu re m o r e p r o f o u n d than a p iece 
of music or a novel.4 
There is another reason, pecul iar to W e s t e r n cul ture , for the p r e d o m i -
nance of visuality in aesthetics. T h e ca tas t rophe of the t r agedy Oedipus the 
King by Sophocles is of ten cited as a symbol of the visual inc l ina t ion tha t 
characterizes Wes te rn civilization. O e d i p u s , who , af ter a zealous pursu i t of 
the murde re r of the previous King Laius, d i scovered the cruel t ru th concern-
ing his own birth and past, puts out his own eyes. T h e eye and sight be ing 
symbols of h u m a n unders tanding , this act is i n t e rp re t ed as the p u n i s h m e n t 
Oedipus bestows u p o n his pre tent ious desire to know. H e r e , the intel lectual 
side of h u m a n nature is ident if ied with the eye wh ich seeks to see eve ry th ing 
despite its own weakness. W e find a similar ac t ion also in Shakespea re ' s King 
Lear. Indeed , in J a p a n e s e also, 'eye ' signifies by synecdoche insight. But we 
are unaware of any instance of such a pun i t ive act ion against the eye in J a p a -
nese theater or li terature, so that I myself was at first shocked by this theatr i-
cal topos because of its strange cruelty. 
In the third and last place, we mus t take into cons idera t ion the basic 
t endency of theories of art of the 18th cen tu ry w h e n m o d e r n aesthet ics took 
shape as a phi losophical discipline. It was, i ndeed , a cen tu ry of pa in t ing f r o m 
the viewpoint of the history of aesthetics, n o t that of art his tory. It was paint -
ing that theoret icians took as the p a r a d i g m of every art: it i nc luded l i tera ture 
(Marmontel) , theater (Diderot), dance (Noverre) , g a r d e n i n g (Girardin) and 
music (Couper in and Cahusac) . 5 In the 18th cen tu ry pa in t ing was r e g a r d e d 
as impor tan t because it enables us to expe r i ence in a quasi-real m a n n e r an 
imaginat ive world. Typical is the case of Didero t , a critic of the Salon exhibi -
tions. W h e n looking at a masterpiece , he forgot the fact that he was look ing at 
a paint ing in a hall of the Louvre and felt as if en te r ing into the pa in ted scene, 
like mov ing in its space and jo in ing in the act ion of the pa in ted charac ters . 
His descr ipt ion was not focused u p o n the sur face of the canvas b u t on the 
represen ted world.6 H e was c o n c e r n e d with tha t p o w e r of involv ing specta-
4 I find the following thought ofJ.-B. Dubos exceptional: »The sight has a much greater 
empire over the soul than any of the other senses. ... We may say here, metaphori-
cally speaking, that the eye is nearer to the soul than the ear.« [Critical Reflections on 
Poetry and Music, translated by Th. Mugent, vol. 1, London 1748. (Reprint: AMS Press, 
New York 1978), pp. 321-22.) 
5 Cf. my paper: »Le Dix-huitième siècle comme ère de la peinture«, XVIIIe Siècle, No. 
27, 1995, pp. 481-502. 
6 Another Diderot's example of aesthetic experiences of this kind, is the description he 
gives of the painting of Le Prince entitled Pastoral Russe, in Salons de 1165 (Oeuvres 
Completes), t. 14, Hermann, Paris 1984, p. 226. 
160 
The Sexiness of Visuality 
tor , wh ich rad ia t ed f r o m the pa r t of the work, that was called its »interéssant« 
or »intérêt«. ' 
Th i s inc l ina t ion towards visuality was so striking a feature in the aesthet-
ics of the 18th cen tury , that it was natural for the format ion of m o d e r n aes-
thetics to b e e l abo ra t ed on tha t basis. But the kind of involvement found in 
the wri t ings of D i d e r o t was kep t away f rom the field of art exper ience by the 
m o r e r ecen t aesthet ics of dis interestedness established by Kant. In his »Ana-
lytic of Aes the t ic J u d g e m e n t « concern ing the beautiful , Kant searches for the 
cond i t ions of cor rec t j u d g e m e n t . His claim is well known . A genuine aes-
thet ic j u d g e m e n t is o n e which is given immedia te ly by our feeling of pleas-
u re /d i sp l ea su re , that is: wi thout any commi tmen t of our »interest«, nor me-
dia t ion of »concept« , and i n d e p e n d e n t of any »emotion«. Modern visuality 
was thus pur i f i ed and steril ized through this no t ion of aesthetics. 
H e r e in this pape r , by m e a n s of a semant ic analysis of J a p a n e s e words, 
we are go ing to try to res tore to eye and seeing their original impuri ty and 
r ichness: the sexiness of visuality. I am not however thinking of an aestheticized 
sexiness as desc r ibed by R o l a n d Barthes: 
Different from secondary sexuality, the sexiness of a body (which is not its 
beauty) inheres in the fact that it is possible to discern (to fantasize) in it the 
erotic practice to which one subjects it in thought (I conceive of this particular 
practice, specifically, and of no other). Similarly, distinguished within the text, 
one might say that there are sexy sentences: disturbing by their very isolation, as 
if they possessed the promise which is made to us, the readers, by a linguistic 
practice, as if we were to seek them out by virtue of a pleasure.8 
It seems to m e tha t this aphor i sm betrays the limited nature of m o d e r n 
sensibil i ty. Or iginal ly , the sexiness of body or sentence must have been an 
e loquen t c h a r m cas t ing a spell over us. Here , on the contrary, it is someth ing 
' sought out ' and ' d i sce rned ' by the delicate sense of a semiotician. W e shall 
n o w go back to pr imi t ive sensibility and rediscover the vigour of visuality in 
the semant ics of the J a p a n e s e , which preserves, I think, archaic layers of sen-
sibility. 
T h e m a i n b o d y of this p a p e r is divided into two parts . In the first part, 
we shall discuss the act ive charac ter of seeing, so active that it involves all our 
be ing in the exper ien t ia l field. In the second, on the contrary, it is the active 
7 Cf. my paper: »L'Esthétique de l'intérêt - De d'Aubignac à Sulzer«,JTLA (Journal of 
the Faculty of Letters, The University of Tokyo, Aesthetics), Vol. 10 (1985), pp. 29-50. 
8 Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, translated by R. Howard, in: Roland 
Barthes Reader, S. Sontag (ed.), Hill & Wang, New York 1982, p. 422. 
161 
Ken-ichi Sasaki 
power of the world which shall be u n d e r l i n e d : the dense p h e n o m e n o n en-
dowed with this s trong appeal is also cal led »eye« in J a p a n e s e , jus t like the 
visual organ. After these analyses, we shall re fer to the specifici ty of sight 
among the five senses. 
7. The Gordons' Eyes 
In Wes te rn civilization, the Greek m y t h of the G o r g o n s conce rns the 
active power of the eye. It concerns th ree te r r i fy ing m a i d e n s w h o tu rned into 
stone a n y o n e who looked u p o n them. T h e pe t r i fy ing p o w e r of the G o r g o n s 
comes f r o m their eyes,9 because the eye is the only o rgan tha t can m a k e a 
psychic assault. Wit tgenstein knew this abil i ty of the eye: 
We do not see the human eye as a receiver, it appears not to let anything in, 
but to send something out. The ear receives; the eye looks. (It casts glances, it 
flashes, radiates, gleams.) One can terrify with one's eyes, not with one's ear 
or nose. When you see the eye you see something going out from it. You see 
the look in the eye.10 
If we f ind our phi losopher saying a smar t thing, it mus t c o m e f r o m the 
fact that we are too much accus tomed to a superf ic ia l ly rat ional is t ic m a n n e r 
of thinking to be sensitive to and able to not ice the psychic p o w e r e m a n a t i n g 
f rom the eye, which is taken for a recept ive organ . W h e n I r ead this para-
graph for the first t ime, I felt it to be somewha t fo rced . In the con tex t of daily 
life, however , I not only unders tand this m a n n e r of th ink ing well, bu t h a v e 
also lived this situation since the J a p a n e s e l anguage (as m y intel lectual ele-
ment) incorpora tes this world view. 
In J a p a n e s e the ve rb miru (to see) and the n o u n me (eye) h a v e a c o m m o n 
root. Seeing is lexically descr ibed as an ope ra t i on of the eye and the eye 
reciprocally as the organ of seeing. I wou ld the re fo re like to use the expres-
sion »seeing/eye« in order to designate this a m a l g a m a t e d state of seeing and 
9 Some dictionaries, including Encyclopedia Americana, A Classical Dictionary of Classical 
Antiquities (by Seyffert/Nettleship/Sandys) and An Oxford Companion to Classical Lit-
erature, do not explicitly attribute this power to the eye. For example, the Oxford 
Companion says: »The Gorgon's head turned to stone anything that meets its gaze« 
(my emphasis); »its gaze« being the occasion, the effect comes from her »head«. Ac-
cording to Der kleine Pauly, however, the name »Gorgon« means etymologically 
»schrecklich für Blick und Anblick«. 
10 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright (eds.), Basil 
Blackwell, Oxford 1967, p. 40e. 
162 
The Sexiness of Visuality 
eye. T h e J a p a n e s e »see ing/eye« is not so dreadfu l as the eyes of the Gorgons. 
All the same, the express ion implies no t receptivity bu t positive activity. I 
th ink we J a p a n e s e did no t have even the slightest no t ion of seeing/eye as a 
recept ive p rocess b e f o r e be ing taught the Wes te rn theory of percept ion. Let 
m e presen t three basic aspects of seeing/eye - experiment , the erotic and physical 
i n v o l v e m e n t - t h rough which I shall try to make some general remarks on 
the inf luent ia l p o w e r of seeing/eye. 
(A) Seeing/eye as e x p e r i m e n t 
Apa r t f r o m its use in the plain sense of »to see«, one of the most f requent 
uses of the v e r b miru is as an auxiliary verb in the sense of »try to«. We have 
ano the r ve rb s ignifying »to try«: kokoromiru, which, a l though so perfect ly 
a m a l g a m a t e d into one w o r d that we ordinar i ly do not think of decompos ing 
it, is in fact m a d e f r o m two words: kokoro (»heart« or »mind«) and miru. W e 
can h e n c e gloss it as fol lows: »to try« is conceived in J a p a n e s e as effectuating 
some th ing in o rde r to »see« the result in the »mind«; in short, it concerns 
men ta l e x p e r i m e n t . This m e a n i n g is originally impor ted into the verb miru 
(to see) itself in its above m e n t i o n e d use as an auxiliary verb . In this case, the 
ma in ve rb j o i n e d to miru mus t be given in its perfect ive aspect. For example , 
»Disney land e i t te-miru« (word by word: »to Disney- land /have gone/see« in 
the sense of »try to visit Disney-land«), which, put t ing a stress on the perfec-
tive aspect , I m a y gloss as: »try anyway to visit Disney-land in order to see 
with one ' s o w n eyes h o w it is (or would have been) in fact«. 
W e J a p a n e s e use very of ten this miru phrase , which seems to bet ray a 
par t icu lar side of our menta l i ty . W e seem to like to do something tentatively 
in o rde r to see the resul t af terwards, m u c h more than to make first of all a 
deta i led examina t ion and j u d g e m e n t in order to do it well. This is at least 
w h a t the miru ph rase implies . In this phrase , strictly speaking, the m o m e n t of 
trial be longs to the per fec t ive aspect of the verb jo ined to miru; miru, on the 
cont rary , expresses the j u d g e m e n t given to the result of that trial. In fact, 
however , I p r e f e r to th ink that the perfect ive aspect of the main verb is rather 
c la imed by the auxi l iary v e r b miru which has another sense of »having a real 
exper ience« . W i s h i n g a j u d g e m e n t to be based u p o n a real exper ience, we 
choose first of all to ef fectuate it until it is ended . Let us examine an example 
in an old shor t p o e m : 
Shinobu-yama, shinobite kayou michi-mo gana, 
hito-no kokoro-no oku-mo miru beku. 
(Just as the name of Mount Shinobu [to hide oneself, or to endure] suggests, I 
should like to have a secret path leading to your house in order to reach the 
depths of your heart.) 
163 
Ken-ichi Sasaki 
This p o e m (my emphasis) is woven in to the Tale oflse (Section 15) wh ich 
combines this kind of short p o e m with shor t love stories, all a t t r ibu ted to a 
single hero Narihira , the famous p layboy-poe t . 1 1 T h e scene is a n o t h e r n Prov-
ince very far f rom the capital. O n his j o u r n e y N a r i h i r a mee t s a beau t i fu l 
woman , the i l l -matched wife of a coun t ry -man . H e sends he r this love p o e m . 
In it, »to see (miru) the depths of he r hear t« m e a n s »to k n o w it«; c o n n o t i n g 
»through their sexual relation«. In teres t ing is the p h r a s e fo l lowing the p o e m 
in the Tale of Ise which descr ibes the reac t ion of the w o m a n , since we f ind 
there a contrast be tween miru and omou (= think, cons ider , be l ieve , j u d g e 
etc.). The w o m a n finds [omou) it ex t remely pleasing, but , b e i n g af ra id tha t 
Narihira , coming f r o m the Capital , would see (miru) h e r hea r t as so rustic, she 
could not send h im back her answer. H e r e b o t h omou and miru c o n c e r n a 
cognition, but not of the same form. Omou des igna tes a j u d g e m e n t m a d e on 
the love p o e m . So she keeps a certain d is tance f r o m the objec t of he r omoi(= 
nomina l fo rm of omou)] in fact, omou a n d omoiimply a f ree space for the m i n d 
to move a round . He r thought (omoi) is, t he re fo re , m o r e or less d is in teres ted 
and aesthetic. By contrast , she lacks comple te ly this k ind of c o m p o s u r e in he r 
fear that the p layboy f r o m the capital wou ld see (miru) he r rustic m i n d . H e r 
fear is concerned with the knowledge tha t the m a n seeks to a d v a n c e a rela-
tion with this woman , and f r o m which the w o m a n is anx ious to k e e p he r 
rustic mind . In short, when miru signifies no t a s imple visual pe r cep t i on bu t a 
cognition, it concerns one which involves our exis tence . It is exact ly this 
implicat ion that makes it possible for miru to m e a n »try to«. 
(B) T h e erotic m e a n i n g of seeing 
The example given above has a l ready suggested the connec t ion of miru 
(to see) with the erotic - »to see (miru) the dep ths of he r hear t« p r e s u p p o s e s a 
sexual relat ion. Indeed , the verb miru no t only p r e s u p p o s e s bu t also some-
times means »to enter into the re la t ion of m a n and w o m a n « in anc ien t or 
medieva l J a p a n e s e . 1 2 J a p a n e s e miru was also used to m e a n just »to see a per-
son«,1 3 and in its fo rm as a »spontaneous v e r b « 1 4 mieru (or miyu) can signify 
»someone appears /comes« . J a p a n e s e see ing h e n c e pr ivi leges the pe r sona l 
11 Poet of the 9th century, famous for his handsomeness and many love affairs. Tale oflse 
is one of the »uta monogatari«, stories constructed on the basis of poems. Most of the 
linguistic and the literary materials are taken from: Nohon Kokugo Daijiten (Grand Dic-
tionary of Japanese), 10 vols., Shogakkan Publisher, Tokyo 1972-76. 
12 The English phrase »Jack is seeing Betty« can imply that they are sleeping together. 
But it concerns not a lexical meaning but a figurative meaning. A figurative manner 
of speech represents a particular way of understanding of its subject person, and not 
that of people as such. 
164 
The Sexiness of Visuality 
re la t ion: the sexual re la t ion is its ex t reme case. We have nowadays lost this 
use excep t in a few c o m p o u n d words like: misomeru (v. literally first to see: to 
fall in love at first sight) and miai (n. literally seeing o n e another : ar ranging a 
m e e t i n g of a m a n and a w o m a n in view of their manage ) . It was, however , 
ve ry f r equen t ly used in anc ien t and medieval t imes in certain situations. He re 
again, I choose an e x a m p l e of miru used with omu. I f ind such a phrase in the 
first chap te r of the Tale of Genji. I shall give it first in the English translation 
m a d e by Seidenst icker , and shall then try more literally to translate the origi-
nal text . A c c o r d i n g to Seidenst icker ' s translation, »Fujitsubo was for him (= 
Genji) a vision of sub l ime beauty . If he could have someone like her . . .« . 1 5 
Genj i is a y o u n g Pr ince, a b o u t twelve years old and just marr ied , who will be 
an ou t s t and ing p l ayboy as the hero of the novel . Fuj i tsubo is a Princess of the 
f o r m e r E m p e r o r and all the peop le of the court f ind her looking very much 
like the d e a d m o t h e r of G e n j i who begins to yearn for her . I will now trans-
late m o r e li terally the same par t of the text: 
Genji thought in his mind (omou) that Fujitsubo's figure was unequaled, and 
wished to see (miru) such a woman as her... 
H e r e , i n d e e d miru m e a n s »to have a love relat ion with someone«. And 
this love re la t ion is a real one , different iated f rom the institutional relation of 
mar r i age . So w h e n Genj i wishes to see her , his aspiration goes beyond mere 
seeing to t ouch ing and ho ld ing her , and even fur ther . It is a euphemis t ic 
synecdoche . Being, however , a lexical i tem, it reflects a way of feeling pecu-
liar to the peop le . In o the r words , this »part« which is miru (to see) contains a 
d y n a m i s m e x p a n d i n g to a »totality« (love relation). 
(C) See ing / eye invo lv ing the whole person 
W e h a v e n o w d e m o n s t r a t e d that in seeing/eye we mee t with the world 
or see s o m e o n e directly, in person, and get an otherwise unat ta inable cognition 
of the depth of the wor ld or mind . Eye is the place where this condensed 
13 As we shall see later, modern Japanese uses different verb for »see an object/scene 
etc.« (miru) and for »see a person« (au). 
14 Japanese grammar adopts the Western terms of »transitive verb« and »intransitive 
verb«, but the concepts are different. In the grammar of Western languages, these 
notions are defined in terms of syntax: »transitive verb« is a verb that takes a direct 
object; »intransitive« is one without a direct object. In Japanese grammar, on the 
contrary, these notions are defined in terms of the mode of action: hence an »intran-
sitive verb« describes a spontaneous act. 
15 Murasaki-Shikibu, The Tale of Genji, translated by E. G. Seidenstecker, vol. 1, Alfred 
A. Knopf, New York 1977, p. 18. 
165 
Ken-ichi Sasaki 
experience happens, and »to see« designates this activated state of mutual 
communication we have with the world or another person. Seeing as power 
is in fact quite a familiar phenomenon. The Japanese expression »me de korosu 
(to kill with the eye)« corresponds exactly to the English idiom »the killing 
eye«. And another one, »me-ni mono iwasu (word by word: to the eye/some-
thing/let say = »let the eye transmit a message«) compounds to the similar 
notion of »the eloquent eye« in Western languages. Let me quote here three 
sets of examples. 
The English idiom »to have an eye for something« (for example paint-
ing) concerns the power of the eye as insight; in Japanese , we say »miru mega. 
aru (word by word: seeing/eye/have = »have an eye which has insight«). 
Typical is the case of a doctor who »kanja-o miru (= sees the patient)«. As in 
modern Japanese we do not use the verb miru (to see) in the sense of »to see 
someone«, but the verb »au«, this turn of the phrase »to see the patient« is 
striking. The expressive use of the verb miru seems to underl ine the active 
aspect of the doctor's examination. I find the most impressive description of 
the penetrating power of the eye in a proverbial expression: »Ganko shihai ni 
tessuru.« (= »The rays of the eye pierce the sheet to its backside.«) Ganko (the 
rays of the eye) means the penetrating insight, and the phrase speaks of the 
insight of an excellent reader sufficiently penetrat ing as to catch the hidden 
meaning of the text (or to read between the lines). 
