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interpretation of the illic which Derrida a ttributes to every place44, but asan exclusive, stable construction of the illic, understood as the place to which no roadleads , but from whence a new speech arises . To U~vinas , rebuilding the Jewishstate means overcoming a misunderstood postmodern paradigm that s tylisedJewry into a force, subvert ing the ult imate interpretat ive access of the logos byletting its fundament slide within an endless play of difference that transgressesevery border. Zionism thus does not prove to bejust a s imple denia l of a conditiomoderna ( identified for a long time with the conditions of galut), but a politicalformula for turning grammatology into a philosophy of redemption.

While deconstruction has detected a "beyond the meaning" with in the autonomous tendencies of sign ifiers, U:v inas goes a step further, att empting tobuild, upon the beyond exposed by deconstruction, the meaning of that beyond (le sens de cet au-del :' t) . In this at tempt, he picks up the gesture ofRosenzweig , who closed the gates of philosophy behind him at the conclusion of h isStar of Redemption by moving beyond textuality "into life". It would be easy toconclude from this ges ture tha t the Levinasian contr ibution to l iterary theorymay prove ins ignificant, insofar as the "monotheist ic chal lenge" , the chargingof reading and writing with transcendence, ultimately leaves our last 30 years ofwork on text and let te rs behind with an unsympathet ic glance. Nonetheless , i tis this very gesture which may relax our preoccupation with the book, enablinga new approach towards the responsibility of the literary.

44 See Det ri da , "Viol ence and me taphysi cs", pp . 144 ff .

Iconology and IconicityTowards an Iconic History of Figures,

Between Erwin Panofsky and Jean-Luc Marion

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I The Image: Ends and BeginningsIn 1992, when William J. Thomas Mi tchell announced the "pictorial turn"l, afundamental controversy regarding the status and the legit imacy of the visualimage was in ful l sway.2In this controversy, i t was primarily the s ta tus of painting and its possible demise tha t was a t issue. The write rs who coined the centralterms of this debate were Douglas Crimp with the notion of the "end of painting"3, and Arthur Danto with the notion of the "end of ar t"4. These two notionswere interpreted further either in the di rect ion of the death of paint ing5 or in

William J.Thomas Mitchel l, "The Pic totial Turn", in Mitchel l, Picture Theory. Essayson verbaland visual representation (Ch icago , London: Unive ts it y of Chicago Press, 1994) , pp. 11-34[A tep rint o f an ea rl iet v et si on o f the e ssay undet t he the same name, which appeared inArtForum 30, 7 (Ma rch 1992 )] .

2 See David Fteedbetg, The Power o f Images : S tudies in the History and Theory of Response(Chicago: Unive tsity of Chicago Press, 1989); Ftedt ic Jameson, "Transfotmation of the Image in Postmoderni ty", in Jameson, The Cultural Turn. Selected Writings on the Postmodern,1993-1998 (New York, London: Verso, 1998), pp. 93-135. .

3 Douglas Ctimp, "The End of Pain t ing", in Crimp, On the Museum Ruins (Cambtidge, Mass.:MIT P tess, 1993 ), pp. 84 -108 [A tep rint of an e ssay under the same name , wh ich appea redin October 16 (Spting 1981): 69-86].

4 Arthur Danto, "The End ofA rt", in Danto, ThePhilosophical Disenfranchisement ofArt (NewYor k: Columbia University Press, 2000), pp. 81-116; see also his later "Painting and thePal e of H is to ty : The Passing of the Pure" and "Pa in ti ng , Pol it ic s, a nd Pos t-Hi stor ic al A rt ",in Danto, Af te r the End o fArt . Contemporary Art and the Pale o f History (Princeton, NewJersey: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 101-116, and 135-152. For sevetal discussionson Danto's "End of Art", see a special issue of History and Theory 37 (4) (1998). For al at e e la bo ra ti on o f thi s not ion see Donald Kuspi t, The End o fArt (Cambtidge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2004).

5 Yves-Alain Boi s, "Pa int ing: The Task o f Mourn ing" , i n Boi s, Painting As Model (Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Ptess, 1990), pp. 229-244 [A r eprint of an essay of the same name in Endgame:Reftrence and Simulation in Recent Painting and Sculpture. Exh. Cat . (Boston, 1986)]; see a lsoYves-Alain Boi s, A rthu r Colemann Danto, Thi er ry De Duve, I sabel le G raw , David Josel it ,

