{"product_id":"confronting-images-9780271024721","title":"Confronting Images","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePresents arguments about the structure of images and the histories ascribed to them by scholars and critics working in the tradition of Vasari and Panofsky.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Art history, Didi-Huberman argues, has had to ‘kill’ the symptomatic image, deny its violence and its ‘dissembling,’ in order to preserve its true object, art. \u003ci\u003eConfronting Images\u003c\/i\u003e is arguably the most important book-length analysis of the conceptual foundations of the discipline, and critique of the discipline, in any language.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—Christopher Wood,Yale University\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Though \u003ci\u003eDevant l’image\u003c\/i\u003e resembles \u003ci\u003eThe Pleasure of the Text\u003c\/i\u003e in its central dialectic, it actually does what Barthes never did: it makes the essential move toward historicizing the text (or image) that builds representational failure into itself, looking for historical reasons both for a particular image’s failure to represent, and for art history’s own insensitivity or blindness to this aspect of depiction.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—Norman Bryson \u003ci\u003eArt Bulletin\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I cannot think of any more important book in the recent history of art. \u003ci\u003eConfronting Images \u003c\/i\u003eis just what the English-speaking art-historical community needs to help it out of the impasse of debates around ‘cultural studies’ and ‘visual literacy.’”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—James Elkins,School of the Art Institute of Chicago\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eContents\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eList of Illustrations\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTranslator’s Preface\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eQuestion Posed\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen we pose our gaze to an art image (1) Question posed to a tone of certainty (2) Question posed to a Kantian tone, to some magic words, and to the status of a knowledge (5) The very old requirement of figurability (7)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1. The History of Art Within the Limits of Its Simple Practice\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLooking intently at a patch\/whack of white wall: the visible, the legible, the visual, the virtual\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe requirement of the visual, or how incarnation “opens” imitation\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere the discipline is wary of theory as of not-knowledge. The illusion of specificity, the illusion of exactitude, and the “historian’s blow”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere the past screens the past. The indispensable find and the unthinkable loss. Where history and art come to impede the history of art\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFirst platitude: art is over . . . since the existence of the history of art. Metaphysical trap and positivist trap\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSecond platitude: everything is visible . . . since art is dead\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2. Art as Rebirth and the Immortality of the Ideal Man\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere art was invented as renascent from its ashes, and where the history of art invented itself along with it\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe four legitimations of Vasari’s Lives: obedience to the prince, the social body of art, the appeal to origins, and the appeal to ends\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere Vasari saves artists from oblivion and “renames\/renowns” them in eterna fama.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe history of art as second religion, devoted to the immortality of ideal men\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMetaphysical ends and courtly ends. Where the crack is closed in the ideal and realism: a magic writing-pad operation\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe first three magic words: rinascità, imitazione, idea (89). The fourth magic word: disegno. Where art legitimates itself as unified object, noble practice, and intellectual knowledge. The metaphysics of Federico Zuccari. Where the history of art creates art in its own image\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e3. The History of Art Within the Limits of Its Simple Reason\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe ends that Vasari bequeathed to us. Simple reason, or how discourse invents its object\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMetamorphoses of the Vasarian thesis, emergences from the moment of antithesis: the Kantian tone adopted by the history of art\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere Erwin Panofsky develops the moment of antithesis and critique. How the visible takes on meaning. Interpretive violence\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom antithesis to synthesis. Kantian ends, metaphysical ends. Synthesis as magical operation\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFirst magic word: humanism. Where object of knowledge becomes form of knowledge.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVasari as Kantian and Kant as humanist. Powers of consciousness and return to the ideal man\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSecond magic word: iconology. Return to Cesare Ripa. Visible, legible, invisible. The notion of iconological content as transcendental synthesis. Panofsky’s retreat\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFarther, too far: the idealist constraint. Third magic word: symbolic form. Where the sensible sign is absorbed by the intelligible. The pertinence of function, the idealism of “functional unity”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom image to concept and from concept to image. Fourth magic word: schematism. The final unity of synthesis in representation. The image monogrammed, cut short, made “pure.” A science of art under constraint to logic and metaphysics\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e4. The Image as Rend and the Death of God Incarnate\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFirst approximation to renounce the schematism of the history of art: the rend. To open the image, to open logic\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere the dream-work smashes the box of representation. Work is not function. The power of the negative. Where resemblance works, plays, inverts, and dissembles. Where figuring equals disfiguring\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eExtent and limits of the dream paradigm. Seeing and looking. Where dream and symptom decenter the subject of knowledge\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSecond approximation to renounce the idealism of the history of art: the symptom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePanofsky the metapsychologist? On questioning the denial of the symptom. There is no Panofskian unconscious\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Panofskian model of deduction faced with the Freudian paradigm of over-determination. The example of melancholy. Symbol and symptom. Constructed share, cursed share\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThird approximation to renounce the iconographism of the history of art and the tyranny of imitation: the Incarnation. Flesh and body. The double economy: mimetic fabric and “upholstery buttons.” The prototypical images of Christianity and the index of incarnation\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor a history of symptomatic intensities. Some examples. Dissemblance and unction. Where figuring equals modifying figures equals disfiguring\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFourth approximation to renounce the humanism of the history of art: death. Resemblance as drama. Two medieval treatises facing Vasari: the rent subject facing the man of humanism. The history of art is a history of imbroglios\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eResemblance to life, resemblance to death. The economy of death in Christianity: the ruse and the risk. Where death insists in the image. And us, before the image?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAppendix: The Detail and the Pan\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe aporia of the detail\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo paint or to depict\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe accident: material radiance\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe symptom: slippage of meaning\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeyond the detail principle\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNotes\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIndex\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Pennsylvania State University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49400778228055,"sku":"9780271024721","price":999.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/confronting-images-9780271024721","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}