As for the second set of examples, I find the most straightforward way of 
expressing the active power of the eye in the interjection »Me!«-, which is used 
to put a stop to an act, generally adressed to a child with a gentle staring 
expression. It is so familiar an expression that we no longer notice in it the 
meaning of eye, although it is in fact the same word as »eye«. I even feel in it 
something like a spell, for it was the primitive mind that cast a spell f rom the 
eye in pronouncing the interjection »Me!« As to the magic power of the see-
ing/eye, I should like to call attention to the compound verb »mi-iru« (liter-
ally: »seeing-enter«). Generally, this verb is glossed as »seeing-in«. But we 
have another gloss which relates this seeing-in with the stem »mi« meaning 
»spectre«, so that the verb is understood as implying »to possess, or to charm«. 
I think we have here the most archaic layer of the semantics of the word 
»seeing«. 
The last set of examples, concerns a very peculiar expression: »~me-o 
miru (word by word: to see such and such an eye = to have such and such an 
experience)«. Here »to see such and such an eye« does not mean »to look 
someone straight in the eyes«. The »eye« signifies here not the visual organ 
but the existential situation. Hence seeing and the eye designate an existen-
tial experience. Of prime inportance here is the fact that when we use this 
166 
The Sexiness of Visuality 
p h r a s e it a lways conce rns a very intense experience. In general , it is a diffi-
cult one : »uki-me-o miru (to h a v e a very sad experience)«, »tsurai-me-o miru (to 
have a pa in fu l exper ience)« , and »kakaru-me-o miru (to have such an experi-
ence = to have such a ' h a r d ' experience)«. W e occasionally encounter a posi-
tive case: »yoi-me-o miru (to have a good exper ience = to have an extraordi-
nar i ly h a p p y exper ience)« . These formula t ions signify, therefore , an excep-
t ional ly in tense expe r i ence . 
Wi th this last case, we have already en te red into the problemat ics of the 
second pa r t of the p a p e r , for we are not concerned with our own perceiving 
eye b u t with the eye which encounters or even attacks us. It is not the plain 
m e t a p h o r ba sed u p o n the similarity of shape such as »the eye of the storm« 
or »the eye of a needle« . It is difficult to form an image of this eye situation: I 
i n t e rp re t this express ion as a project ion of the not ion of the seeing/eye as a 
dense expe r i ence to the aspect of the world which br ings us such experi-
ences . 
2. Eye of the World 
See ing / eye is loca ted wi thin a dense p h e n o m e n o n which we experi-
ence . As far as we d o m i n a t e the object , we can say that we look at it. But 
w h e n the objec t or the wor ld becomes overwhelming, the situation becomes 
inver t ed : we are n o w looked at by it. This is exactly what Merleau-Ponty 
sought to descr ibe , cal l ing on a painter to testify: 
Inevitably the roles between him (the painter) and the visible are reversed. 
That is why so many painters have said that things look at them. As André 
Marchand says, after Klee: »In a forest, I have felt many times over that it was 
not I who looked at the forest. Some days I felt that the trees were looking at 
me, were speaking to me... I was there, listening... I think that the painter 
must be penetrated by the universe and not want to penetrate it... I expect to 
be inwardly submerged, buried. Perhaps I paint to break out.« 
We speak of »inspiration«, and the word should be taken literaly. There really 
is inspiration and expiration of Being, action and passion so slightly discern-
ible that it becomes impossible to distinguish between what sees and what is 
seen, what paints and what is painted.16 
A c c o r d i n g to the a rcha ic sensibility evidenced in the J a p a n e s e vocabu-
lary, n o t only pa in te r s bu t eve ryone was aware of such a mutua l communica-
16 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, »Eye and Mind«, translated by Carleton Dallery, in Harold 
Osborne (ed.), Aesthetics, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1972, p. 63. 
167 
Ken-ichi Sasaki 
t ion with the world, result ing in an excep t iona l ly in tense expe r i ence . But 
how is it possible to represent the densi ty of an expe r i ence or a s i tuat ion as an 
eye? To tell t he t ruth, it is difficult even for s o m e o n e like m e for w h o m the 
J a p a n e s e language is his native tangue to h a v e an image of this »eye«: J a p a -
nese speaking people in general take the me of »uki-me-o miru« as a com-
pletely d i f ferent word f r o m the me of eye. But I wish to in t e rp re t it as eye. In 
order to do so, I begin with another anc ien t p o e m , sung by a Pr ince for his 
mother the Empress , who has just d ied: 
Kimi-ga-me-o, koishiki-kara-ni, htete ite, 
kakuya koimu-mo kimi-ga me-o hori. 
(Longing for your eyes, I have spent the night here with you: 
it is out of the desire for your eyes that I love you so.)17 
The love of the poet for his dead m o t h e r is focussed on he r eyes so tha t 
he even says h e loves her because of he r eyes. Need less to say the p o e t loves 
all of his mo the r and not just her eyes; only, to see he r in p e r s o n is na tura l ly 
represen ted with a special connec t ion to the image of the eyes. Mer leau-
Ponty talks of the »inspiration and exp i ra t ion of Being«; I p re fe r h e r e to speak 
of »dilatation of being«. For the consc iousness of the poe t , the eye of his 
mother dilates its be ing so as to cover he r ent i re being. Eye has , thus, a privi-
leged quality as the dilating power of be ing. T h e J a p a n e s e l anguage stresses 
this so as to establish lexicographical ly tha t the di la ted b e i n g in s o m e o n e ' s 
exper ience is called me (eye). This is the a b o v e m e n t i o n e d case of »uki-me-o 
miru« or »yoi-me-o miru«. 
Now if I may enter onto unsure g r o u n d , I should like to re fe r to the 
etymological opinion which relates the »me« as eye to »me« as a »bud«. Th i s 
opinion is plausible not only because of the similari ty of their shapes , bu t also 
because a »bud« shows typically the dilatation of being, or b e c o m i n g or change. 
If we may thus relate the eye to b e c o m i n g or wi th a c h a n g i n g p h e n o m e n o n , 
we can also explain another type of use of the w o r d me such as in »shini-me«, 
»ochi-me« and »kawari-me«. According to our dict ionary, in this g roup me m e a n s 
a critical situation, but there is no fu r ther exp lana t ion . For example , »shini-me 
(me of dying)« refers to the last minutes or hour s w h e n s o m e o n e is dying; 
»ochi-me (me of falling)« is decl ining luck; »kawari-me (me of changing)« is the 
turning point , for example of a season. T h e s e uses of me r e s emb le those of 
»uki-me« or »yoi-me« because they des ignate a si tuation. But unl ike the me of 
17 My emphasis. The poem appears in Nihon Shoki, one of the most ancient in Japanese 
history. The mother-Empress is Saimei-Tenno (594-661), who died in Kyushu, far from 
the capital, and the Prince went to Kyushu in order to accompany the body of his 
mother. 
168 
The Sexiness of Visuality 
»uki-me« or »yoi-me«, t hey c a n n o t be used with the verb miru (to see). This use 
of me with miru unde r l ines the close conect ion of those situations to the sub-
jec t pe r son : it conce rns h i s / h e r own situation. O n the contrary, our more 
r e c e n t me such as »shini-me«, »ochi-me« and »kawari-me« which cannot be used 
with the v e r b miru (to see) represents an objective situation. 
I can conce ive with little difficulty this me as a b e c o m i n g or a changing 
p h e n o m e n o n in t e rms of visuality, because it hits us be tween the eyes, though 
it conce rns n o t our s ee ing /eye but the striking p h e n o m e n o n . I think that now 
we have access to our last set of me examples such as »ori-me« (»ori« is »to 
fold«; crease, fold), »kiri-me« (»kire« is »to be cut«; rift, gap, pause), »sakai-
me« (»sakai« is »border« , »boundary« , »frontier« or borderl ine) . It no longer 
conce rns a s i tuat ion b u t the line different iat ing two areas. Nevertheless, we 
migh t des ignate it as a cer ta in critical situation; the object ive me (eye) indi-
cates a chang ing and critical situation that catches the eye. 
3. Vision Among the Five Senses 
W e have e x a m i n e d the J a p a n e s e see ing/eye in two respects: the first is 
tha t of expe r i ences cal led miru (to see), and the second concerns me (eye), not 
seeing bu t the seen one which refers to a certain situation. We also encoun-
te red an i n t e rmed ia t e case »~me-o miru« (to see such and such an eye = to 
have such and such an exper ience) . Summar iz ing these analyses, we can say 
that miru (to see) is charac ter ized by the intensity of an exper ience affecting 
direct ly our exis tence , so that me (eye) is also at t r ibuted to our exper ience or 
even p ro jec ted into some situations when these experiences or situations show 
a critical cha rac te r or a s o m e h o w condensed meaning . 
Mos t r e m a r k a b l e in this semant ic analysis is the intensity of the amalga-
ma t ion of the subjec t and the world, including the project ion of the me (eye) 
in to the wor ld . T h e fact is all the more striking since vision as well as hear ing 
are r e m o t e pe rcep t ions , unl ike smell, taste and the sense of touch. The case 
of taste is suggestive. T h e English word as well as the equivalents in other 
W e s t e r n l anguages were t aken as basic technical terms in m o d e r n aesthetics 
s ignifying the facul ty of aesthet ic j udgemen t . It was especially the reflexive 
and apprec ia t ive way of func t ion ing peculiar to taste that was under l ined in 
this use. T h e w o r d taste is f u r t h e r m o r e used to designate the stylistic charac-
ter of an art work . This d o u b l e use as faculty and style1 8 cor responds to the 
18 Taste as a faculty was based upon a »good taste«, which refered to the taste of the 
period of the Louis XIV. Cf. Trübners Deutsches Wörterbuch, art. »Geschmack«, vol. 3, 
Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1939, p. 128 b. 
169 
Ken-ichi Sasaki 
fact that taste is a contact sense: we canno t dis t inguish clearly the subjec t a n d 
the object. From the viewpoint of the subjec t -objec t re la t ion in vis ion a n d 
taste, what we have discovered above in the J a p a n e s e w o r d s s ee ing / eye ap-
pears paradoxical : how is it possible for a r e m o t e pe rcep t ive sense such as 
vision to achieve an intense fusion of subjec t a n d objec t? 
The answer to this quest ion is s imple: it is the in tense expe r i ence wh ich 
fuses the subject with a distant object in the case of vision. O n the con t ra ry , 
the subject-object fusion in taste is s imply based on the physica l fact of con-
tact and not on the power of the object . O n this po in t I f ind the J a p a n e s e 
lexicon very suggestive: J a p a n e s e has no special v e r b taking the n a m e of 
food as a subject of phrase in the m e a n i n g of »having the taste of«, unl ike for 
the other four senses.1 9 W e have just o n e v e r b »ajiwau« (to taste) for the sense 
of taste which indicates the act or at t i tude of a pe r son . T h e fact tha t m o d e r n 
Western aesthetics adop ted taste as o n e of the basic no t ions is symbol ic : it 
was not the power of the object bu t the apprec ia t ive a t t i tude of pe r son which 
was the basic e lement for this aesthetic. It is unsu rp r i s ing tha t u n d e r such 
influence people have forgot ten the pr imi t ive v ividness of visuali ty. 
19 The intransitive (spontaneous) verb of the four other senses are: mieru (sight), kikoeru 
(hearing), kaoru/niou (smell), and sawaru (touch). 
170 
Richard Shusterman 
Urban Scenes and Unseens 
i 
Celebra ted already in Plato and Aristotle, the city seems a symbolic 
solution to one of phi losophy 's most central problems - the many and the 
one. This p rob lem is at once metaphysical and epistemological, as well as 
ethical, political and aesthetic: the unity of substance in change, of truth in 
the manifold of appearance , of the self in plurality of action, of the unified 
polis with its m a n y citizens and households, of beauty as unity in variety. The 
city symbolizes the embrac ing of multiplicity and diversity within a single 
unit, often concretely represented by their collection within city walls. Rather 
than dividing the city (as in Berlin), such encompassing walls aimed at assert-
ing the city's integrity as a clear unit with definite limits, distinct from the 
indefinite sprawl of the surrounding countryside. The Greeks saw definite 
limits as essential to the values of clarity, rationality, and beautiful form. But 
when m o d e r n urbanizat ion overwhelmed the old city-walls, the charm and 
power of the cities was not thereby destroyed. For romantic thought inter-
vened to privilege the infinite and unlimited. Though poets like Blake and 
Wordswor th at tacked the city (in their poems on »London«) for its grimy grid 
of oppressive political limits, the small-minded greed of narrow »chartered« 
streets in contrast to Nature ' s vast bounty, the city could nonethelss be valor-
ized as a site of unl imited growth, endless activity, boundless variety, and 
infinite possibilities. Logically, a town or village would lose its status by grow-
ing too large and thus becoming a city. But the city, at least in principle, 
knows no limits to growth and variety. 
All the world, it seemed, could be experienced in the single city. Its 
dense wealthy populat ion enabled the bringing of even the most remotely 
p roduced and costly products to the city shops and museums. Too vast and 
varied to be captured or viewed f rom a single main street or square, the city's 
promise of ever new discoveries through its seemingly endless web of streets, 
set the flaneur in constant motion. Huge parks and zoos provided the modern 
metropolis with varieties of even country and jungle life, while urban com-
muter trains showed that the city could also allow its residents to travel exten-
sively without ever having to leave the city at all. Circumscribed infinity is a 
Filozofski vestnih, XVII (2/1996), pp. 171-179. 
Richard Shusterman 
powerful , though paradoxica l image. So though t fu l theor is ts of city life, like 
Georg Simmel , insist that par t of the city's dist inct ive l ibera t ing p o w e r is in 
t ranscending its physical boundar ies , thus p rov id ing n o t only a m e a n s bu t a 
symbol of boundless f r e e d o m . 
It is not only the immediate size of the area and the number of persons which 
... has made the metropolis the locale of freedom. It is rather in transcending 
this visible expanse that any given city becomes the seat of cosmopolitanism. 
... The sphere of life of the small town is, in the main, self-contained and 
autarchic ... The most significant characteristic of the metropolis is the func-
tional extension beyond its physical boundaries.1 
Simmel 's solution to the logical p r o b l e m of city-infinity is thus by ap-
peal to wha t is absent f r o m the physical site with wh ich the city is ident i f ied 
and has its center; it is only »in t r anscend ing this visible expanse that any 
given city becomes the seat of cosmopol i tan i sm« (ibid.). 
Urbanis t s like Simmel were, however , no t c o n c e r n e d with the logic of 
infinity. T h e y were p reoccup ied by the concre te p r o b l e m s resul t ing f r o m city 
plenty, where overwhelming quant i t ies of peop le , p roduc t s , a n d activit ies 
could overstrain and endange r the very quali ty of h u m a n expe r i ence , of per-
sonal and social life. This pa infu l p a r a d o x of m o r e m e a n i n g less is a lei tmotif 
in urban criticism f rom Friedrich Engels, th rough Baudela i re , Valéry , S immel , 
Benjamin, and Mumford , and still e x t e n d i n g into the p o s t m o d e r n h i p - h o p of 
Grandmas te r Flash, whose 1983 classic »New York , N e w York« bea r s the 
blunt refra in: »Too much, too m a n y peop le , too much!« 
Such critics did not dep lore the mul t i tud inous var ie ty of city life pe r se; 
they rel ished it. W h a t they instead a t tacked was the th rea t of d isor ienta t ing , 
dehumaniz ing , shocking chaos (symbolized by the fo rmless crowd) wh ich 
resulted f r o m the eno rmous u rban bust le of quanti t ies , complexi t ies , and di-
versities overwhelming our h u m a n powers of assimilation. In Ben jamin ' s terms 
we thus have the f ragmented shock of Erlebnis, someth ing l ived th rough , ra ther 
than the funded , ordered, convergent assimilation of exper ience. T h e urbanis t ' s 
aim is not to decrease the rich bust l ing var ie ty of city life, bu t to o rde r it so 
that it would no longer be threa teningly o v e r w h e l m i n g and u n m a n a g e a b l e . 
The p rob lem, then, is one of Ordnung, as o the r G e r m a n urbanis t s wou ld con-
cur. 
Fr iedr ich Engels , for e x a m p l e , m a r v e l l e d at L o n d o n ' s vas tness a n d 
achievements but found »the bustle of the streets« »distasteful« a n d »abhor-
1 George Simmel, »The Metropolis and Mental Life«, The Sociology of George Simmel, 
Free Press, New York 1950, p. 419. 
172 
Urban Scenes and Unseens 
ren t to h u m a n na ture« t h r o u g h its lack of structuring social relations. The 
only r e d e e m i n g rela t ion, he (perhaps ironically) notes, is a tacit one of or-
d e r e d non-con tac t : »that eve ryone should keep to the r ight of the pavement , 
so as no t to i m p e d e the s t ream of people mov ing in the opposi te direction.«2 
D e v e l o p i n g the anc ien t t rope that contras ted the city as deve loped mind 
to the less conscious , m o r e co rporea l country body, S immel regarded the com-
p lex mult ipl ici t ies and sensory intensities of city life as the stimulus that ne-
cessi ta ted »a h e i g h t e n e d awareness and p r e d o m i n a n c e of intell igence in met-
ropo l i t an man« . T o p ro tec t his psyche, he »reacts with his head instead of his 
heart«, with intel lectual o rde r ra ther than spontaneous feeling. Though this 
weakens affect ive social b o n d s , it is a »necessity ... b rough t about by the 
aggregat ion of so m a n y p e o p l e with such different iated interests, who must 
in tegra te their re la t ions and activities into a highly complex organism«. Oth-
erwise, S immel warns , »the whole s tructure would break down into an inex-
t r icable chaos«. 
W h a t would such a nightmare be, for Simmel the urban Ordner? »If all 
clocks and watches in Berlin would suddenly go wrong in different ways, even if 
only by an hour , all economic life and communicat ion of the city would be 
disrupted for a long time ... [and] long distances would make waiting and bro-
ken-appointments result in an ill-afforded waste of time.« »Metropolitan life« he 
concludes (with apparen t disregard of Naples, Marseille, or Marrakech) »is un-
imaginable without the most punctual integration of all activities and mutual 
relations into a stable and impersonal time schedule« (412-13). 
Th i s m e a n s suppress ing the individual ' s personal incl inat ions which 
th rea t en the c lockwork uni ty of the whole: Hence »the exclusion of those 
i r ra t ional , inst inct ive, sovere ign traits and impulses which aim at determin-
ing the m o d e of life f r o m within, instead of receiving the general and pre-
cisely schemat ized f o r m of life f rom without« (412-13). Yet despite this im-
pe r sona l o rde r , the city for S immel remains the site of the greatest »personal 
f r e e d o m « and »persona l subjectivity«; indeed it becomes so through the very 
factors that necess i ta te its impersonal i ty (413, 415). T h e deepest principle of 
o rde r tha t pe rmi t s this p a r a d o x , one which Simmel only faintly recognizes 
and fails to n a m e , is the e c o n o m y of absence, which also underl ies the u rban 
aesthet ics of B e n j a m i n and Baudelai re . 
Before cons ide r ing h o w the order ing e c o n o m y of absence works in their 
theor ies , let m e no te its role in Amer ican urbanis t Lewis Mumford , whose 
2 Friedrich Engels, The Conditions of the Working Class in England cited in Walter Benjamin, 
»On Some Motifs in Baudelaire« in Illuminations, Schocken, New York 1988, p. 167. 