Naharaim, vo!. 1 ,pp. 81-105 Wal te r de Gruy ter 2008 DOI10.1515/naha.2008.007


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the direction ofthe death of art altogether6 . These various possibilities of closureaccompanied a more general controversy, revolving around the issue of the endof history, addressed most notably by Francis Fukuyama7. The combination ofthese created finally the proclamation of the "end of the history of art" , both asadiscipline and asan ontologico-historical entity, which was announced by HansBelting in his essay "Das Ende der Kunstgeschichte"8 . Both the "end of art" andthe "end ofhistory" are, as iswel l known, interpretative notions, referring to thephilosophy of Hegel. Hegel indeed spoke of a certa in completion of the dutiesof art in the age of the advent of the absolute self-knowing of the spirit, in hisVorlesungen aber die Asthetik9, but he did not proclaim an end to any artisticproduction whatsoever. The notion of the end of history, in its turn , is interpretative in a similar manner, exist ing already in the earl ier work of AlexanderKojeve, who was, like Fukuyama, less interested in Hegel' s metaphysics than inits politico-economical implications. ID

A noteworthy and indeed malignant nuance in this short genealogy ofmourning is the turn of the discussions from the notion of "end" to the notion of "death". It was Martin Heidegger who linked, in 1926, the notions of"end" ("Ende") and "totality" ("Totalitiit"), with the notion of "death" in hisdiscussion of Being-toward-death (Sein-zum- Tod) in Sein und Zeitll. Mfected,more or less directly, by this Heideggerian move, post-st ructural is t theory expressed further concerns regarding the "death of the author" or the destructionof the artwork. 12

The theme itself of the "end of painting" is not an invention of the postmodern age. One ofthe major consequences ofAvant-Garde art, this theme appearedas the call for the liberation of painting from its t radit ional l imitations, leading

David Reed, E li sabe th Sus sman, "The Mourn ing Aftet ", Artftrum International 41 (Match2003),206ff.

6 Geotges Didi-Hubermann, 'Tart meurt, Lart renalt: Lhistoire recommence (De Vasari aWinckelmann)" , in Didi-Hubermann, L' image Surv ivan te . H is to ire de l' a rt e t temps desfimtomes selon Aby 'Warburg (Pari s: Edi tion de Minui t, 2002) , pp. 11-26; F redric J ameson ,"'End of A rt ' o r 'End of H isto ry '?", in Jameson, The Cultural Turn, pp. 73-92; The DeathofArt , Art and Phi losophy vol . 2 , ed. Berel Lang (New York, 1984 ); Gi anni Vart imo, "TheDeat h o r Decli ne of Art", in Vat timo , The End ofModerni ty. Nihil ism and Hermeneut ics inPost-Modern Culture, t rans . Jon R. Snyder (Cambridge, UK: Poli ty Pr es s, 1988), pp. 51-64.

7 Francis Fukuyama, "Refle ctio ns on th e End o fH ist ory, Fiv eYears Lat er", History and Theory34, no. 2 (May 1995 ), 27 -43.

8 Hans Belting. Das Ende del' Kunstgeschichte? (Miinchen: Deurscher Kunstvedag, 1984) .9 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Asthetik, in Hegel, werke in zwanzig

Biinden, ed. EvaMoldenhaue r and Karl Markus Miche l (Fr ankfurt a .M.: Suhrkamp, 1970f f. )vol. 13, pp. 141-142.

10 Mic hael S. Roth , "A p robl em o f Recogn iti on. Alex and re Ko jeve and the End o f H isto ry ",History and Theory 24, no. 3 (October 1985) ,293-306.

11 Mart in Hei degger, Sein undZeit (Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer Ver lag, 2001) , pp. 241-267.12 See espec ia lly Roland Bar thes , "La mort de I 'aureur" , ( 1968) in Barthes, Le Bruissement de la

occasionally to the proclamation of its imminent end.13 The artistic fusion oftwo-dimensional painting and i ts surrounding space, elaborated in the secondhalf of the 20th century by Minimalism, Conceptual Art, and Earth Art, created gradual ly, in the final quarter of the twent ieth-century, the meta-mediumof Installation Art, which indeed manifests the era of "the end of the history ofart". Installations are conceived as spatial environments in which effectively theimage cannot be separated from the organic spat ial whole in which i t isplaced.Insta llation Art was backed up by the Derridean notion of "spacing" (espacement) , one of the intriguing expressions of post-st ructuralis t moves against thesovereignty of the image. 14"Spacing" entails exactly this blurring of the boundaries between an image and its environment. The image was "spaced-out" andarticulated as a continuous movement of differentiation and cavity-formationof the gesture of "writing".

In the 1980's, painting once again became a leading medium, while poststructuralist Iconoclasm still served asits prominent theoretical advocate. Paintings exercising juxtaposi tion and past iche, l ike these of David Sal le and JulianSchnabel, were considered as deconstructive or deconstructed entities, as basedon the plura lity of differences and the dispersal of the cohesiveness of the image.15 Both this painting and the post-s tructuralist theor ies that accompaniedit connected art is tic production to the mournful, melanchol ic, and dispersed"post-modern condition".