173 
Richard Shusterman 
vision of the city can be usefully cont ras ted with S immel ' s . 3 M u m f o r d ' s »prin-
ciples of u r b a n order« insist on p ic tur ing the city in m o r e h u m a n l y biological , 
affectively social, and aesthetic terms. Ra the r t han S immel ' s v iew of the city 
as »a social-technical mechan i sm« with its m o d e l of m e c h a n i c a l c lockwork 
unity and its images of »punctuali ty, calculabil i ty, a n d exactness« suggest ing 
that social connect ions are best m o d e l e d on rigid, t ime-eff ic ient t ra in connec-
tions (409, 413), M u m f o r d speaks of an an t i -mechan ica l »bio- technic« ap-
proach emphas iz ing the dynamic »flexibili ty« of »organic plans« tha t can 
bet ter cope with change so as »to create a n e w biological and social env i ron-
men t in which the highest possibilities of h u m a n existence will be realized« 
(381, 478, 492). This is symbolized by the dynamic unity of aesthetic experience. 
The city, he argues, is »an esthetic symbol of collect ive uni ty«; it n o t 
only fosters art by creat ing a complex , d e m a n d i n g stage for pe r sona l expres-
sion (as S immel also notes) but the city also »war t« (480, 492). As art is com-
municat ively social, »social needs are p r i m a r y in u r b a n p l ann ing ; r a the r than 
the physical p lant or t ranspor t system, »the social nuc leus [is] the essential 
element in every valid city plan: the spott ing and inter-relat ionships of schools, 
libraries, theatres, communi ty centres« (483). If the t radi t ional undi f fe ren t i -
ated social bonds of the small town are lost, o n e shou ld seek a m o r e mult i-
form cable through the weaving of par t ia l ly l inking b o n d s to p r o d u c e »a m o r e 
complex and many-co lored strand«. U r b a n p l ann ing ' s aes thet ic »aim is the 
adequate dramat izat ion of c o m m u n a l life« so that ind iv idua l and g r o u p activ-
ity b e c o m e more meaningfu l (481, 485). 
Wha teve r the pract ical viability of M u m f o r d ' s p r o g r a m , cer ta in interest-
ing conclusions are suggested by the logic of his biological and aesthet ic meta-
phors . First, life and aesthetic expe r i ence imply the n e e d for c h a n g e and 
conflict as well as ha rmony . Wi thout space for c h a n g e and confl ict , the re can 
be no h u m a n growth no r aesthetic d r a m a . T h e flawless regular i ty of clock-
work mechan i sm does not p rovide this; its s m o o t h - r u n n i n g h a r m o n y wou ld 
stultify. T h e p lanning of u rban aesthet ic uni ty thus requi res its spots of ab-
sence: its d i sharmonious conflicts its d is rupt ions , wha t today R i c h a r d Sennet t 
calls its »discontinuity and disorientat ion«.4 As p ragmat i s t and p o s t m o d e r n , I 
would add tha t the city, like art and life, also needs spots of con t ingency , 
absences of the p lanned and p r ede t e rmined , gaps for us to in t e rp re t and fill 
with significance. 
Ano the r conclusion to be d r awn f r o m ana logy with biological organ-
3 Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities, Harcourt Brace, New York 1971. 
4 Richard Sennett, The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities, Knopf, 
New York 1990, p. 225. 
174 
Urban Scenes and Unseens 
isms and ar tworks is the l imitat ion of city size. Deplor ing the bloated, suburb-
swal lowing megalopol i s , M u m f o r d insists that good city life requires respect-
ing and nu r tu r ing w h a t lies outs ide it. This absence is essential to the city not 
s imply as s t ruc tur ing o the r and b rea th ing space, but as source of new re-
sources , d i f fe ren t a t t i tudes and ways of life that can bo th challenge city ideas 
and enr ich t h e m t h r o u g h incorpora t ion . M u m f o r d ' s key unit of p lanning is 
n o t s imply the city b u t the region, in which the city funct ions as a nucleus 
which respects its limits, ne i the r overwhelming the space nor funct ions of its 
e n v i r o n i n g cell. Even wi thin the city, M u m f o r d advocates funct ional gaps or 
absences to ba l ance densi ty . H e n c e ra ther than an u rban i sm of dense, cen-
tral ized spreading , he favors a poly-nucleated city of distr ibuted funct ions 
that involves spac ing and gaps. In u rban i sm as in regionalism, M u m f o r d calls 
this logic »spott ing«; and it suggests the funct ional play of presence and ab-
sence that gives life grea te r m e a n i n g and aesthetic power , while also making 
it m o r e m a n a g e a b l e . 1 
5 Another crucial use of absence as a tool of order for coping with urban complexities 
should here be mentioned: the use of empty forms or matrices as a way of organizing, 
rationalizing, and so better managing the city's variety and complex flux. The rectan-
gular street-grid is one such empty form for ordering; so is the individual street for-
mat, so salient in Berlin, of parallel strips respectively devoted to the pedestrian, the 
cycler, the dog in need of a line of trees to do his business, and the motorist lanes for 
parking and travel. This format of empty, parallel ordering strips defining the types 
of movement and their limits can also be seen in the layout of concentration camps 
like Sachsenhausen with the distinctions between prisoner walking space (including a 
lane marked for the work of testing shoe durability through ceaseless walking), the 
»no man's land« danger strip, and the wall and patrol areas. 
Richard Sennett, who notes the city grid's »logic of emptiness«, relates it to the tem-
poral emptiness of mechanical time »an empty volume« through which time could be 
made objective and visual thus allowing diverse activities to be more easily ordered. 
Like Simmel he sees the invention of the mechanical clock in the Renaissance as 
central to the emergence of the modern metropolis, and he remarks that often old 
buildings were torn down so as to allow distant vision of the city's central clocks 
(Sennett, 176-180). Here, as it were, an abstract form of absence creates a concrete 
one. 
This seems a good occasion to insist that in describing the varieties of absence and its 
uses in urban life, I am not insisting that there is any substantive essence common to 
them all or that there must be a fixed meaning to the concept of absence for it to be 
usefully used in theoretical discourse like mine. 
175 
Richard Shusterman 
II 
Absence as a tool for urban coping centrally structures Simmel's case 
for the unmatched personal freedom of city life, though his argument lacks 
clarity and stumbles in many details. One major axis of argument is that 
urban freedom comes through greater intellectualism. Modern urban life is 
praised for sharpening mental faculties and higher consciousness, because 
this is required for coping with the greater »intensification of nervous stimu-
lation« resulting from the city's distinctive richness of sensory stimuli, jolts, 
and irregularities. But don't we also find this jostling overload of stimuli in a 
beduoin camel market, a suburban amusement park, or a savage jungle - the 
paradigmatic trope of the fearful complexity and sudden, violent jolts of city 
life? Moreover, if dealing with complexities of vivid sensory stimuli helps 
improve our mental powers, why then should Simmmel posit perfectly smooth-
functioning order posited as the ideal of city organization? Wouldn ' t its reali-
zation dull the minds of city dwellers? Whose consciousness is lower than the 
urban subway rider, who in daily hypnotic habit takes the same train and 
makes the same connection, whose disciplined habit of muscle memory leads 
him mindlessly to work just as an assembly line could lead him mindlessly 
through it? 
Leaving these troubling questions aside, we note that Simmel describes 
the higher urban consciousness in two related ways. First, by curbing »irra-
tional, instinctive ... impulses« and »emotional relations«, it constitutes a more 
intellectual attitude of »calculability«, »exactness«, and »quantitative« values 
that Simmel relates not only to the system of money but to »the universal 
diffusion of pocket watches« (411-13). Secondly, urban mentality is charac-
terized as »the blasé attitude«. This attitude, which Simmel says is »uncondi-
tionally reserved to the metropolis«, results f rom the same »rapidly changing 
and closely compressed contrasting stimulations of the nerves« that promote 
cold urban intellectualism. The nerves are so spent that they fail »to react to 
new sensations with the appropriate energy«; »the essence of the blasé atti-
tude consists in the bluntness of discrimination ... the meaning and differing 
values of things and thereby the things themselves, are experienced as insub-
stantial. They appear to the blasé person in an evenly flat and gray tone; no 
one object deserves preference over any other« (414). 
Here again Simmel seems confused. First, physiologically speaking, con-
trasting stimulations tire and blunt the nerves far less than sustained identical 
sensations. More importantly, the blasé type attitude of levelling indifference 
can be found outside the bustling sensorium of the metropolis. In fact, one 
classic site for its emergence is the empty desert. As an intelligence officer 
176 
Urban Scenes and Unseens 
long stationed in the Sinai, I had to alert myself and my soldiers to this dan-
ger, diagnosed by the Israeli medical corps as »apathia«. The term is instruc-
tive: absence of feeling, absence of affective investment, leads to lack of dis-
crimination; we do not see or react to differences because we simply don't 
care; we mentally withdraw ourselves in pathological disinterest; we are ab-
sent. 
For us reluctant desert dwellers, absence of affective investment derived 
from the absence of things to care about in the landscape. But in the me-
tropolis, the absence of feeling in the blasé attitude becomes a necessary with-
drawal of feeling, since there are too many people, products, and activities to 
which our heart would instinctively turn. (Just think of the dozens of beggars 
or buskers that one must learn to coldly pass by in everyday city life.) This 
protective taking of distance, of affective absence, is the deep logic common 
to Simmel's urban intellectualism and Blasiertheit. 
Such absence also constitutes the mechanism of Simmel's other main 
argument for the greater personal freedom of city life: the dissolution of tra-
ditionally strong social bonds which, though constructing and empowering 
the individual, also greatly constrain him. The wider circle of urban life in-
volves too many different people in too many different, quickly changing 
relationships for the forming of strong affective bonds with fellow residents 
to be psychologically healthy or even possible. Hence, an attitude Simmel 
calls »reserve« and »indifference« arises, which frees the urbanité from social 
obligations of courteous concern (and socially entrenched prejudices) that 
centripetally »hem in« the narrower circle of »small-town« life. This reserved 
attitude, argues Simmel, is »never felt more strongly« than in the individual's 
»independence [and loneliness] ... in the thickest crowd of the big city ... 
because the bodily proximity and narrowness of space make the mental dis-
tance only the more visible«, and psychically necessary (418). This withdrawal 
of the self through mental distance underlies the crucial point of urban ab-
sence I have been stressing: its redemptive role in coping with the bursting 
saturation of city presence, a cure not immune from possible unhappy side-
effects - as the threat of urban loneliness and callousness makes clear. 
Absence is also the motivating fulcrum of Simmel's final argument for 
the personal f reedom of urban life. Having robbed the individual of tradi-
tionally subjective spontaneity, affective impulse, and personally meaningful 
social bonds, the overwhelming organization of city life threatens the utter 
extinction of personality, reducing the individual (in Simmel's words) to a 
»quantité négligeable«, a »mere cog« in the enormous municipal machine. 
Spurred by this personal void and fear of total nullity, the individual responds 
by »summoning the utmost in uniqueness and particularization, in order to 
17 7 
Richard Shusterman 
preserve his most personal core« (422). T h e m o d e r n me t ropo l i s thus pro-
vokes a new model of personal f r e e d o m : n o t m e r e ind iv idua l i n d e p e n d e n c e 
f rom oppressive social bonds , but »the e labora t ion of individual i ty« as »quali-
tative uniqueness« so as to survive the conformis t p ressure of city c rowds 
where individuali ty and qualitative d i f fe rence are d r o w n e d (423). 
W e see here the Baudelair ian f igures of the dandy a n d flâneur who t ry to 
defy the utilitarian uniformity of u r b a n life. For Wal t e r B e n j a m i n and his 
political vision of the »streets ... as the dwel l ing p lace of the collective«, the 
flâneur is especially impor tan t in def in ing himself no t only against bu t through 
the conformis t crowd and the city streets they share . B e n j a m i n is m o r e care-
ful than Baudelaire to distinguish the flâneur f r o m »the m a n of the crowd«. 
Resisting the »manic behavior« of »met ropo l i t an masses« hect icly b e n t on 
their practical pursuits, the flâneur d is tances himself f r o m the c rowd by his 
absence of practical pu rpose and u rgency . H e d e m a n d s his »leisure« and 
»elbow room«, so as no t to be »jostled« and o v e r w h e l m e d by the c rowd. But 
in contrast to provincials and fastidious aristocrats, the flâneur could also en-
joy »the tempta t ion to lose himself« in the c rowd, to savor a m o m e n t a r y 
absence of selfhood's pressures.6 L inked to the c rowd yet s o m e h o w absen t 
f rom it, the flâneur is like the streets of Baudela i re ' s verse whose beau ty de-
rives f rom suggesting the crowd yet p rov id ing a dese r ted expanse for f r ee 
m o v e m e n t and explora t ion. T h e same strategy of aes thet ic absence can b e 
seen in those photos of Prague 's enchan t ing e m p t y streets, whose magic dis-
solves once the streets are actually b r i m m i n g with the city's swarming crowds. 
Nei ther at h o m e in the bust l ing c rowd no r »in an a t m o s p h e r e of com-
plete leisure«, the flâneur of Benjamin is charac te r ized by be ing essential ly 
»out of place« (172-3). This absence of p r o p e r p lace or p u r p o s e keeps h i m 
moving through the city streets, resist ing the seduct ive p resences tha t cou ld 
arrest him, driving h im on toward the ever m o r e distant p laces and possibil i-
ties that the metropol is promises endlessly to offer . C o n s i d e r the de f in ing 
absences in the following description of Ben jamin ian flânerie f r o m the Passagen-
Werk: 
An intoxication comes over the person who trudges through the streets for a 
long time and without a goal. The going wins a growing power with every 
step, Ever narrower grow the seduction of the stores, the bistros, the smiling 
women; ever more irrestible the magnetism of the next street corner, a distant 
mass of foliage, a street name. Then comes the hunger. He desires to know 
nothing of the hundred possibilities to still it. Like an ascetic animal, he strides 
6 Walter Benjamin, »On Some Motifs in Baudelaire«, pp. 162, 172-3. 
178 
Urban Scenes and Unseens 
through unknown quarters until finally in his room, which strange to him, lets 
him in coldly, he collapses into the deepest exhaustion.7 
A b s e n c e of goal, a p r e f e r ence for the unseen »next street corner« and 
»distant mass of foliage« over those present to hand , direct the flâneur1 s move-
m e n t ; the m e r e »name« of a street, signaling new spaces to explore , thus draws 
h i m m o r e than the actual c h a r m s of stores, bistros, and w o m e n on the present 
s treet . T h e flâneur' s de f in ing hunge r marks the presence of an absence that he 
does n o t wish to fill, for it p rov ides its own intoxication; so does his lack of 
reassur ing knowledge of the »unknown quarter« of his flânerie as well as his 
ever w a n i n g energy . Even his own r o o m is def ined by the absence of famili-
arity and w a r m t h tha t charac ter ize one ' s home. 
If B e n j a m i n ' s f l âneur seems a m o d e r n symbol for the mythical Utopian 
quester , sea rch ing the noc tu rna l u r b a n wasteland for a vision of an ideal city 
fo rever u n s e e n b u t ever inspir ing, we must ask if this figure is by now as 
a l together da ted and aufgehoben as Benjamin ' s Paris. Does the unseen still 
ho ld the au ra of Utopian p romise or mere ly offer a relief f rom the painful 
ugliness of the city seen. 
7 Walter Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1983, vol. 1, p. 525. 
179 
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Johan Snyman 
Suffering and the Politics of Memory * 
1. The social function of the war memorial 
W h a t is the func t ion of publ ic art in society? W h a t is the role of war 
m o n u m e n t s and war memor ia l s? Accord ing to Ar thur C. Danto, there are 
»tacit rules that gove rn the dist inction be tween m o n u m e n t s and memorials« 
(Danto , 1987: 115), and which a m o u n t to the following: 
We erect monuments so that we shall always remember, and build memorials 
so that we shall never forget. ... Monuments commemorate the memorable 
and embody the myths of beginnings. Memorials ritualize remembrance and 
mark the reality of ends. The Washington Monument, vertical, is a celebra-
tion, like fireworks. The Lincoln Memorial, even if on a rise, presses down 
and is a meditation in stone. Very few nations erect monuments to their de-
feats, but many set up memorials to the defeated dead. Monuments make 
heroes and triumphs, victories and conquests, perpetually present and part of 
life. The memorial is a special precinct, extruded from life, a segregated en-
clave where we honor the dead. With monuments we honor ourselves (ibid., 
112). 
T h e fact that in the post -war Federal Republ ic of G e r m a n y (and even in 
the G e r m a n D e m o c r a t i c Republ ic) no m o n u m e n t to the G e r m a n defeat was 
erected, no t even a m e m o r i a l to the G e r m a n dead, seems to accord with Danto ' s 
The financial support for research on this paper from the Human Sciences Research 
Council, Pretoria, and a research fellowship from the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut 
in Essen, Germany, is hereby acknowledged. Further financial support was given by 
the Slovenian Society of Aesthetics. I would also like to express my indebtedness to 
Mr. Neels Nieuwenhuizen and Ms. E. Wessels of the War Museum of the Boer Re-
publics in Bloemfontein, and to colleagues at the Rand Afrikaans University for their 
invaluable assistance in drawing my attention to, obtaining and reproducing archival 
material. I owe Prof. Jörn Rüsen of the Bielefeld University, Prof. Detlef Hoffmann of 
the Oldenburg University and Prof. Jonathan Webber of Oxford University a great 
deal for drawing on their resources and participating in their project on Die ästhetische 
Inszenierung der Demokratie. Last, but not least, a word of special thanks to Dr. Ales 
Erjavec of the Institute of Philosophy of the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian 
Academy of Sciences and Arts for being instrumental in getting me to start thinking 
about the »aesthetics of war«. 
Filozofski vestnik, XVII (2/1996), pp. 181-202. 
Johan Snyman 
view. The Germans (at least the former West-Germans) inaugurated a new 
kinds of memorials instead. One kind is the shelled remains of some promi-
nent pre-war public building as Mahnmal, as a perpetual sign of warning against 
the horrors of war. One could wonder whether the Mahnmal succeeds in 
making its point as time lapses. In the minds of the second and third genera-
tion, the scarred Mahnmal easily becomes a scar in the mind. The ever-present 
sign of warning turns into the ominous sign of humiliation - unless the Mahnmal 
is regularly attended with the ritual of remembrance and mourning of all the 
unnamed victims, and unless this occurs in such a way that the present gen-
eration can empathize with the victims by considering the paradoxical and 
remote possibility that they themselves might fall victim to some ineffable 
and as yet unforeseeable catastrophe. 
The other kind of war memorial is the so-called counte rmonument . 
Reacting against the various meanings that can become inscribed in the me-
morial due to changing politico-historical circumstances, the countermonu-
ment destroys itself as a spatio-temporal edifice. It is either »buried« over 
time (like the Monument against Fascism in Hamburg) , or it consists of »the 
disruption of a public space« by colour slides of documents of the Second 
World War projected on a public building whenever a member of the public 
crosses a certain light beam which then activates a h idden projector (Young 
1993: 27-48). 
2. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial 
Arthur Danto makes a very poignant distinction between a memorial 
and a monument: with the memorial we honour the dead, with the monu-
ment we honour ourselves. The memorial asks for sobriety and humility on 
the part of the survivors and the living. The monument , by contrast, is a 
license for self-indulgence, for aggrandized vanity. This distinction may be 
true if one considers the differences between the Washington Monument as 
an obelisk, »a monumental form with connotations of the t rophy in Western 
art« (ibid., 113) and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial »which carries no ex-
plicit art-historical references« (ibid.). The Veterans Memorial (in its original 
conception by Maya Ying Lin and dedicated in 1982) consists of two black 
granite walls holding back the sides of a pointed 132° depression in the ground. 
The walls of the monument contain only the names of the more than 58,000 
dead Americans of the Vietnam War in order of the dates of their deaths. To 
this »special precinct, extruded from life, a segregated enclave where we honor 
the dead,« a bronze statue of three servicemen by Frederik Hart was added as 
182 
Suffering and the Politics of Memory 
a concess ion to pa r t of the publ ic w h o d e m a n d e d some kind of »exacting« 
hero ic rea l ism as intr insic to war memor ia l s in general . Danto describes the 
V e t e r a n s M e m o r i a l thus: 
Like innocents ... [the three servicemen] see only rows and columns of names. 
They are dazed and stunned. The walls reflect their obsessed gaze ... The 
gently flexed pair of walls, polished black, is like the back of Plato's cave, a 
reflecting surface, a dark mirror. The reflections in it of the servicemen ... are 
appearances of appearances. It also reflects us, the visitors, as it does the trees. 
Still, the living are in it only as appearances. Only the names of the dead, on 
the surface, are real (ibid., 113-4).(/ig. J.) 
If one d i s rega rded the b ronze statue for one momen t , this memor ia l as 
an ins tance of minimal is t art is apposi te to its purpose . Structurally, it is nearly 
the exact oppos i te of the obelisk. Its principal axis is horizontal instead of 
vert ical (cf. Beardsley, 1989: 124-5). Instead of soaring up into the limitless 
sky, it de scends into the ear th , obst ruct ing the descent with two walls meet ing 
in a co rne r in which the n a m e s of the first and the last fatal casualty of that 
war a re j u x t a p o s e d on two separa te panels . According to Lin, »thus the war 's 
beg inn ing and end m e e t ; the war is ' comple te ' ... yet b r o k e n by the earth that 
b o u n d s the angle ' s o p e n side, and conta ined by the ear th itself« (quoted in 
Fig. 1: M a y a Lin. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. 1982. (Reproduced in Danto, 
1987: 101.) 
183 
Johan Snyman 
Beardsley, 1989: 124). As such, the idea of walls with the names of the de-
ceased engraved on them is a fairly common memorial strategy. O n e comes 
across this way of memorializing all over the world. 
Initially, the Vietnam memorial commemorates no heroes and no he-
roic event. With its present overall form, situated as it is between the Wash-
ington monument and the Lincoln memorial , the American public can have 
it both ways. On the one hand, the memorial serves a »cathartic function,« 
»easing trauma into memory. In this, especially, the Vietnam Veterans Me-
morial is a stunning success. It is the continual witness of tearful homages to 
the deceased. Flowers and mementoes are regularly left there. These visible 
expressions of grief are eloquent demonstrat ions that the individual and col-
lective wounds of Vietnam are still raw, and in need of remedy« (Beardsley, 
1989: 125). O n the other hand, this memorial confronts the visitor with the 
stark results of war: people reduced to cold statistics, columns of faceless 
names of dead people. The memorial itself mourns the fate of the dead. Small 
wonder it evoked such controversy before its dedication. As anti-representa-
tional, conceptual art it indicts the wielders of political and military power to 
think on the wages of war. I do not know of any other memorial which un-
derscores the tragedy of war so effectively by its unders ta tement of grief and 
its stubborn, even iconoclastic abstinence of heroism. 58,000 meticulously 
recorded war casualties overwhelm the spectator. The magnitude of this visual 
record incites the viewer to produce an imaginative representat ion of the 
face of each single victim - an impossible task, which quickly stuns the imagi-
nation. Each name then becomes an abstract, de-personalized instance of the 
universal voiceless victim of the modern war-industry. 
3. The Dachau Memorial 
The Dachau Memorial by Glid Nandor in the late Sixties also fits Danto 's 
»tacit rules that govern the distinction between monuments and memorials,« 
but for different reasons from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial . Although it 
shares the Veteran Memorial's decided anti-monumentalism, it is not as icono-
clastic. Similar to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial the founders of this me-
morial are the people who survived the events commemora ted here and or-
ganized themselves in the Comité International de Dachau. Money was raised 
internationally, and the former West German government contributed D M 
300,000 towards the memorial. And like the Vie tnam Veterans Memoria l 
this memorial commemorates something which did not take place on the 
exact spot of the memorial. 
The memorial is in the form of a camp fence, but the barbed wire is 
184 
Suffering and the Politics of Memory 
f o r m e d by the g ro tesque and partially d i smembered skeletons of Nazi con-
cen t ra t ion c a m p vict ims (fig. 2). T h e original design wanted the visitor to 
a p p r o a c h the m e m o r i a l f r o m the right or the eastern side, where a wall bear-
ing an inscr ip t ion f r o m J o b 38 would have been erected. Passing this wall, the 
visitor de scends into an excava ted space, f lanked on the one side by the me-
moria l . Af te r c o m i n g to the central feature of the memoria l , namely the group 
of emac ia t ed and con to r t ed f igures which the visitor views f rom undernea th , 
one ascends to a wall on the left where an u rn with the ashes of the Nameless 
Pr i soner has b e e n in te r red . 
T h e or iginal design was only partially realised. T h e f lanking walls (with 
the inscr ip t ion and the u r n with the ashes) were left out. And al though the 
inscr ip t ion f r o m J o b 38 is absent f rom the present precinct , it remains an 
impor tan t key to unde r s t and and experience the edifice. T h e inscription should 
have r ead as fol lows (Job 38, 16-17): 
...[H]ast thou walked in search of the depth? 
Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors 
of the shadow of death? 
This quo ta t ion f r o m J o b consti tutes the f r amework of reference, namely 
of a descen t in to a val ley of death , invoking associations of a t rench, a mass 
Fig. 2: Glid N a n d o r . The Dachau Memorial. 1960. (Photo: J o h a n Snyman.) 
185 
Johan Snyman 
grave and the pits where murdered victims of Nazi gas chambers were cre-
mated. At the same time an expectation of or a longing for redempt ion from 
above is suggested. How does this dialectic of threat and redemption work in 
this memorial? 
The visitor descends into the depths of despair, to be confronted and 
overwhelmed by the suffering victims of the Nazi system. The presentation 
of the victims follows the medieval tradition of the triptych, with the center-
piece alluding to the Crucifixion. The portrayal of suffering is grotesque: vic-
tim and instrument of torture are fused into one. The skeletons are the barbed 
wire. Nandor 's sculpture is expressive of the unthinkable horror of the Holo-
caust - the co-optation of the victims in their process of destruction (cf. Bauman, 
1989: 117-150). In this sense this memorial has to witness for the suffering in 
all Nazi concentration camps. The location as well as the styling of the sculp-
ture alienates the visitor from the portrayed victims. The victims are barely 
recognizable as human shapes. Not only are they (and were they, once upon 
Fig. J : J ean Veber . Les 
Camps de Concentration. 
1901. (Reproduced in 
Veber 1901: 414.) 
186 
Suffering and the Politics of Memory 
a time, in the past) physically maimed, but they are also sculpturally man-
gled. Empathizing with the victims is prevented by showing them stripped of 
their humanity and dignity - their suffering is complete, beyond comprehen-
sion even in the portrayal thereof. Not a semblance of human dignity re-
mains. In front of this memorial one can only mourn the ineffable suffering. 
As Adorno intimated, to accord the suffering of these victims any positive 
meaning, would have amounted to an insult (Adorno, 1966: 352). 
An interesting feature of Nandor 's work is the treatment of the crucifix-
ion motif. The figures in his sculpture refer to incidents which occurred in the 
concentration camps when prisoners committed suicide by falling onto the 
electrified camp fence, electrocuting themselves. The few photos of such in-
cidents have become icons of Nazi atrocities. Nandor stylized these incidents 
to a unity of victim and instrument of torture. Iconographically, Nandor has 
his precursor in J ean Veber , a French caricaturist at the beginning of this 
century. Veber drew political cartoons for a French newspaper of the British 
war effort to conquer the two Boer republics in South Africa. Because he did 
not report on site, but rather commented on events, he chose to portray his 
views of the progress of the war in terms of well known works of art. Gericault's 
Raft of the Medusa was »quoted« and graphically inverted by Veber (fig. 3) to 
I ES P R O G R E S l)E LA S C I E N C E 
Fig. 4:Jean Vebér. Les Progrés de la Science. 1901. (Reproduced in Vebér 1901: 
396.) 
187 
Johan Snyman 
invoke the utter sense of despair which had to befall the victims of the Anlo-
Boer War. O n e of Veber 's portrayals of British war strategy under the head-
ing Le Progres de la Science shows Boer prisoners of war trying to escape but 
becoming crucified in a camp fence (Veber, 1901: 396) [fig. 4). Art histori-
cally, this is the first transposition of the crucifixion motif to a part of modern 
industrialized warfare. (This distinguished Veber 's f rom Goya's portrayals of 
impalements in the latter's Los Desastres de la Guerra.) As far as can be ascer-
tained, Nandor was not acquainted with Veber ' s specific portrayal. When 
one looks back from Nandor 's work to Veber ' s cartoon, the latter becomes 
part of the preceding history of the Dachau memorial and represents a step in 
the process of creating icons of suffering by connect ing por t rayal of the 
sufferings of war with the well established tradition of the crucifixion motif, 
illiciting the same reverence for victims of war as the crucified Christ. 
4. The Women's Memorial 
As a memorial for (some of) the victims of the Anglo-Boer War the 
W o m e n ' s Memor ia l was i n fo rmed by a d i f f e r e n t i c o n o g r a p h i c a l and 
iconological tradition. In stead of the crucifixion motif, the Women ' s Memo-
rial utilized the motif of the Pieta. Several reasons, f rom the history of this 
monument, amongst others, can be adduced for this preference in motif. 
Danto's »tacit rules« seem not to have existed or not to have been ac-
knowledged in the construction of the Women ' s Memorial in Bloemfontein, 
unveiled in 1913 {fig. 5). Like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial , it was funded 
by public donations. The driving force behind the completion of the memo-
rial was a foreigner, Emily Hobhouse. »That Englishwoman« was a vocifer-
ous member of an anti-war, mainly Whig-inspired faction of the British pub-
lic during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899 to 1902. She did much to alleviate the 
suffering of Boer people during the war, involving herself very closely with 
relief aid in the former Boer republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free 
State, much to the ire of the British colonial and military authorities and 
much of the British public. The design that won the public competi t ion was 
by the German architect, Frans Soff. His design was for a monumenta l ob-
elisk to be erected on a hillside outside Bloemfontein. The obelisk would be 
adorned by a bronze statue of a Boer woman with two children. The original 
maquette did not satisfy Emily Hobhouse, and she was entrusted to supervise 
the making of the statue by the Dutch-South African sculptor, Anton van 
Wouw, who was sent to Rome for that purpose. Van Wouw made the statue 
under Emily Hobhouse 's supervision: not only had Van Wouw to tear his 
188 
Suffering and the Politics of Memory 
o w n work d o w n several t imes, but »that Engl i shwoman« insisted on V a n 
W o u w chang ing his who le original concep t 
Her final judgment was expressed in a letter dated April 5, 1912: 
The standing woman seems to me very good, full of feeling and the sitting 
mother is better, though still far from satisfactory. The child on her knee is 
nicely modelled though still only appears to me a sleeping child and neither 
sick nor dead. I suggested he should get leave to go to a hospital and study 
one or two dead figures (ibid., 513-514), 
and (from a memoi r ) : 
Mr. Van Wouw as you know reproduced the scene in bronze. Had he seen it 
with his own eyes, the child would have borne more directly the aspect of 
emaciation and death (ibid., 112). 
Fig. 5: Frans Soff and 
Anton van W o u w . The 
Women's Memorial. 
1913. (Photo: W a r 
M u s e u m of the Boer 
Republics , 
Bloemfontein.) 
189 
Johan Snyman 
What is the point about the Women ' s Memoria l then? Should one re-
gard it as an unsuccessful attempt at a memorial , unsuccessful in more than 
one sense of the word, namely executed by an incompetent sculptor, and 
blurring the borders between a monument and a memorial? 
Let us attend to the second problem first. The sandstone obelisk, situ-
ated on a hillside as it is, conveys something dignified, heroic, and celebra-
tory. The sculpture's placement on a four-metre-high pedestal in f ront of the 
obelisk transforms the tragic group into something heroic, something elevated 
above the ordinary. It aggrandizes suffering. 
This is not so much a memorial dedicated to the suffering of the dead, as 
a monument for the grief of those left behind. The facial expressions of the 
two women are not properly visible because of the elevation of the statue. So 
they do not communicate with any onlooker. And, as Emily Hobhouse cor-
rectly observed, the child does not »directly [bear] the aspect of emaciation 
and death«. The statue does not confront one with the suffering of victims of 
war, but rather conveys the longing for an abstract restitution. The elevation 
of the group alienates them from a public. 
The bas-relief side panels bear this out. The right hand panel portrays 
the chaos of the destruction of farms and forced removals to concentration 
camps. The composition has no focal point, which underscores icono-graphi-
cally the experience of displacement it portrays. In a certain sense the panel 
itself is perpetually displaced: being on the right hand side of the major group 
of the memorial it is not in the favoured »reading position«, whereas, if one 
should have »read« the depiction of war suffering in a chronological sense, 
this panel should have been to the left of the main group, and the death scene 
should have come »later« in the spatio-temporal sequence. Furthermore, this 
panel is most of the time literally in the shadow of the rest of the memorial 
(fig. 6). 
The composition of the left hand panel is intriguingly classical: it has a 
receding focal point in low relief (the dying child in the tent), with the fore-
ground figures, the survivors, in high relief and framing the picture. There is 
a spatial continuity between the onlooker outside the picture and the specta-
tors outside the tent in the picture: both categories of »public« partake in the 
grievous event of a child dying in a concentration camp (fig. 7]. But, once 
again, the emaciation of the dying child is not clear to see. For all the unin-
formed visitor might know, people are just looking at a sleeping child in a 
tent. What is sculpturally emphasized, however, is the grief-strickenness of 
the onlookers. They stand immobilized, they can only look on, they cannot 
relieve anything. The spatial continuity between the onlooker and the figures 
in the bas-relief (linked with the chronological continuity between the on-
190 
Suffering and the Politics of Memory 
' V O O R V R Y H E I D V O L K EN V A D E R L A N D 
Fig. 6: Anton van Wouw: Right bas relief of The Women's Memorial. 1913. 
(Photo: War Museum of the Boer Republics, Bloemfontein.) 
Fig. 7: Anton van Wouw: Left bas relief of The Women's Memorial. 1913. 
(Photo: War Museum of the Boer Republics, Bloemfontein.) 
191 
Johan Snyman 
lookers and the figures in the picture at the time of the unveiling of the me-
morial), taken together with the elevation of the main statue, makes this me-
morial to »broken-hearted womanhood« and »perishing childhood« a monu-
ment to endurance through and in spite of grief. It is a monument not only to, 
but also for the grief-stricken survivors. 
This becomes clear when one reflects on the so-called incompetence of 
the sculptor. If Rodin could have carried out the commission for this memo-
rial, the sculpture would not have landed on a pedestal. As in The Burghers of 
Calais, the onlooker would have confronted at eye-level the expression of 
various dimensions of human suffering. To achieve this communicat ion of 
the expression of suffering, Rodin's figures would have been more dynamic 
(instead of being completely immobile like Van Wouw's), utilizing the ex-
pressive features of the anatomy of the body in different kinds of postures. 
Rodin's figures would have been less heavily clad and much more tense. 
(That is, if one takes it for granted that he would not employ a similar ap-
proach to this topic as he did for the Balzac Memorial.) 
Van Wouw's alleged inability to render suffering in such terms as Rodin's 
accorded well with the cultural background of the public for whom this me-
morial was commissioned. If Rodin's Balzac memorial caused an outrage in 
France, and if his Calais memorial was controversial, his possible portrayal of 
Boer suffering would not have been acceptable in South Africa at that time. A 
significant reason was the conflict of interest between Emily Hobhouse ' s urge 
to commemorate the victims, and the Boer people 's need for a monument . A 
tug of war, so to speak, ensued: to whom did (the recollection of) the dead 
belong? Where should they be located in history - on the side of the Boer 
people, or on the side of humanity? For what cause did they die? 
Emily Hobhouse was, for her time, a very emancipated woman and, 
although from a religious background (she was the daughter of an Anglican 
vicar), a free thinker. Knowing that the practice of concentration camps dur-
ing the Anglo-Boer War contravened the Hague Convent ion of 1899, and 
that the British military authority was covering up many of the atrocities and 
commiting many other atrocities unwittingly through neglect and logistical 
incompetence, she recorded meticulously incidents and even statistics about 
the camps. She could be called the initiator of investigative journalism in 
South Africa for having photographs taken to record the extent of famine 
and illness in the camps. Having them published in Britain could persuade 
the British electorate to press for an early end to the war [fig. 8). In the course 
of the war, approximately 26,000 women and children died in these concen-
tration camps - that is approximately 10% of the white populat ion of the 
former Boer republics at the time. Emily Hobhouse also started to keep record 
192 
Suffering and the Politics of Memory 
of concentration camps for blacks, but, under colonialist (i.e., racist) rule, the 
facts were inaccurate and very hard to come by. 
The Boer women, acting against an unwritten rule of Victorian society 
to have respect for the dead and make no effigy of them, also had photo-
graphs taken of their dead children, but only if they were not emaciated. The 
purpose of these photographs was to preserve a recollection of the child, 
especially for the father and husband who was fighting on commando or was 
in exile in Bermuda, St. Helena, India or Ceylon. Understandably, the women 
wanted to retain the most positive recollection of the children that was possi-
ble under the circumstances (fig. 9 & 10). 
Victorian composure prevailed in grief, as is also evident from many 
letters f rom the concentration camps. Most letters illustrate the fact that the 
Fig. 8: Abraham Carl 
Wessels photo-
graphed in the 
Bloemfontein Con-
centration Camp. 
(Photo: War Museum 
of the Boer Repub-
lics, Bloemfontein.) 
193 
Johan Snyman 
Boer people were by and large an agricultural, non-urbanized community 
who could not avail themselves of the amenities of urban culture such as 
artistically appropriate expressions of emotions. That accounts for the fact 
that there are virtually no artistic renditions or representations of concentra-
tion camp experiences by the victims themselves. One has also to take into 
account the effect of military censorship on letters f rom the concentration 
camps: the precise conditions of these camps were forbidden topics to men-
tion to the outside world. Therefore the letters were very stereotyped, and 
conceived only as a form of rudimentary communicat ion. The rhetoric of 
Victorian society dominated the letters, some of them with excruciatingly 
sad news. In a sense the form of the letter suppressed the content. The first 
page was usually framed in black, so the addressee knew he (usually he) was 
receiving bad tidings. But the greater part of the letter was taken up by writerly 
Fig. 9: An unidentified 
occupant of the 
Bloemfontein Concen-
tration Camp. (Photo: 
War Museum of the 
Boer Republics, 
Bloemfontein.) 
194 
Suffering and the Politics of Memory 
formali t ies . A let ter f r o m a concent ra t ion c a m p sounded much like the fol-
lowing (in t rans la ted form): 
My beloved and never forgotten husband, 
I am allowing myself to take up the pen to inform you about the well-being of 
all our beloved ones, hoping to hear the same from you. Thank you for your 
last letter which reached us two months after you wrote. (Alternatively: I have 
not heard anything from you since ..., but got some news about you from 
Uncle X who saw you last at ...) Do you still have enough money? There is 
not much news to relate from the camp. (What followed then was usually an 
extensive report on the health and well-being of relatives and friends. On the 
last page of the letter the real news was broken:) A week ago our little son/ 
daughter/children/old father/old mother died after a terrible suffering of in-
flammation. Now I must say good bye with the pen, but never with the heart, 
and with a kiss of love. 