In the midst of the mourning period, however , another direct ion of researchand theory was starting to take form and develop. This was the direction thatwil l be the theme of the present paper : the explorations of Byzantine theutgicalicons and the theories pertaining to them. Hans Belting 's Likeness and Presence:A History of the Image befOrethe Era ofArt (1990)16, Moshe Barash's Icon(1992) 17,Charles Barber's Figure and Likeness: On the Limits ofRBpresentation inByzantine Iconoclasm (2002)18, Michael Kelly's Iconoclasm in Aesthetics (2003)19and signif icant passages of Will iam J. Thomas Mitchell 's book, What Do Pic-

13 Bois, "Painting: The Task of Mourning", pp. 236-238; Gloria Groom, Beyond the Easel:Decorative Painting by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis and Roussel, 1890-1930 (New Haven: YaleUnivers ity Press , 2001) , pp. 1-2.

14 Mark Wigley, The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida's Haunt (Cambridge, Mass. : MITPress , 1996) , pp. 69-73.15 See for example Hol land Cot te r, "Decons tructed paint ing: some younger a rt is ts in the 1980s",Art Journal 50 (Spring 1991),79-82.16 Han s Bel tin g, Likeness and Presence- A History oftheImage befOretheEra ofArt, trans. EdmundJephcot t (Chicago: Unive rs ity of Chicago P ress , 1990) [At rans la tion of: B ild und Kul t: E ine

Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zei ta lt er der Kunst (Miinchen: C . H. Beck, 1990) ].17 Moshe Barash, Icon: Studies in the history ofan idea (New York: New York Univers ity Press ,1992).18 Cha rle s Ba rb er, Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm(Pr inceton, NJ: Pnnceton Univers ity Press , 2002) .


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84 AdiEfal Iconology and Iconicity 85tures "Want?(2005)2 are only severa l examples of a field of research that is s ti llexpandingY I understand this interest in the Icon and in Iconoclasm as oneof the manifes tat ions of the controversy around the legit imacy of paint ing andof art and around their life, death, or end. Belting suggested the connectionbetween the Byzantine culture of icons, the birth of pain ting in the WesternEurope, and the employment of the image in fascist polit ica l visua l cul ture.22Marie-Jose Mondzain23 suggested aswell a continuity between the iconoclasticand iconophil ic theories of the Byzantine church and the "economy of images"today.

Indeed the prism ofthe Byzantine Icon, an image subordinated to and standing for an infinite and exterior referen t, becomes a relevant approach to thevisual figure, an alternative to the regime of "simulacral" images in mass-mediaand cyber culture. Byzantine theory of the icon serves as an alte rnat ive modelfor understanding figures and especially paint ings, a model that does not bes tow upon the image absolute sovere ignty, and nevertheless al lows its legit imacy and distinction. Actually, it was already in the generation of "post-moderncriticism" that the iconoclastic attitude started to arise. That was the age of asomewhat "physical" Iconoclasm, which turned violent metaphorical gesturesof fragmentation and disfiguration against images, paintings, and the historiesof art. Many procedures of post-structuralist criticism had iconoclastic character : the sovere ign unified image was dismantled and deconstructed into a figural chain of infinite fragments. Aggressive metaphors of malady, melancholy,mourning, and torment concerning images were (and unfortunately still are)in abundance in the last two decades. For example, Georges Didi-Hubermannpresented an orientat ion towards the "torn" and "broken" image as an alternative to the organicist and holistic methodology of art history.24 Even critical andsubtle writers like Yves-Alain Bois, suspicious of the thesis of the end or thedeath ofpaint ing, st il l retained a model of mourning, though in this case a nonpathologica l mourning-work which is to be carried out properly and brought toits consummation.25 It was actually Bois who noticed the Historicist undertones20 William J. Thomas Mitchell, "Vital Signs/Cloning Terror", "Offending Images", and

"Totemism, Fet ishism, Idola try", in Mitchel l, What do P ic tures \%nt? The L ives and Lovesof Images (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 5-27, 125-144, 188-196.

21 See a lso Icon and WOrd:The Power ofImages in Byzantium. Studiespresented toRobin Cormack,ed. Antony Eastmond and Liz James (Aldershot: Ashgate , 2003); Negat ing the Image: CaseStudies in Iconoclasm, ed. JeffJohnson and Anne McClanan (Aldershot: Ashgate , 2005).

22 Bel ti ng, "Likene ss and Pre sence" , p. 11.23 Marie -Jose Mondzain, Image, icone, economie: Les sourcesbyzantines de l'imaginaire contempo-

rain (Paris: Ed. du Seuil , 1996); Marie-Jose Mondzain, Image, Icon, Economy: the Byzantineorigins of the Contemporary Imaginary, t rans. Rico Franses (Stanford: Stanford UniversityPress, 2005).