Your never forgetting wife/mother/aunt. (In the Dutch-Afrikaans of the time 
Fig. 10: Photo of a girl aged 18 who died in the Bloemfontein Concentrat ion 
Camp. It was her last wish that a r ibbon embroidered by herself with the flag 
of the Zuid-Afr ikaansche Republ iek (Transvaal) be tied to her breast, and that 
her corpse be pho tog raphed in this way. The photo had to be sent to her 
exiled fa ther in Ceylon. (Photo: War Museum of the Boer Republics, 
Bloemfontein.) 
195 
Johan Snyman 
this was written in the formal mode, and the letter was signed formally with 
initials and surname.) 
The inabili ty to express their grief in an a p p r o p r i a t e f o r m was substi-
tuted by the apparent ly trivial but very m i n u t e r ec rea t ion of a o n c e hab i t ab le 
geography by musing about the w h e r e a b o u t s of re leat ives . T h a t se rved as a 
restitution of a lost everyday world. O n the o ther h a n d , the inabi l i ty to give 
rhetorical ly appropr ia te express ion to grief was e n h a n c e d by the pervas ive-
ness of a very pious, albeit fatalistic, religiosity a m o n g s t the Boer popu la t ion . 
T h e news in the letters is regularly in te r spersed with phrases i n t e rp re t ing 
their fate as a pun i shment f rom God for unspec i f i ab le sins, acquiesc ing like 
J o b in their fate: »The Lord gave, and the Lord ha th t aken away; b lessed b e 
the N a m e of the Lord,« or »Shall we rece ive good at the h a n d of the Lord , 
and shall we not receive evil?« 
It is safe to conclude that grief and m o u r n i n g was suppressed r a the r 
than vented in the Calvinist Boer cul ture of the t imes. W h a t r e m a i n e d a n d 
was fostered, especially after the war , was a sense of injust ice and humil ia-
tion. U n d e r the reconcil iat ion policy of Louis Botha , the f o r m e r Boer genera l 
who b e c a m e Prime Minister of the newly c rea ted U n i o n of South Af r i ca in 
1910, this sense of loss deve loped into a sub t e r r anean e te rna l g rudge : ins tead 
of being used to inculcate r e m e m b r a n c e of the dead , the war e x p e r i e n c e of 
the Boer peop le was polit icized and t r a n s f o r m e d into an i n d e x of inde l ib le 
h a r m done by the imperialist ic British, extol l ing the re fo re a terr ible p r ice for 
the country. The idea, then, of a m e m o r i a l to the w o m e n and ch i ld ren w h o 
»paid« with their lives in the concent ra t ion camps was rece ived f avou rab ly as 
an oppor tuni ty for the survivors to »pay« their »debts« to the pe r i shed gen-
eration. O n e way of »making good« to those w h o h a d lost their l ives was to 
elevate t hem to the rank of mar tyrs for f r e e d o m , a n d t he r eby al leviate (at 
least for the survivors) the inflicted humi l ia t ion of be ing r o b b e d of eve ry th ing 
dear. T o r m e n t e d and emacia ted figures c o n f r o n t i n g o n e at a m e m o r i a l wou ld 
have of fended the taste of the publ ic w h o s u p p o r t e d the erect ion of this edi-
fice. In a very short t ime the memor ia l was conver t ed , in spite of a pe rvas ive 
iconoclast ic Calv in ism, in to a shr ine : n o t on ly w e r e the ashes of E m i l y 
H o b h o u s e interred at the foot of the obel isk, b u t the »father of the na t ion« 
(the last pres ident of the O r a n g e Free State, M a r t h i n u s T h e u n i s Steyn), the 
»hero of the war« (General Chris t iaan de Wet) , as well as the »man of God« 
(Reverend J . D . Kestell) were bur ied wi thin the p rec inc t s of the memor i a l . 
Thei r graves, and the authent ic p resence of their r ema ins , serve to r e m i n d 
the visitor of a trinity of civil virtues: love of the f a the r l and , b raveness , and 
unwaver ing faith. T h e lives of the peop le c o m m e m o r a t e d are ensh r ined in 
196 
Suffering and the Politics of Memory 
the m e m o r i a l as the ideals of the survivors. T h e survivors part icipate in the 
lives and dea ths of the p e o p l e c o m m e m o r a t e d by hav ing the latter re-pre-
sented and re-cast in the image of their exper ience of hardship . Thus is the 
expe r i ence of h a r d s h i p t r a n s f o r m e d ex post factum into the virtues of endur-
ance , of hope , and of res t i tut ion. T h e memor ia l becomes a nationalist shrine. 
5. F r o m aesthet ic ideology to mora l imperat ive: Saving the W o m e n ' s 
M e m o r i a l f r o m its inst i tut ional izat ion 
I m e n t i o n e d prev ious ly a clash of interests be tween Emily H o b h o u s e 
and the Boer peop le . She w a n t e d a memor ia l to »broken-hear ted woman-
hood« and »per i sh ing ch i ldhood ,« they wanted a vehicle of restitution. Emily 
H o b h o u s e u n d e r s t o o d this well. In her dedicat ion speech she ment ioned com-
pass iona te ly »the s u p r e m e offer ing [that] was made, the supreme price [that] 
was paid«. »[The Dead] will live within us not as memor i e s of sorrow, bu t of 
heroic inspiration.« A n d she e x h o r t e d the Boer people : » W h e n you r e m e m b e r 
the ill done , r e m e m b e r also the a t o n e m e n t made« (Hobhouse , 1984: 404-5). 
He r text, for the occas ion , a l lowed for popular sentiments. 
But he r text c o n v e y e d other sent iments as well. T h e cl imax of her speech 
con ta ins these words : 
»Your visible monument will serve to this great end - becoming an inspira-
tion to all South Africans and to the women in particular. ... 
For remember, these dead women were not great as the world counts great-
ness; some of them were quite poor women who had laboured much. Yet 
they have become a moral force in your land. ... 
And their influence will travel further. They have shown the world that never 
again can it be said that woman deserves no rights as Citizen because she 
takes no part in war. This statue stands as a denial of that assertion. ... 
My Friends: Throughout the world the Woman's day approaches; her era 
dawns. Proudly I unveil this Monument to the brave South African Women, 
who, sharing the danger that beset their land and dying for it, affirmed for all 
times and for all peoples the power of Woman to sacrifice life and more than 
life for the common weal« (Hobhouse, 1984: 406-7). 
W h a t strikes one as r emarkab l e is the elegant, u n a b a s h e d feminism of 
Emily H o b h o u s e , and the consequen t direct ion of he r part icularizat ion and 
universa l iza t ion. A l though ha rd ly anyth ing novel , that is phi losophical ly the 
in teres t ing po in t abou t he r in terpre ta t ion of the history of the suffering of the 
Boer w o m e n and ch i ld ren . Emi ly H o b h o u s e elevates the Boer w o m a n to the 
ranks of the Universal W o m a n ' s struggle for recognition. A n d the Boer woman 
fo rms pa r t of a who le wh ich t ranscends herself: she fights along with other 
w o m e n in tha t pa r t of the wor ld . T h e m e a n i n g of he r struggle is not paro-
chial, b u t universa l . It is a cont r ibu t ion towards a greater solidarity of human-
197 
Johan Snyman 
kind. T h a t is what makes her struggle mora l , and allows the Boer w o m a n to 
teach others a lesson in history which speaks accross the poli t ical divide be-
tween Boer and British, be tween whi te and black. But it is exac t ly this po in t 
that has, very significantly, been censored - omi t t ed - in later c o m m e m o r a -
tive issues of Miss H o b h o u s e ' s dedica t ion speech . I quo te the censo red pas-
sages (indicated by []) at length: 
»In your hands and those of your children lie the power and freedom won; 
you must not merely maintain but increase the sacred gift. Be merciful to-
wards the weak, the down-trodden, the stranger. Do not open your gates to 
those worst foes of freedom - tyranny and selfishness. [Are not these the 
withholding from others in your control, the very liberties and rights which 
you have valued and won for yourselves? ...] 
... [We in England are ourselves still but dunces in the great world-school, 
our leaders still struggling with the unlearned lesson, that liberty is the equal 
right and heritage of every child of man, without distinction of race, colour or 
sex. A community that lacks the courage to found its citizenship on this broad 
base becomes a 'city divided against itself, which cannot stand'.] 
[We too, the great civilized nations of the world, are still but barbarians in our 
degree, so long as we continue to spend vast sums in killing or planning to kill 
each other for greed of land and gold. Does not justice bid us remember 
today how many thousands of the dark race perished also in Concentration 
Camps in a quarrel which was not theirs? Did they not thus redeem the past? 
Was it not an instance of that community of interest, which binding all in one, 
roots out racial animosity? ...] 
Philosophical ly speaking, Emily H o b h o u s e takes the s tand of a m o r a l 
universalist . There are universal mora l pr inc ip les which i m b u e h u m a n ac-
tions in t ime and in places with mora l m e a n i n g w h e n the act ions con t r ibu te 
towards the eventual realization of these pr inc ip les (cf. Robe r t s 1991: 273). 
Such pr inciples are, amongst others, the grea t ideals of the En l igh tenmen t , 
including liberty as an equal right. This mora l i ty legit imizes itself t h rough its 
pu rpor ted mora l weight, its capacity to e x t e n d itself un rese rved ly . N o excep-
tion should be allowed. W h a t is good for the par t icu lar can only b e good if it 
would be good for all. T h e moral i ty of o n e specific event or act ion is cont in-
gent upon its relat ionship with the universal pr inc ip le , i.e. w h e t h e r it can be 
an instance, an exemplary e m b o d i m e n t , of tha t pr inc ip le . W h e n the act ion is 
without precedent , or unrela ted to any universal pr inciple , its mora l re levancy 
(if at all) is difficult to assess. But w h e n the act ion in its un iqueness sets an 
example which should be imitated, it e m b o d i e s the mora l p r inc ip le in an 
original sense. This explains the p r e p o n d e r a n c e of the he ro as a cultural topos 
in Emily H o b h o u s e ' s thinking and in the cul ture of war m e m o r i a l s until af ter 
Wor ld W a r I. The idea of the he ro e m b o d i e s m o r a l a n d aesthet ic pr inc ip les 
198 
Suffering and the Politics of Memory 
at the same t ime. P e r h a p s it is at this junc ture that feminis t readings of the 
W o m e n ' s M e m o r i a l (cf. C loe te 1992, L a n d m a n 1994) have a point, but, then, 
I t h i n k , fo r t h e w r o n g r e a s o n . T h e W o m e n ' s M e m o r i a l - f r o m Emi ly 
H o b h o u s e ' s v i ewpo in t - was no t to enshrine the Afr ikaner nationalist male 
p e r c e p t i o n of the volksmoeder. Feminists would have a point , however , if they 
raise the issue of the h o n o u r i n g of the m e m o r y of Emily Hobhouse . It is 
def in i te ly a t ravesty to have had the n a m e of a moral universalist, and a 
pacif is t at that , be s towed on a D a p h n e fighter class submar ine of the South 
Af r i can Navy . It is a tel l ing instance of the deafness of the Afrikaans domi-
n a t e d poli t ical e s t ab l i shment to the principles of Emily Hobhouse , a deafness 
that was even intel lectual ly eng ineered - by polit icians w h o extolled the vir-
tues of J a n F.E. Cel l iers ' man wat sy man kan staan. 
T h e thrust of Emily H o b h o u s e ' s in terpre ta t ion of the Boer woman ' s suf-
fe r ing as a symbol of the universal w o m a n is to hold the Boer woman up as 
an e x a m p l e no t only for the surviving Boer people bu t also for the world to 
emula te , should s imilar c i rcumstances obtain. True to the classical concep-
tion of the subl ime, he r aesthet icizing concept ion of tragic hero ism assumes a 
s t rength of the ind iv idual , the perseverance of the subject, despite the »irre-
sistible power« of the »general«. T h e individual - the he ro - embodies a far 
g rea te r and exa l ted subs tance which can t ranscend its own historical limita-
t ions. 
But the re is s o m e t h i n g ambiva len t in the idealist concept ion of the hero 
( someth ing Bee thoven real ized with the dedicat ion of his Thi rd Symphony 
and the subsequen t revis ion of that dedicat ion). Does the he ro represent the 
a t t a inmen t of universa l i ty , or is the he ro only a symbolical embod imen t of 
the universa l? In the first ins tance the hero is monumenta l i zed , in the second 
ins tance the h e r o is func t iona l for the commemora t i on of the universal sig-
n i f icance of a his tor ical act ion. T h e recept ion of the W o m e n ' s Memoria l un-
der the c i rcumstances of 1913, and the subsequent institutionalization of that 
r ecep t ion in Af r ikane r cul ture , favoured the t rend of monumenta l i z ing the 
suf fer ing of the Boer w o m e n and children, turning it into a me taphor of sac-
rifice that gives the descendan t s a right to claim the land: 
If one could call it sweat for the hero to fight for the fatherland, and, loaded 
with fame, sacrifice himself for freedom, nation and country, what respect 
does the tender woman command who, herself already in the claws of death, 
sees one beloved after the other entering their graves! And yet, she exhorts 
her husband and sons proudly not to be concerned about her, but to persist in 
the struggle! (Pres. M.T. Steyn, quoted in Van der Merwe, s.a. [but probably 
written between 1926 and 1941]:6.) 
In this way the W o m e n ' s Memor ia l expresses a universal ized impera-
199 
Johan Snyman 
tive: it mobilizes the Boer people to see a particularized significance in the 
suffering of their kin. This is an unders tandable reaction, and did indeed 
serve as a consolation, especially in 1913. But it is clear how this interpreta-
tion of the meaning of historical suffering is immediately restricted: it ignores 
the recorded fact (by Emily Hobhouse, in her war diaries, and explicitly re-
ferred to in her dedication speech) that according to official figures, 13 315 
Africans also died in English concentrat ion camps (Spies, 1977: 266; cf. 
Hobhouse 1902: 350-355), and it blots out the moral dimension of this com-
memorative sign, i.e. to remind people of the horror that once was and that 
may never occur again, not only to them but also never by them. The cen-
sored reprint of Emily Hobhouse's dedication speech in 1963 thus confirms a 
tendency that was started by the process of the institutionalization of the 
Women's Memorial, i.e. to monopolize the meaning of the suffering of the 
war for whites only. Evidence for this can be found in Van der Merwe's 
undated brochure, written some time between 1926 and 1941: even the latter 
shuns all references to the suffering of black people during the Anglo-Boer 
War. By disavowing the memory of 13 000 black concentrat ion camp vic-
tims, the Afrikaner circumvented the issue of black sacrifice for the sake of 
soil and freedom. By the same token Afrikaner nationalism internalized im-
perialism, rather than expurgating it. That would also be the reason why 
many Afrikaners would still insist on the uniqueness of the Boer concentra-
tion camp trauma - it affords them a claim to political power which they 
have earned collectively through the suffering of (some of) their forebears. It 
usually comes as a shock to them to hear of black concentrat ion camp vic-
tims, as well as the record of even greater sufferings not so long after the 
Anglo-Boer War and not so far removed f rom the former Boer republics. 
The mortality figures on the side of the indigenous populat ion of the Boer 
republics is nearly eclipsed by the death toll of the genocide on the Herero 
and Nama in German West Africa (today's Namibia). From 1904 to 1907 65 
000 Herero and 10 000 Nama were driven into the desert by the colonial 
German authority, to die there of hunger and thirst. That was the colonialist 
response to an uprising (Chalk &Jonassohn 1990: 230-248). And the concen-
tration camps of the Anglo-Boer War had their precursors in the reconcentrados 
of the Spanish-Cuban War of 1896, in which more than 100 000 Cubans lost 
their lives (Spies 1977: 148). To wrest the meaning of the concentration camp 
history from its nationalist mould may offer a way to the search for justice. In 
stead of fetishizing a historical instance of suffering by elevating it to the ultimate 
instance of suffering in a limited universe of suffering and injustice, war memorials 
should facilitate the ability to recognize suffering whenever and wherever it may oc-
cur. 
200 
Suffering and the Politics of Memory 
It is for the sake of the search for justice that the true war memorial 
functions as Mahnmal. It speaks silently on behalf of a »we« regardless of 
gender, class or race, and it seems to say that as a particular people we have 
come to know what suffering entails, and we shall never let it happen again, 
neither to ourselves nor to any other human being. The future course of history 
has to be different f rom what is commemorated by this monument. 
Bibliography 
Adorno, T.W. (1967) Negative Dialektik. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. 
Adorno, T.W. (1973) Gesammelte Schrifien, Bd. 14. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. 
Adorno, T.W. (1978) Minima Moralia. Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben. 
Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. 
Adorno, T.W. (1984) Aesthetic Theory. Tr. by C. Lenhardt. Routledge & Kegan 
Paul, London. 
Adorno. T.W. (1972) Gesammelte Schrifien, Bd. 8. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. 
Bauman, Z. (1989) Modernity and the Holocaust. Polity Press, Cambridge. 
Beardsley, J . (1989) Earthworks and Beyond: Contemporary Art in the Landscape. 
Abbeville Press, New York/London/Paris. 
Chalk, F. & K. Jonassohn (eds.) (1990) The History and Sociology of Genocide. Analyses 
and Case Studies. Yale University Press, New Haven. 
Cloete, E. (1992) Collaborative confinement: The case of the twentieth century 
»Afr ikaner« w o m a n . SAVAL Confe rence Papers XI, April 1992, 
Broedrstroom/Potchefstroom; p. 60-71. 
Danto, Arthur C. (1987) The State of the Art. Prentice Hall Press, New York. 
Du Toit ,J .D. (1962) Versamelde Werke. Deel VIII. Dagbreek-Boekhandel, Johan-
nesburg. 
Feig, Konnilyn G. (1979) Hitler's Death Camps. The Sanity of Madness. Holmes & 
Meier, New York. 
Geyer, C.F. (1982) Kritische Theorie. Max Horkheimer und Theodor W. Adorno. Alber, 
Freiburg/München. 
Haas, P.J. (1988) Morality after Auschwitz. The Radical Challenge of the Nazi Ethic. 
Fortress Press, Philadelphia. 
Har tman, G.H. (ed.) (1994) Holocaust Remembrance. The Shapes of Memory. 
Blackwell, Oxford. 
Hobhouse, Emily (1902) The Brunt of War and where it fell. Methuen & Co, Lon-
don. 
Hobhouse, Emily (1984) Boer War Letters. Edited by Rykie van Reenen. Human 
& Rousseau, Cape Town. 
Landman, C. (1994) The Piety of Afrikaans Women; Diaries of Guilt. University of 
South Africa, Pretoria. 
201 
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Roberts, B. (1991) Those Bloody Women. Three Heroines of the Boer War.John Murray, 
London. 
Schmucker, J.F. (1977) Adorno - Logik des Zerfalls. Frommann-Holzboog, Stutt-
gart. 
Spies, S.B. (1977) Methods of Barbarism? Roberts and Kitchener and Civilians in the 
Boer Republics January 1900-May 1902. Human & Rousseau, Cape Town. 
Van der Merwe, N J., S.a. (probably written between 1926 and 1941) DieNasionale 
Vrouemonument. S.l. 
Veber, Jean (1901) Les Camps de Reconcentration au Transvaal. L'Assiette au 
Beurre no. 26. 
Young, James E. (1993) The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning. 
Yale University Press. 
202 
Misko Suvakovic 
Asymmetries of Language and Sight 
Introduction to a Philosophy of Art 
0. The Basic Postulate 
My basic postulate is: view, seeing and the seen in painting can be stud-
ied through indirect forms of representation. The mediation of sight points to 
the intentional nature of artificial optical and visual phenomena of art. Inten-
tionality makes visual and linguistic effects comparable. Potential asymmetry 
of the sight scene and the language scene of art (painting) is the problem 
which I p ropose to elaborate. 
7. Representation 
Representa t ion is a structural, epistemological, semantic and technical 
me thod of creat ing or producing a work of art, which visually and optically 
refers to a real or fictional object, being, situation or event. Note: (1) phenom-
ena perceived by the sense of sight are termed visual, whereas (2) facts re-
lated to light, whose aspects are dependent upon physical laws of transmis-
sion of light and not the receptive faculties of the subject of perception are 
te rmed optical. 
In a stricter theoretical sense a visual work is said to represent some-
thing if it is its reference (external to the work, what the work refers to in its 
appearance , structural relationships of elements and potential meanings). A 
reference can be a real reference (object f rom the real world) or a fictional 
reference (fictional object of fantasy, text, film, theatre, theory). A painting 
represents a real or fictional object, being, situation or event by showing, 
describing or signifying it. 
A paint ing shows an object by being its visual analogy or representation 
of its visual appearance . The visual aspects of an object's appearance and its 
representa t ion in a representat ional work of art are congruent. At least some 
of the visual aspects of object representation are congruent with the usual 
analogous object representat ion in culture, science, art, religion. The rela-
t ionship be tween a paint ing and the object it visually depicts is asymmetrical, 
since the paint ing visually and optically depict the object but the object never 
Filozofski vestnik, XVII (2/1996), pp. 203-215. 
Miško Šuvakovič 
depicts the painting. It is necessary to distinguish between the similarity of 
two objects and the similarity of their appearance or the similarity of their 
features. One must distinguish the optical similarity f rom the visual, and the 
visual similarity from that of signification. 
Any discursive representation of an object is a description, since one 
does not see the appearance of an object f rom significational effects of a lin-
guistic language. Language states and explains its properties and appearance. 
Non-analogous linguistic signs or texts are ascribed to visual aspects. A paint-
ing describes an object not when it shows the appearance of the object by its 
symbolic aspects, but when it indirectly points to its properties. 
A painting signifies: (1) by naming the object (by stating that a certain 
object is designated as X - the role of the title or inscription in a painting), (2) 
by defining the named object as a sign by which it represents the object in 
language or in visual and pictorial expression by creating a kind of an alpha-
bet, and (3) by using the visual sign as a literal showing of an object (iconic 
and allusive sign), as a standardized language sign (sign in ideographic or 
phonetic alphabets) and as a basis for non-literal symbolic, metaphorical and 
allegorical representation. The abstract paintings of Barnett Newman (»The 
Stations of the Cross«, 1966) represent crucifixion by arbitrarily, but inten-
tionally, signifying (suggesting) the state of crucifixion. The state is not liter-
ally seen, it is suggested by the relationship of pictorial meanings of the paint-
ing and the linguistic meanings of its title. If the idea of signification is 
radicalized, one may say that Newman's painting does not correspond (does 
not refer) to the historical state of crucifixion, but corresponds with the texts 
which represent Christ's crucifixion. The painting does not refer to reality, 
but to the textual production of meaning, sense and value. Reference is estab-
lished as an exchange between the pictorial text of painting and the linguistic 
religious text. 
The idea of representation is based on four semiotic-media levels of 
painting determination (its visual horizon): (1) group of beliefs and concepts 
(superdetermination, ideological or spiritual horizon, metatext of culture) 
which form the framework of signification and sense of a work of art, which is 
expected to represent something (e.g. the theory of mimesis in the Western 
tradition, the theories of Realism in the 19th century, the theories of me-
chanical reproduction in Modernism, the theories of mimesis of mimesis in 
Postmodernism), (2) group of techniques and media procedures by which a 
painting is created and by which, in a potential literal or non-literal way, the 
painting refers to the object represented (the mirroring principle, print, trace, 
visual similitude, index signs, fine art illusionism, linguistic-semantic refer-
ence, usage of forms of expression which serve for representation in a given 
204 
Asymmetries of Language and Sight 
culture, visualization of textual representation), (3) appearance of the work 
which refers to the object of representation by its visual similitude (analogous 
iconic representation), its physical-phenomenal characteristics (the index char-
acter of representation) and on the basis of expressing rules, habits or agree-
ments (symbolic level of representation), and (4) preparedness (habits, cus-
toms, rules, convictions) of the viewer to regard a painting as a representation 
and not a decoration, an abstract, expressive or fictional composition. 
Two opposed conceptions of representation can be singled out: (A) es-
sentialist and (B) relativist theory of representation. 
The essentialist ontological theory of representation is based on the view 
that the notion of an artistic painting derives from the notion of mirroring 
image and reflection (Abbild]. A surface is a painting if it represents some-
thing, if by its appearance (referentially) it refers to something in the world. It 
represents something because it is in an ontological relationship with the 
object of representation. This relationship is based on reflection (literal me-
diation of the observed). Reflection is recognized as a painting because be-
tween the painting and the object which it represents there is an optical or 
visual similitude, and frequently also the intention to achieve an illusionist 
visual congruity. A painting is a painting because it contains within itself (i.e. 
the ontological dimension) its archetype (Urbild) or at least some of its prop-
erties. Between the painting and the object, according to Hans Georg Gadamer, 
there is a relationship of mutual belonging, since in the painting only the 
being of the represented object appears. According to ontological essentialist 
theories, the development of painting and sculpture as art arises through the 
evolution and transformations of the basic mirroring image model (from re-
flection to an artistic painting). Western painting can be regarded as a multi-
tude of transformational lines from objectual-optical necessity (reflection, in-
variant, literal visual information) to visual overdetermination (ideology, the 
theory and the practice of mimesis) and visual arbritrariness (significational 
interpretation by pictorial means). 
As opposed to the ontological essentialist theories, the relativist theories 
are formulated around the interpretation of representation as a practice of 
signification, conventional reference and symbolization. The starting point is 
that representation is not based on the mirroring principle. The visual simili-
tude between the painting and the object (the appearance of the painting and 
the object) represented is not sufficient in order to establish whether or not 
the painting represents something. Similitude is a symmetrical relationship, 
and visual similitude of the image and the object it represents is asymmetri-
cal. The critique of the notion of similitude results in the attitude that recogni-
tion of the structure of paint blots on a surface represents shoes (Van Gogh), 
205 
Miško Šuvakovič 
a bouquet of flowers (Cézanne) and human figures (Picasso) depends on the 
rules (convictions, ideologies) of signification (representation) which a soci-
ety accepts as their presentation of the world. 
Nelson Goodman demonstrates that a paint ing depicts an object and 
that the pictorial form configurated in the painting is recognized as a depic-
tion of the object by the rules of representation and the according convictions 
shared by the painter and the viewer of the painting. The ontological essen-
tialist answer to the question »Why do we see an object in a painting?« is 
»Because the painting imitates the object« or »Because the painting imitates 
our experience of the object« or »Because the painting establishes an optical 
order which imitates the optical order of the sight«. The relativist answer 
would be »Because the painting belongs to a certain form of representat ion 
(symbolic and ideological expressions) which we are accustomed to read as 
pictorial representations of such-and-such an object.« Goodman does not in-
terpret the recognition of an object in a painting by a literal connexion be-
tween the pa in t ing and the ob jec t , bu t by e s t a b l i s h i n g an a r b i t r a r y 
classificational relationship. There is no such thing as an innocent eye which 
would perceive the thing itself independently of our system of classification 
(convictions, knowledge, values). The eye does not perceive the thing itself, 
the eye always perceives an object. The similitude between a paint ing and an 
object is not determined by a congruence of the visual properties of the paint-
ing's appearance and the properties of the object 's appearance, but by a sys-
tem of classification and nomenclature, i.e. artistic practice (or Artworld, ac-
cording to Arthur Danto, or ideology, according to Althusser, Schefer, Rotar, 
Devade). According to Goodman: (1) every paint ing is more similar to any 
other painting throughout the history of art than to the external object it 
represents, and (2) art does not imitate nature, since nature (what is experi-
enced, perceived, understood and presented as nature) is a product of art, 
science, religion and everyday customs. The relativist concept of a painting is 
founded upon conventions of fine art representation and the phenomenological 
arbitrariness (openess) of visual percept ion . It is on these g rounds that 
Goodman rejects the notion of a painting as a copy of reality, maintaining a 
symbolic significational character of depiction or painting. Realistic repre-
sentation is not based on the quantity of optical and visual information about 
the world, but on simplicity and availability, which depends on the observ-
er's degree of being accustomed to certain forms of representation. The style 
of representation to which an observer is accustomed is regarded as more 
realistic, and such paintings are considered more similar to reality: »If repre-
sentation is a matter of choice, regularity a matter of information, realism is a 
matter of habit.«1 Charles Harrison and Fred Or ton regard realism in paint-
206 
Asymmetries of Language and Sight 
ing as a me thodo log ica l f r a m e w o r k of representa t ion and critique of modes 
of r ep resen ta t ion : »Real i sm is not a mat ter of cor respondence , or even of 
conven t ions of c o r r e s p o n d e n c e . O n this poin t Modern is t theory has always 
b e e n correct . It is a mat te r of how, on what basis, one goes about the process 
of cri t icism and cor rec t ion of any representa tion.«2 A pa in t ing can always be 
shown to b e a f o r m of conven t iona l order . T h e pictorial order expresses the 
viewpoint of the artist or his culture. T h e correspondences between the painting 
and its r e f e rence (the objec t of representat ion) are not s imply given to the eye 
in a m i r ro r i ng m a n n e r ; they are a consequence of publ ic and tacit rules of the 
symbol ic o r d e r of p ic tor ia l mat te r ( language/pictorial games within pa in t ing 
as an art). A radical iza t ion of such a posit ion leads to the s tandpoint that a 
work of art does no t r ep resen t an object, being, situation or event in a literal 
way, bu t r ep resen t s h o w they are perceived, exper ienced , expressed, under -
stood, in t e rp re ted and va lued in the culture of its origin. A paint ing is not a 
t race of the pe rce ived , on the contrary , the perce ived is the effect (trace, 
result) no t only of the pa in t ing ' s appearance , but also its pictorial and semi-
ological mean ings . 
Acco rd ing to semiologists of pa in t ing such as U m b e r t o Eco, Jean-Louis 
Schefer or Braco Ro ta r an iconic code (characteristic visual order of repre-
sentation) has two aspects: (1) an iconic code is a system of iconic signs which 
result f r o m a conceptua l iza t ion of percept ion , and (2) an iconic code is a sign 
o rde r rea l ized u p o n g raph ic convent ions which belong to the order of visual 
rhetoric . Schefer and Rotar in their semiologies of painting show the connexion 
b e t w e e n t h e e m p i r i c a l p l a n e of t h e v i s u a l a n d t h e i d e o l o g i c a l 
o v e r d e t e r m i n a t i o n which t ransforms the visual into a text (system of mean-
ing, effects of sense a n d potent ia l values of communica t ion , apprecia t ion, 
k n o w l e d g e and possess ion) . Visuali ty is an empir ical hor izon or pa in t ing 
ach ieved by m e a n s of sensual art iculation. The ideological articulation of art 
is buil t u p o n empir ica l ar t iculat ion. An iconic code, i.e. the characteristic sign 
o rde r wh ich represen t s someth ing by its visual similitude, is not a naive (mir-
ror ing, literal) effect of pe rcep t ion , but a speculative hor izon of paint ing as an 
art and rhe tor ica l pic tor ia l id iom. T h e theory of mimesis is therefore not to 
be r e g a r d e d solely as a m o d e l of creat ing a paint ing and a percept ion of the 
re la t ionship b e t w e e n the pa in t ing and the world, but also as a form of ideo-
logical supers t ruc tu re (superdeterminat ion) by which percept ion (view, the 
1 Nelson Goodman, »Reality Remade«, in Joseph Margolis, Philosophy Looks at Art, 
Temple University Press, Philadelphia 1987, p. 300. 
2 Charles Harrison, Fred Orton (eds.), Modernism, Criticism, Realism - Alternative Con-
text For Art, Harper and Row, London 1984, p. xix. 
207 
Miško Šuvakovič 
M » « n o t W i r . « : CNNAD.UAMM IAV, ONTARIO, OUEIEC, ST. U W R E N C E RIVER. NEW I R U N S W K K , MAN1T0IA, AKIMISKIISLAND, LAKE WINNIPEG, 
I. VKK (It TtIK WOODS, L\KT. N I P I G O Y U K E SUPERIOR. U K [ HURON LAKE MICHIGAN, LAKE ONTARIO, LAKE ERIE, MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, 
M m U H l s m s , VERMONT, (flXNECTICUT, RHODE B U N D , NEW YORK. NEW JERSEY, PENNSYLVANIA, DELAWARE. MARYLAND, WEST VIRGINIA, 
VIRGINIA, OHIO. MICHIGAN. WISCONSIN, MINNESOTA, EASTERN IORDERS OP NORTH DAKOTA, SOUTH bAKOTA, NEBRASKA, KANSAS, OKLAHOMA 
TEXAS, MISSUl' « . I L L I N O I S INDIANA, TENNESSEE, ARKANSAS. LOUISIANA. MISSISSIPPI, A L A I A l l A GEORGIA, NORTH CAROLINA S O l f f f l CAROU 
I M , FLQRI1M, C U M , H A H U U l , A T L t i f T I C OCEAN, A M t t O S l l U v D S , GULP OP MEXICO, JTRA1TJ 6t FLOHOi 
Art & Language (Terry Atkinson, Michael Baldwin), Map (1967) 
208 
Asymmetries of Language and Sight 
perceived, experience) and understanding of a painting are limited and di-
rected. A pictorial representation has a general epistemological value which 
can be described as an archeological structure of knowledge, in fact, it points 
to the proximity (interweaving, link) between the perceived and the linguistic 
in the constitution of knowledge. 
Representational pictorial systems are determined by the following char-
acteristics: (1) painting is a technique which aims to produce an effect for the 
eye (body, look, seeing, placing the perceived into a language), i.e. to pro-
duce itself as something entirely subordinate to the economy of visual pro-
duction of effects, (2) the function of a representational painting is in covering 
up the material morphology of the pictorial: to mark the departure from the 
material literal appearance of the surface by simulation, to start the game of 
differences, to remove f rom it the literal nature of the significational identity 
of the surface, (3) one system of representation is read from other systems 
(the criterion of interpictoriality, analogous to intertextuality), in other words, 
it is impossible to read a system of a visual (pictorial) representation on its 
own basis. A painting does not represent by simply (optically) existing or by 
literally referring to the objects of the world, but by motivatedly or conven-
tionally referring to the objects of the world pointing to other paintings and 
texts in the history of painting and culture (religious, ideological, sexual text). 
2. Visual Meta-Language 
There is no general system of visual and pictorial representation which 
could be described by the terms visual language or, in a narrower sense, 
pictorial language. There are certain analogies between visual (pictorial) sys-
tems and language (linguistic systems), there are mutual correspondences 
between appearance and signification, there is a presence of language (lin-
guistic) material in structuring of the pictorial matter, there are similarities 
between language games (with linguistic and semiotic elements) and picto-
rial, visual and optical games. There is no painting which does not produce 
sense, meaning and value. But the production of sense, meaning and value is 
not achieved according to closed consistent models, but according to open, 
unstable and variable formulations (stylistic schemes, individual poetics, his-
torical coding, arbitrary or motivated combinations or games). If visual (and 
pictorial) representation is analogous at least in some aspects to linguistic 
representation, then by visual (pictorial) structures one can represent the ap-
pearance of another work of art, i.e. its concept of constitution, appearance 
and functioning as a presentation, expression or construction. 
209 
Miško Šuvakovič 
Visual meta language is the structural and significational order of a visual 
work of art by means of which other works of art are shown and represented, 
as well as aspects of Artworld, stylistic patterns, genre rules and schemes, 
ways of setting up meaning in a work of fine art, language-pictorial games, 
visual properties of a work of art, conceptual and ideological overdetermi-
nations. A work of art or an aspect of Artworld which is shown or repre-
sented is a first degree work of art, and the work of art which represents it is 
a second degree work of art or visual, more strictly speaking pictorial, meta-
language. 
Some examples of visual meta-language in painting are neo-Dadaistic 
and the early proto-Pop Art paintings of Jasper Johns such as »Flag« (1954-
55), »By the Sea« (1961) or »Fool's House« (1962). The painting »Flag« is a 
meta-example of literal representation showing a cultural artefact (flag). The 
painting is realized in such a way that it covers the canvas f rom edge to edge, 
and is thus simultaneously a concrete flag and a painting (representation) of a 
flag. The painting »Fool's House« is an example of visual meta-language be-
cause it demonstrates language games in the relationships of the elements of 
the painting, objects and words. The idea of language game is taken f rom 
Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of language. Roy Lichtenstein's Pop Art 
paintings based on representation of comic frames or comic-like paraphrases 
of Picasso's portraits and Leger's scenes are meta-visual examples. His idea 
of visual meta-language is interpictorial. It is based on a transfer of subject 
matter and iconographic solutions from one stylistic or cultural system of 
representation into another (from popular mass culture or French post-cubist 
modernism into American high modernism). With the painting »Whaam!« 
Lichtenstein shows how comic sequences are literally transferred f rom the 
Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam! (1963) 
210 
Asymmetries of Language and Sight 
world of popular culture into the world of high modernism. The representa-
tion of Picasso's portrait has a more complex function: (1) the post-cubist 
portrait is realised in the way of comic (transfer from the high art of modern-
ism into the popular culture of the comic), and (2) the comic-like form is 
effected as an artistic painting, whereby the transfer from one context into 
another is reduced to a hermeneutical absurdity (by pictorial means high art 
is interpreted as an expression of popular culture, and an icon of popular 
culture is realized and exhibited as an example of high art). 
In conceptual art the idea of visual meta language is most often inte-
grated with the effects of linguistic meta-language. For conceptual art any 
seeing means reading. For instance, in the work of the group Art & Language 
»Map to not indicate...« (1967) the visual scheme of the map is not there to 
represent the North American continent, but to represent an anomalous look 
of the map, i.e. the anomalous relationship between the text and the map. 
Visual elements are a support for meta-linguistic intentions of the artist to 
br ing linguistic and visual language, paradoxically and anomalously, into the 
same plane of representat ion (semantic interchangeability). Let us consider 
another example. The concept of analytical proposition was introduced into 
art practice by Joseph Kosuth in his text »Art after Philosophy« (1969). Ac-
cording to Kosuth, works of art are analytical propositions because they do 
not supply information on facts, but show the artist's intention. A work of art 
understood as an analytical proposition does not describe the behaviour of 
physical or mental objects, but expresses formal definitions of art or formal 
consequences of that definition. Kosuth's work »One and Three Chairs« (1965) 
is an example of artistic work as an expression of an analytical proposition. 
To the proposition »chair« correspond: the visual expression (the photograph 
representing the chair), the expression of the chair as a three-dimensional 
object, and the linguistic expression (a dictionary definition of the term »chair«). 
The expression of proposition can be seen (photograph), utilized (object -
chair) or read (text of the dictionary definition). 
3. Mimesis of Mimesis 
T h e mimes i s of mimes i s ( representa t ion of the represented) is a 
Postmodernist eclectical (postmetaphysical, posthistorical) conception of art. 
A painting does not represent reality, the original essence of art or the artist's 
direct emotion. A painting represents historical or current forms of represen-
tation of reality, fantasies or language games. 
Mimesis is interpreted as the ideology and the art of imitation, emula-
211 
Miško Šuvakovič 
Neša Paripovič, Self-Portrait ( 1989) 
tion and illusionist representation of appearance of real or fictional objects, 
situations, events and beings. The concept of mimesis has been exposed to 
criticism and destruction in modern art, f rom post-impressionism to minimal 
and conceptual art. In abstract constructivist, concretist and formalist art it is 
rejected as historically superfluous. In surrealism and fantastic painting the 
principle of mimesis is applied as a stylistic pattern, i.e. impossible, fantastic 
and fictional events, situations and beings are represented in the way the real 
world is represented in mimetic art. In hyperrealism the forms of imitation, 
emulation and illusionist representation are rhetorically perfected and sup-
ported by contemporary technological devices. The result of hyperrealism is 
not the realization of the ideas of traditional mimesis, since hyperrealist painting 
and sculpture are representations of photography. The works of hyperrealism 
are paradoxically a double mimesis: representations of the depicted object 
and representations of the effects of technical media by which the object was 
represented in the first instance and on whose basis the hyperrealist work was 
effected. Chuck Close's portraits are pictorial representations of photogra-
phy with all the sharpness and non-sharpnessfound in photographic copies 
and blow-ups. 
212 
Asymmetries of Language and Sight 
With the postmodernist revival of representation the idea (technique 
and ideology) of mimesis regained attention. Mimesis of mimesis can be in-
terpreted as a visual deconstruction of pictorial metaphysics. Whereas philo-
sophical deconstruction shows and disjoins the entire body of Western meta-
physics (deconstruction of logocentrism in philosophy, literature, ideology), 
mimesis of mimesis is a citational-collage-montage production of a visual work 
of art which disjoins visual metaphysics (anomalous nodes of logocentrism -
Derrida, ocularcentrism - Jay , euclydocentrism - Deleuze). 
A Postmodernist painting is an ecstatic and obscene reflection and simu-
lation of other works of art, symbolic scenes, aspects of Artworld, culture and 
society. According to Postmodernist theory every work in the history of art 
was created by representat ion (expression, transformation) of existing mod-
els of representation, but only the art and theory of Postmodernism set this 
principle as a poetic foundation of art production. In Postmodernist painting 
of the eighties, trans-avantgarde (Clemente), neoexpressionist (Kiefer), anach-
ronistic (Mariani) or retrograde (Irwin) paintings are based on eclectic repre-
sentation, citation, collage and montage of traces of scenes, expressions, 
iconographies and genre models of traditional European, antimodernist and 
modernist art. They are no longer meta-linguistic and not in the sense in 
which the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan claims that there is no meta-language! 
For instance, David Salle's painting »Doors with Light« (1989) has a seeming 
structure of visual meta-language since it simultaneously represents various 
forms of representation in high art and popular culture. However, it does not 
have the legitimacy of meta-language, since it introduces the schemes of visual 
meta-linguistic scenes into an expressively subjective and arbitrary (expres-
sive, eroticized, entropic, non-motivated) painting. It is demonstrated that 
subjectivity (fragmentariness) and visual arbitrariness penetrate the objectiv-
ity of meta-language, transforming it into a reflection of reflection (mimesis 
of mimesis). 
Neša Paripovič, in his series of works completed between 1988 and 1993, 
represents a painting (painting on a wall, graffiti, drawing on paper, ambient-
sculptural arrangement in front of a painting) by a photograph. The estab-
lished method is the mimesis of mimesis (representation of the represented), 
whereby painting as representation of a manual expressive iconic trace is 
deconstructed to a luminous photographic print. The tactile direct expres-
sion of painting traces on the wall cools down to the luminous (alienated 
print). Paripovič shows that a photograph represents the represented and 
expressed painting by becoming a visual and polysemantic interpretation of 
what cannot be subjected to discourse interpretation (pictorial signifier). By 
imposing a visual voice (the voice of photography) the manual character of 
213 
Miško Šuvakovič 
painting is reduced to the shown skeleton of a painting which is seductively 
and fatally immersed in the language of photography. His works are intervisual 
since they show how the objectual, the optical, the visual, the pictorial, the 
semiological and the linguistic confront each other (transfigure) institution-
ally (in media) by various forms of visual representation (the difference be-
tween the power of representation in painting and in photography). Trans-
figuration is a method of transferring one visual order with all its optical, 
visual and significational-ideological characteristics into another visual sys-
tem. This involves a change of sensual effects, meanings, sense and values of 
the transferred material, as well as of the system into which the elements of 
another system are inserted (photography rhetorically masks the body of paint-
ing, whereas painting penetrates the semantic effects of photography). 
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215 
The Estonian Academy of Sciences and University of Tartu 
announce 
a new international journal of the humanities and social sciences 
TRAMES 
and 
welcome contributions from any country and any scientific school. 
"Trames" intends to accumulate the best scientific thought from or about the 
Eastern Europe and bring it to the reader in the West. The journal is pre-
reviewed. The criteria for the acceptance of papers are the originality of ideas, 
weight of arguments and clarity of presentation. The editorial board will give 
its preference to papers with broader theoretical attitude and a possible 
interdisciplinary approach. Review articles featuring the great names or events 
in the history of the humanities and social sciences in the Eastern Europe, and 
book reviews covering recent books published in or about the region are also 
welcome. "Trames" is published quarterly, its language of presentation is 
English. Further information and the style sheet for authors can be obtained 
from the editorial board. 
EDITOR: 
Martin Ehala (Tallinn) 
EDITORIAL BOARD: 
Jiiri Allik (Tartu) 
Wolfgang Drechsler (Tartu) 
Priit Järve (Tallinn) 
Arvo Krikmann (Tallinn) 
Priit Raudkivi (Tallinn) 
Jaan Ross (Tallinn) 
ADDRESS: 7 Estonia pst 
Academy of Sciences Publishers 
Tallinn EE 0100 
Estonia 
Phone: +372(22)454 156 
Fax: + 372 (2) 64 66 026 
E-mail: ehala@lin.tpu.ee 
With all the good intentions, "Trames" aims for making the world broader to 
the scientists in the East as well as in the West. 
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 
L A R S - O L O F A H L B E R G , Ph.D. is director of Cultural Studies and 
Reader in Aesthetics at Uppsa la University, Sweden. Has published essays in 
The British Journal of Aesthetics, Filozofski Vestnik, The Scandinavian Journal for 
Aesthetics, and in other Scandinavian publications. Main areas of interest: 
phi losophy of art, modern i sm/pos tmodern i sm, philosophy of the humani-
ties. 
ALES E R J A V E C is Research Director at the Institute of Philosophy in 
the Center for Scientific Research of the Slovenian Academy of Arts and 
Sciences, Associate Professor of Aesthetics at Ljubljana University and Presi-
dent of the Slovenian Society of Aesthetics. His books include: On Art, Aes-
thetics and Ideology (Ljubljana 1983), Aesthetics andEpistemology (Ljubljana 1984), 
Ideology and Art of Modernism (Ljubljana 1988, Sarajevo 1991), Culture as Alibi 
(with L. Kreft and H. Paetzold; Ljubljana 1988), Ljubljana, Ljubljana (with M. 
Grzinic; Ljubljana 1991), Aesthetics and Critical Theory (Ljubljana 1995), To-
wards the Image (Ljubljana 1996) and Postmodernism and the Postsocialist Condi-
tion (forthcoming). 
M A R I N A GRZINIC , Ph.D. works as Research Assistant at the Institute 
of Phi losophy in the Center for Scientific Research of the Slovenian Acad-
emy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana, and as a freelance critic and curator. 
Her works on m o d e r n art, culture and social phenomena have been pub-
lished extensively. In a Line for Virtual Bread: Time, Space, the Subject and New 
Media in the Year 2000 (Ljubljana 1996) is her most recent book. 
M A R T I N J A Y is professor of history at the University of California, 
Berkeley. His books include The Dialectical Imagination (1973); Marxism and 
Totality (1984); Adorno (1984); Permanent Exiles (1985); Fin-de-Siecle Socialism 
(1988); Force Fields (1993); and Downcast Eyes (1993). He has recently edited, 
a long with A n t o n Kaes and Edward Dimendberg , The Weimar Republic 
Sourcebook [ 1994) and Vision in Context {1996; with Teresa Brennan). 
E V A KIT W A H M A N is Assistant Professor in Religion and Philoso-
phy Depar tment , H o n g Kong Baptist University. She is the author of Art, 
Nature and Humanities: Traditional and Contemporary Chinese Aesthetics (Taiwan 
1993), Gender and Creativity (Hong Kong 1996) and the editor of Feminist 
Literary Writings in Hong Kong and Taiwan (PRC 1995). She has also published 
three collections of her creative writings in Taiwan and Hong Kong and nu-
merous academic articles on feminist studies, Chinese and Western aesthet-
ics and popular culture. 
217 
Notes on Contributors 
J O S DE MUL is Professor in Philosophy of Man and Culture at the 
Faculty of Philosophy of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is the author 
of Romantic Desire in (Post)Modern Art and Philosophy (State University of New 
York Press, New York 1997) and The Tragedy of Finitude: Wilhelm Dilthey's 
Hermenutics of Life (Yale University Press, New H a v e n / L o n d o n 1997). 
MIKHAIL RYKLIN (1948) studied philosophy and aesthetics at the 
Moscow University and at the Institute of Philosophy of the Moscow Acad-
emy of Sciences, where he has been Senior Researcher since 1989. His pub-
lications include: The Logics of Terror (Tartu 1992Jacques Derrida in Moscow; 
The Deconstruction of a Voyage (Moscow 1993); and Paris Foullé/Paris Whipped 
(Marseille 1996). 
M A R Y V O N N E SAISON est professeur de philosophie et d 'esthétique 
à l 'Université de Paris-X-Nanterre. Elle a publ ié en 1981, aux édit ions 
Méridiens-Klincksieck, à Paris, Imaginaire / Imaginable; parcours philosophique à 
travers le théâtre et la médecine mentale et a écrit de nombreux articles, notamment 
pour la Revue d'Esthétique. Elle a conçu deux numéros spéciaux de cette re-
vue: L'envers du théâtre (Revue d'Esthétique, n° 1-2, 1977, Paris, Union générale 
d'éditions) etJeune Théâtre (Revue d'Esthétique, n° 26, 1994, Paris, éditions Jean-
Michel Place). Maryvonne Saison préside la Société française d'esthétique. 
KEN-ICHI SASAKI was born in Tokyo in 1943, where he studied French 
literature and aesthetics. He is currently a Professor and Head of the Depart-
ment of Aesthetics and Sciences of Art at the University of Tokyo and Co-
Editor of the JTLA, a jou rna i of aesthetics in western languages. His publica-
tions include: Structure of Theatrical Language (1982); Philosophy of an Artwork 
(1985); The Epoch of Mise en scène (1994); Dictionary of Aesthetics (1995) (all in 
Japanese) and Concordance de l'Art poétique et d'autres ouvrages de Boileau (1993). 
He has also published numerous articles in French and English in the JTLA 
and other journals. 
R I C H A R D SHUSTERMAN studied philosophy at the Hebrew Uni-
versity in Jerusalem and received his Ph.D. at St. J o h n s College in Oxford. 
He taught in Israel and England and is Professor of philosophy at Temple 
University in Philadelphia and Program Director at Collège Internationale 
de Philosophie in Paris. Publications: The Object of Literary Criticism (1984); T. 
S. Eliot and the Literary Criticism (1988); Pragmatist Aesthetics (1992); KunstLeben 
(1994); and Sous ['interpretation (1994). 
218 
Notes on Contributors 
J O H A N S N Y M A N teaches aesthetics and social philosophy at the Rand 
Afrikaans University in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has published arti-
cles on Hume, Kant, Bell and Adorno in various journals, and is currently 
working on the »politics of memory« in a post apartheid society, drawing on 
research by Holocaust scholars and the results of the Historikerstreit. 
M I S K O S U V A K O V I C was born in 1954 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. From 
1984 he has been a member of the Serbian Society of Aesthetics and from 
1988 of the Slovenian Society of Aesthetics. In March 1993 he defended his 
Ph.D. thesis (»Theory in Art and Analytical Philosophy«) at the University of 
Arts in Belgrade. He has published five books: Pas Tout. Fragments on Art, 
Culture, Politics, Poetics and Art Theory (Belgrade, 1994); A Prolegomenon for Ana-
lytical Aesthetics (Novi Sad 1995); The Post-modern (Belgrade 1995); Asymmetri-
cal Other (Belgrade 1996) and Nesa Paripovic Self-Portraits. Essays on Nesa 
Paripovic (Belgrade 1996). He teaches aesthetics at the Faculty of Music (Uni-
versity of Arts) in Belgrade. 
219 
ACTA PHILOSOPHICA / FILOZOFSKI VESTNIK 
Recent special issues: 
Vol. XIV, No. 2 (Autumn 1993) 
Questioning Europe 
Contents: 
Hauke Brunkhorst, Staatsbiirgeruniver-
salismus contra Nationalstaat, Aleš 
Erjavec & Marina Gržinič, Mythical Dis-
coveries, Utopian Spaces and Post-So-
cialist Culture, John Keane, Nations, Na-
tionalism and European Citizen, Gorazd 
Korošec, Social Contract and Public 
Opinion - Two Political Concepts of the 
Enlightenment, Tomaž Mastnak, The 
Birth of War out of the Spirit of Peace, 
AlettaJ. Norval, Minoritarian Politics and 
the Pluralisation of Democracy, J.G.A. 
Pocock, Vous autres Européens - or In-
venting Europe, Rado Riha, Europa und 
wir Anderen, Braco Rotar, Le revers de 
l'Europe,Jelica Šumič-Riha, Liberalismus 
und Partikularismus im neuen Europa. 
Vol. XV, No. 2 (Autumn 1994) 
Fictions 
Contents: 
Ernesto Laclau, Subject of Politics, Poli-
tics of the Subject, Aletta J. Norval, The 
Politics of Homecoming: Contending 
Fictions of Identity in Contemporary 
South Africa, Kate Nash, Women and the 
Fictive Individual of Liberalism, Sue 
Golding, Virtual Derrida, Jelica Sumič-
Riha, Fictions ofJustice, Alenka Zupančič, 
La logique de l'apparence, Peter Klepec, 
Kant's Transcendental Ideal as Fiction, 
Steven Lukes, Five Fables About Human 
Rights, Tomaž Mastnak, Fictions in Politi-
cal Thought: Las Casas, Sepulveda, the 
Indians, and the Turks, Gorazd Korošec, 
The Role of Fictions in Law: Hume, 
Adam Smith and Bentham, Peter Burke, 
Historical Facts and Historical Fictions, 
Oto Luthar, »White Men Can't Jump...«: 
Objectivity and Fiction, Paul Crowther, 
The Logic Structure of Pictorial Repre-
sentation, Aleš Erjavec, Mountain Pho-
tography and the Constitution of Na-
tional Identity, Marina Gržinič Mau hier, 
Fiction Re-constructed, Entretien avec 
Jacques Rancière. 
Vol.XVI, No. 2 (Autumn 1995) 
Ethique et Politique / Ethics and Poli-
tics / Ethik und Politik 
Contents: 
Alain Badiou, Ethique et politique, Egid 
E. Berns, Politique et justice dans un style 
déconstructif, Chantal Moujfe, Justice et 
rationalité: les impasses du »libéralisme 
politique«, Françoise Proust, Résistance, 
Rado Riha, L'horreur du moraliste poli-
tique, Jelica Šumič-Riha, La politique 
existe-t-elle sans eth\<\\ie7, Alenka Zupan-
čič, Kant: la loi et ses ricochets, Simon 
Critchley, The Hypothesis, the Context, 
the Messianic, the Political, the Eco-
nomic, the Technological - On Derri-
da's Specters of Marx, Ernesto Laclau, »The 
Time is out of Joint«, Guy Lardreau, Ha-
bent sua fata, Thanos Lipowatz, Ethics 
and political discourse in democracy, 
Ludwig Nagi, Läßt sich Recht Legitimieren? 
(Habermas, Rawls, Dworkin), Oliver Marchart, 
On the Final (Im-)Possibility of Resistance, 
Progress and Avant-Garde, Jorge E. Dotti, 
Some Remarks on Carl Schmitt's Notion 
of »Exception«, Jacob Rogozinski, Le corps 
abject du roi la Terreur et son Ennemi. 
Ail communications should be addressed to FitozoJski vestnik, ZRC SAZU, P.P. 306, 1001 
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ABSTRACTS 
Lars-Olof Ahlberg 
Modernost in okularocentrizem. Ponoven pogled na Descartesa in Heideggra 
Kritika okularocentrizma, prevladujoče težnje privilegirati vid na račun drugih čutnih 
modalnosti v zahodnem (in morda ne le zahodnem) mišljenju, je pred nedavnim postala 
predmet napada poststrukturalističnih in postfenomenoloških mislecev. Kritika okularo-
centrizma (ki jo je dokumentiral Martin Jay v knjigi Sklonjeni pogled: Zavračanje vida v francoski 
misli dvajsetega stoletja) naj bi okrepila in dopolnila kritiko logo-centrizma in metafizike 
navzočnosti. Povedano drugače, ta kritika tvori del kritike razsvetljenske racionalnosti. Včlanku 
zagovarjam mnenje, da kritika razsvetljenstva pogosto cilja višje kot pa leži njena tarča. 
Heideggrova kritika »skopične« racionalnosti naše kulture naj bi služila kot radikalna alternativa 
okularocentričnemu mišljenju. Pokazati skušam, da Heideggrova kritika razsvetljenske 
racionalnosti in modernosti ni radikalno antiesencialistična in antifundacionalistična, kot trdijo 
njegovi učenci. Pokazati tudi skušam, daje Heidegger, zaradi svoje problematične politične 
preteklosti in kritike modernosti, v najboljšem primeru dvomljiv zaveznik v boju proti zatiralski 
»skopični« racionalnosti. 
Lars-Olof Ahlberg 
Modernity and Ocularcentrism. A Second Look at Descartes and Heidegger 
The critique of ocularcentrism, the dominant tendency in Western (and perhaps not 
only Western) thinking to favour sight at the expense of other sense modalities, has recently 
come under attack from post-structuralist and post-phenomenological thinkers. The critique 
of ocularcentrism (documented in Martin Jay's work Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in 
Twentieth-Century French Thought) is intended to reinforce and supplement the critique of 
logocentrism and the metaphysics of presence, in other words, it forms part of the critique of 
Enlightenment rationality. I argue that the critique of Enlightenment rationality frequently 
overshoots its target. Heidegger's critique of the »scopic« rationality of our culture has been 
invoked as a radical alternative to ocularcentric thinking. I attempt to show that Heidegger's 
critique of Enlightenment rationality and of modernity is not radically anti-essentialist and 
anti-foundationalist, as his followers maintain. I also try to show that Heidegger is at best a 
dubious ally in the fight against an oppressive »scopic« rationality because of the sinister 
political background of his critique of modernity. 
Aleš Erjavec 
Videnje, slikarstvo in umetnost 
Avtor najprej prikaže nekaj problemov, ki so lastni kartezijaskemu perspekti-valizmu 
ter pri tem uporablja nekatere argumente, ki jih je ponudil N. Bryson. Čeprav soglaša z 
Brysonovo kritiko »esencialne kopije«, vseeno trdi, da vsaj del moderne evropske umetnosti 
vsebuje podobne značilnosti kot so one, ki jih Bryson odkriva v klasični kitajski umetnosti. 
Primeri takšne umetnosti so dela Cezanna ali Rodina, pri čemer Merleau-Pontyjeva filozofija 
percepcije in eksistencialna fenomenologija nudita teoretsko razdelavo njenih bistvenih potez. 
Merleau-Pontyjeva filozofija videnega in vidnega je vseeno pomanjkljiva, saj ostaja ujetnik 
fenomenološkega transcendentalnega ega, ki ga presežej. Lacan. V zaključnem delu članka 
avtor trdi, da bi morali, če hočemo ohraniti pojem umetnosti, pripisati večji pomen 
Imaginarnemu. Po njegovem mnenju bi pojem umetniškega izkustva lahko premostil zev 
med »epistemološko« in fenomenološko interpretacijo umetnosti. 
221 
Abstracts 
Aleš Erjavec 
Seeing, Painting and Art 
The author first sketches some of the problems inherent to Cartesian perspectivalism, 
following certain arguments offered by N. Bryson. While agreeing with Bryson's critique of 
the »Essential Copy«, he nonetheless argues that at least a part of modern European art con-
tains similar features to those that Bryson discovers in classical Chinese art. Examples of such 
art are the works of Cézanne or Rodin, with Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of perception and 
existential phenomenology offering a theoretical elaboration of its essential traits. Merleau-
Ponty's philosophy of the seen and the visible is nevertheless found wanting, for it remains 
captive of the phenomenological transcendental ego which is overcome in J. Lacan. In the 
concluding part of the paper the author argues that if we want to retain the notion of art, we 
should, at the same time, ascribe more relevance to the Imaginary. In his view the notion of 
artistic experience could bridge the gap between the »epistemological« and the phenome-
nological interpretation of art. 
Marina Gržinič 
Histerija: fizična prisotnost in pravna odsotnost ter AIDS: fizična odsotnost in pravna 
prisotnost 
Avtorica analizira v članku izraza »prisotnost« in »odsotnost«. Analizo tega binarnega 
para umesti v diskurzivne okvire in reprezentacijske sisteme devetnajstega in dvajsetega stoletja. 
Da bi bolje dojeli »politiko reprezentacije« prisotnosti in odsotnosti, le-to poveže z diskurzivnimi 
okviri in reprezentacijskimi sistemi dveh bolezni, emblematičnih za devetnajsto in dvajseto 
stoletje, s histerijo in z AIDSom. Po avtoričinem mnenju histerija in AIDS nista samo v tesni 
povezavi z dvojico prisotnost/odsotnost, temveč tudi s politiko reprezentacije. 
Marina Gržinič 
Hysteria: Physical Presence and Juridical Absence & AIDS: Physical Absence and Juridical 
Presence 
In the essay the authoress examines the terms »presence« and its counterpart »absence« 
and approaches these binary terms within the discursive contexts and representational sys-
tems of the 19th and 20th century. To grasp the »politics of representation« of presence/ 
absence she relates it to the discursive contexts and representational systems of two illnesses: 
hysteria and AIDS, each of these representing the illness par excellence of a specific century. In 
her view these illnesses function not only in relation to the duality of presence and absence, 
but also through specific ways of representational politics. 
Martin Jay 
Mar mora biti pravica slepa? Izziv podob zakonu 
Zavezane oči alegorije boginje Pravice v zgodnji modernosti so navadno razlagali kot 
znak novega poudarka sodniške nepristranskosti, kije vodila do modernega kulta abstraktne 
norme v juridičnem pozitivizmu. V tem članku se sprašujemo, kakšna je bila cena zanikanja 
podob v očeh resnice. V njem proučujemo odgovore, kijih nakazujejo dela Horkheimerja in 
Adorna, Derridaja ter nekaterih feminističnih teoretičark. Čeprav priznavamo argumentiranost 
njihovega nasprotovanja abstraktnim pojmom nepri stranske pravice, v zaključku ponudimo 
nekatera opravičila za vsaj začasno ukinitev zmožnosti videti vidne razlike pri uveljavljanju 
zakona. 
222 
Abstracts 
Martin Jay 
Must Justice Be Blind? The Challenge of Images to the Law 
The blindfolding of the allegorical goddess of Justice in the early modern period has 
been generally understood as a mark of the new stress on judicial impartiality, which led to 
the modern cult of the abstract norm in juridical positivism. This paper asks the question, 
what were the costs of denying images to the eyes of justice? It explores answers suggested by 
the work of Horkheimer and Adorno, Derrida and several feminist theorists. Although ac-
knowledging the power of their argument against abstract notions of impartial justice, it con-
cludes by proposing certain justifications for at least a temporary suspension of the ability to 
see visible differences in applying the law. 
Eva K.W. Man 
Eksperimentalno slikarstvo in slikarske teorije v kolonialnem Hong Kongu (1940-1980): 
premislek o kulturni identiteti 
Članek nudi kratek opis zanimive zgodovine slikarstva in slikarskih teorij v hitro 
razvijajočem se Hong Kongu od 1. 1940 do 1. 1980, tako da poudari delo in estetiko večih 
reprezentativnih lokalnih kitajskih slikarjev in umetniških smeri. Ta oris zgodovine prikazuje 
iskanje kulturne identitete in različne drže med kitajskimi slikarji, ki so bili boj med 
moderniziranimi in zahodnimi vplivi v umetnosti ter svojim kitajskim izročilom. Avtorica 
primerja to slikarstvo z držami mlajše generacije osemdesetih let, ki odseva kapitalistične 
vplive pri iskanju umetniške identitete. Zaključni del vsebuje kritično primerjavo umetnosti in 
teorij kulture v sodobnem postkolonialnem diskurzu glede na njihovo aplikacijo na razmere v 
Hong Kongu. 
Eva K. W. Man 
Experimental Painting and Painting Theories in Colonial Hong Kong (1940-1980): Reflection 
on Cultural Identity 
The article provides a brief description of the fabulous history of painting and painting 
theories in the rapidly developing Hong Kong from 1940 to 1980 by highlighting the work 
and aesthetics of several representative local Chinese painters and art institutions. This out-
line of history reflects a search for cultural identity and the different attitudes among Chinese 
painters who struggled between modernized and Western influences in art and their Chinese 
tradition. Comparison is made with the attitudes of the younger generation in the 80's, which 
reflects the capitalist influences on the search for an artistic identity. Finally, art and cultural 
theories in a contemporary post-colonial discourse are critically examined in view of their 
application to the present situation in Hong Kong. 
Jos de Mul 
Zatajitev in reprezentacija v Magrittovi sliki »Izdajstvo podob« 
Izhodišče eseja je slika Reneja Magritta »Izdajstvo podob«. Avtor prouči vlogo, ki jo 
zatajitev (Verleugung) igra v estetskem izkustvu vizualnih reprezentacij. Avtor trdi, daje estetska 
zatajitev ozko povezana s spolno zatajitvijo, kot jo razlagata Freud in Mannonijeva v svojih 
besedilih o fetišizmu. Ta razlaga estetske zatajitve je nato povezana s poststrukturalističnimi 
teorijami reprezentacije kot jih najdemo pri Lacanu, Barthesu in Derridaju, kar rezultira v 
nadrealistični »dekonstrukciji« psihoanalitičnih in post-strukturalističnih teorij reprezentacije. 
223 
Abstracts 
Jos de Mul 
Disavowal and Representation in Magritte's »La trahison des images« 
Taking René Magritte's painting La trahison des images as a starting point, this essay 
examines the role disavowal (Verleugnung) plays in the aesthetic experience of visual represen-
tations. It argues that aesthetic disavowal is closely related to sexual disavowal, as it is inter-
preted by Freud and Mannoni in their texts on fetishism. Next, this interpretation of aesthetic 
disavowal is related to the poststructuralist theories of representation of Lacan, Barthes and 
Derrida, resulting in a surrealist 'deconstruction' of the psychoanalytic and poststructuralist 
theories of representation. 
Mikhail Ryklin 
Propad spomenikov ali: kaj lahko in česa ne moremo pokopati 
Članek je posvečen usodi spomenikov sovjetske dobe v letih 1991-1996. 
Po neuspelem državnem udaru avgustu 1991 so množice jeznih ikonoklastov zmetale s 
podstavkov vrsto najbolj znanih moskovskih spomenikov. Ta dogodek je spodbudil 
mednarodno skupino umetnikov, da so predlagali spremeniti Moskvo v »vrt totalitarnega 
kiparstva«, s čimer bi poprejšnjim propagandnim delom dali nekakšen arhivski status. Zaradi 
večih razlogov seje zamisel na prvi pogled zdela imenitna. Njena edina pomanjkljivost je bila, 
daje tistim, ki so izvajali projekt, primanjkovalo distance, ki bi jim omogočila poigravati se s 
Terorjem in njegovimi referenti. Projekt so umaknili. 
V Moskvi delujoči fotograf Igor Muhin je nasprotno pričel dokumentirati propad tisočev 
in tisočev podeželskih spomenikov na terenu. Izkazalo se je, da so bolj podlegali slabim 
vremenskim razmeram, spontanemu vandalizmu ter pomanjkanju skrbi kakor pa globokim 
političnim razlogom. 
Avtor uporabi Benjaminova in Derridajeva besedila o Moskvi, da bi definiral status 
»sedanjega trenutka« v ruski zgodovini (močno ponavljujoči se v svoji domnevni enkratnosti). 
»Nezaslišane« lastnosti sedanjosti se izkažejo kot še ena zbirka sledov. 
Mikhail Ryklin 
The Collapse of the Statues or What Can & What Cannot Be Buried? 
This article is devoted to the fate of monumental works of the Soviet period in the years 
1991-96. 
In August 1991, after the abortive coup, a number of the best-known Moscow monu-
ments were knocked off their pedestals by crowds of angry iconoclasts. This event prompted 
an international team of artists to come up with the idea of transforming Moscow into a 
»garden of totalitarian sculpture«, thus conferring on former works of propaganda a kind of 
archival status. On the face on it, the idea seemed excellent for many reasons. Its only draw-
back was that those involved in the project lacked the distance that would permit them to toy 
with terror and its referents. The project was shelved. 
Moscow-based photographer Igor Mukhin, on the contrary, started documenting the 
decay of thousands upon thousands of provincial monuments at the grass-root level. It turned 
out that they were succumbing to bad weather conditions, spontaneous acts of barbarism and 
lack of care more than to a deep political considerations. 
Benjamin's and Derrida's texts on Moscow are put to use in order to define the status of 
the »present moment« in Russian history (highly repetitive in its alleged uniqueness). The 
»unheard-of« quality of the present proves to be one more collection of traces. 
224 
Abstracts 
Maryvonne Saison 
Od nostalgije k umetnosti: videti z vsem svojim telesom 
Filozofija percepcije, ki jo je razvijal Merleau-Ponty od 1. 1945 dalje, kaže pomen 
izvornega izkustva: vsi smo bili telo med rečmi, preden smo se pričeli od njih razlikovati kot 
zavedajoči se in spoznavajoči subjekt. 
Ta izvornost, ki jo vsakdo doživi v svoji individualni zgodovini in je zastavljena kot 
moment anonimnosti, je doživljena kot nekakšen paradiž in njeni vztrajajoči sledovi so povezani 
z globoko nostalgijo. 
Edino umetnost se odziva tej nostalgiji: od svojih prvih besedil dalje pripisuje Merleau-
Ponty umetnosti ontološki cilj, s čimer nakazuje pot vsemu nadaljnjemu fenomenološkemu 
razmišljanju. 
Maryvonne Saison 
De la nostalgie à l'art: voir de tout son corps 
La philosophie de la perception élaborée par Merleau-Ponty dès 1945 montre 
l'importance de l'expérience originaire: nous avons tous été un corps parmi les choses avant 
de nous en différencier comme sujet conscient et connaissant. 
Cet originaire vécu par chacun dans son histoire individuelle, désigné comme le mo-
ment de l'anonymat, est vécu sous des couleurs paradisiaques et ses traces persistantes sont à 
l'origine d'une nostalgie profonde. 
Seul l'art peut répondre à cette nostalgie: dès ses premiers textes, Merleau-Ponty assigne 
à l'art une tâche ontologique, indiquant la voie pour toute la réflexion phénoménologique 
ultérieure. 
Ken-ichi Sasaki 
Erotičnost vizualnosti. Semantična analiza japonskih besed »oko« in »videnje« 
Članek je razdeljen na dva dela. V prvem deluje obravnavan aktivni značaj gledanja. 
Ta je tako aktiven, da angažira naše celotno bitje v izkustvenem polju. V drugem delu je 
nasprotno poudarjena aktivna moč sveta: neprosojni pojav, ki poseduje to močno privlačnost, 
se imenuje v japonščini »oko« - ravno tako kot organ vida. Po teh analizah je obravnavana 
specifičnost vida med petimi čutili. 
Ken-ichi Sasaki 
The Sexiness of Visuality. A Semantic Aanalysis of the Japanese Words: Eye and Seeing 
The paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, we discuss the active character of 
seeing, so active that it involves all our being in the experiential field. In the second, on the 
contrary, it is the active power of the world which is underlined: the dense phenomenon 
endowed with this strong appeal is also called »eye« in Japanese, just like the visual organ. 
After these analyses we refer to the specificity of sight among the five senses. 
Richard Shusterman 
Urbani prizori in nevideno 
Avtor analizira zgodovinske, teoretske in metaforične pomene »mesta«, pri čemer opira 
svoja stališča na poglede G. Simmla, F. Engelsa, W. Benjamina, L. Mumforda, R. Sennetta in 
225 
Abstracts 
C. Baudelaira. Svojo razpravo osredotoča predvsem na Berlin ter ponudi pragmatistično branje 
tega mesta. 
Richard Shusterman 
Urban Scenes and Unseens 
The author analyses the historical, theoretical and metaphorical meanings of the »city«, 
supporting or illustrating his views with those of G. Simmel, F. Engels, W. Benjamin, L. 
Mumford, R. Sennett and C. Baudelaire. He focuses his discussion mostly on Berlin and offers 
a pragmatist reading of this city. 
Johan Snyman 
Trpljenje in politika spomina 
Avtor se loteva postapartheidovskega branja »spomenika ženskam«, ki so ga leta 1913 
odkrili v Južni Afriki. Oris družbene funkcije podobnih spomenikov (npr. »Spomenika 
vietnamskim veteranom« v Washingtonu in »Dachauskega spomenika« blizu Miinchna) služi, 
da bi poudarili estetsko ideologijo »Spomenika ženskam«. Avtor meni, da bi spomenik, takšnega 
kot je, lahko rehabilitirali v postapartheidovski družbi, če bi njegovo percepcijo dopolnjevalo 
širše poznavanje vojnega trpljenja. Spomenik bi lahko rekontekstualizirali tako, da bi omogočili 
slišanje drugih glasov, tj. glasov ženskih in črnskih žrtev davnega spopada med Buri in Britanci. 
Johan Snyman 
Suffering and the Politics of Memory 
The paper attempts a post apartheid reading of the Women's memorial, unveiled in 
1913, in South Africa. The social function of comparable memorials (eg. the Vietnam Veter-
ans Memorial in Washington, and the Dachau memorial near Munich) is outlined in order to 
highlight the aesthetic ideology of the Women's Memorial. It is suggested that the Women's 
Memorial, as it stands, can be rehabilitated in a post apartheid society, if its perception can be 
informed by a wider knowledge of the sufferings of war. The memorial can be recontextualized 
so that the voices of the other, i.e. women and black victims of the long gone conflict between 
Boer and British, can become audible. 
Miško Suvakovič 
Asimetrije jezika in vida. Uvod v filozofijo umetnosti 
0. Temeljna trditev: gledanje in videno v slikarstvu lahko proučujemo prek posrednih 
oblik reprezentacije. Posredovanje vida kaže na intencionalno naravo umetnih optičnih in 
vidnih pojavov umetnosti. Intencionalnost omogoča primerjavo vizualnih in lingvističnih 
učinkov. Potencialna asimetrija vizualnega in lingvističnega vidika umetnosti (slikarstva) je 
problem, ki ga obravnavamo v članku. 
1. Reprezentacija je strukturalna, epistemološka, semantična in tehnična metoda 
ustvarjanja ali proizvajanja umetniškega dela, ki se vizualno in optično referirá na dejanski ali 
fikcijski predmet, bitje, situacijo ali dogodek. 
2. Vizualni metajezik je pomenjanje in strukturalni red vizualnega umetniškega dela, s 
pomočjo katerega so druga umetniška dela prikazana in reprezentirana, kot tudi vidiki 
umetniškega sveta, stilski vzorci, žanrska pravila in tipizirane sheme, načini vzpostavljanja 
pomena v delu likovne umetnosti, jezikovno-slikovne igre, vizualne lastnosti umetniškega 
dela ter konceptualne in ideološke naddoločenosti. 
226 
Abstracts 
3. Mimesis mimesisa (reprezentacija reprezentiranega) je postmodernisticna 
(postmetafizicna, postzgodovinska) koncepcija umetnosti. Slikarstvo ne reprezentira realnosti, 
izvornega bistva umetnosti ali neposrednih umetnikovih custev. 
Misko Suvakovic 
Asymmetries of Language and Sight. Introduction to a Philosophy of Art 
0. The basic postulate is: seeing and the seen in painting can be studied through indirect 
forms of representation. The mediation of sight points to the intentional nature of artificial 
optical and visual phenomena of art. Intentionality enables a comparison of visual and lin-
guistic effects. Potential asymmetry of the visual and the linguistic aspect of art (painting) is 
the problem which is elaborated in the paper. 
1. Representation is a structural, epistemological, semantic and technical method of 
creating or producing a work of art which visually and optically refers to a real or fictional 
object, being, situation, or event. 
2. Visual meta-language is the signification and structural order of a visual work of art 
by means of which other works of art are shown and represented, as well as aspects of the 
artworld, stylistic patterns, genre rules and typified schemes, ways of establishing meaning in 
a work of art, language-pictorial games, visual properties of a work of art, and conceptual and 
ideological overdeterminations. 
3. The mimesis of mimesis (representation of the represented) is a Post-modernist 
eclectical (post-metaphysical, post-historical) conception of art whereby a painting does not 
represent reality, the original essence of art, or the direct emotions of the artist. 
227 
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epoché, élan vital, Umwelt, etc.) should be in italics (or under l ined) . 
Notes and references will be pr inted as footnotes. They should be typed 
(double-spaced) on a separate sheet and n u m b e r e d consecutively. Note num-
bers should be referred in the text by superscripts. 
Citations should be presented as follows: 
1. Gilles-Gaston Granger, Pour la connaissance philosophique, Odi le J acob , Paris 
1988, p. 123. 
2. Cf. Charles Taylor, "Rationality", in M. Hollis, S. Lukes (Eds.), Rationality 
and Relativism, Basil Blackwell, Oxfo rd 1983, pp. 87-105. 
3. Granger , op. cit., p.31. 
4. Ibid., p.49. 
5. Friedrich Rapp, "Observat ional Data and Scientific Progress", Studies in 
History and Philosophy of Science, Oxford , 11 (2/1980), p. 153. 
The author-date system is also acceptable with a text reference reading. 
References in the text are then made as follows: (author 's last name , date: 
page(s) or section). Detailed bibliographical informat ion should be given in a 
separate alphabetical list at the end of the manuscr ipt . 
Authors are also required to provide text on 3.5" or 5.25" disk, writ ten 
on an IBM compatible PC (in a recent version of Microsoft Word - Windows 
or DOS). Make sure that the disk and the hard copy match exactly. 
Proofs will be sent to authors if there is sufficient t ime to do so. They 
should be corrected and returned to the Editor within five days. Alterat ions 
other than corrections of typographical errors cannot be accepted. 
228 

IN PREPARATION 
Vol. XVIII. No. 2 (Autumn 1997) 
Power and Resistance • Pouvoir et Résistance 
Macht und Widerstand 
I S S N 0353-4510 
9 770353 451019