24 Geo rge s Didi-Hube rmann , "Limage comme dechi rure et l amor t du d ieu inc arne ", i n,D idi Hubermann, Devant L 'image: Quest ion posee aux f in s d 'une hi st oi re d e l ar t (Par is : Ed. deMinuit, 1990), pp. 171-269.

25 Boi s, "Pa int ing: The t ask o f Mourning" , pp . 243-244.

of the iconoclas tic26 discourse of the end of paint ing, and who proposed tha t aworking-through of this mourning will also entail general and historiographicalconsequences for the discipline of art history.27 It is this path of the relationbetween the thought about the s tatus ofpaint ing and the elucida tion of the fa teand of the responsibi li ty of the discipl ine of the his tory of ar t tha t I sha ll take inthis essay,by ref lec ting upon the model of the Byzantine icon.

I suggest that one of the profound roots of the aforementioned acute stateof affa irs is to be found in the most inf luential , even if controversial , methodical core of art history in the 20th century, i.e. the Iconological method ofErwin Panofsky, developed between the 1920's and the 1950's. The presenceand influence of the Iconological method is to be found not only in ar t-historyresearch, but a lso in ar t c ri ticism and interpretat ion, discourse , exhibi tion andpract ice throughout the 20th century. It 's basic c laim, ful ly concomitant withthe Hegelian c laim for the "end of ar t" , is tha t a full and rigorous understanding(Verstehen) of the "content" (Inhalt) of an artwork isto beachieved bya diggingup of its close affinities, preferably documented and causally demonstrated, withphilosophica l and metaphysica l tendencies of i ts t ime.28 Indeed Panofsky, in aheroic manner, was the chief contr ibutor to the his toriographical opening-up ofthe discipline of Art History from a science rooted in connoisseurship practice,analys is of s tyle, or biographica l explorat ions , to i ts enlarged role amongst thehumanities, as eruditio29 involving the rea lm of Ideas , thought , and the historyofphilosophy. The elaboration of the Iconological method should be consideredas one of the most important conceptua l achievements of the 20th century.

In his Studies in lconology, for example, Panofsky explored the manners inwhich works of distinguished Renaissance artists, such asTitian and Michelangelo, corresponded with, or even act ively interpreted, philosophical tropes oftheir t ime, referring mainly to issues of Renaissance Neo-pla tonism.30 Enigmatic emblems and subjects that demanded identifications lead Panofsky todelve into elaborated and sophisticated processes of excavation of continuoustraditions of affinities between ideas and visual marks. Most of these iconological trai ls drew a delicate l ine of survival of class ical Greek art , Mythology, and

26 Ibid. , p . 240: "[. .. ] as an i conoc las t r eadymade , t he monochrome [ ... ] ."27 Ibid. , p . 230.28 Erw in Pano f sky, " Ic onography and Iconology: An Int roduc tion to the S tudy o f Rena issance

Art", in Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts. Papers in and on art history (Garden City,N..: Doubleday, 1955), pp. 38-41. Pp. 30-39; see a lso Wil liam S. Heckscher, "Die Genesis der Ikonologie", in Ekkehard Kaemmerling (Ed.) , Ikonographie und Ikonologie. Theorien,Entwlcklung, Probleme (Koln: Dumont, 1979).

29 See Erwin Panof sky , "The Hi story o fArt a sa Humani st ic Di sc ipl in e" , i n Panof sky, Meaningin the VisualArts, p. 25.30 Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology. Humanistic Themes in the Art o f the Renaissance (New

York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1939).


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11 Rehabilitating Painting: The Potentiality of the Theory of Icons

31 See also most of the chapters in Panofsky's Meaning in the Visual Arts.32 See for example Michael Ann Hol ly , "Late r Work: An I cono logical Per spec tive" , in Hol ly ,

Panof iky and the Foundat ions of Art History ( Ithaca and London : The Corne ll Uni ve rs ityPre ss , 1984) , pp. 159-193 ; Ono Pacht, "K rit ik der I kono logi e" ( I977), in Kaemmer li ng(Ed.), Ikonographie und Ikonologie, pp. 353-377.

87conology and Iconicity

33 Central examples of this tend ency a re to be fou nd throughout Pano fsk y's Meaning in theVisual Arts, aswell as in his ear lier "Die Perspektive als 'Symbol ische Form' '' , in Vortrage derBibliothek warburg 1924-1925 (Leipzig und Ber lin: Bibliothek Warburg, 1927) , reprintedin Erwin Panofsky, Aufiatze zu Grundftagen der Kunstwissenschaji, ed. Hariolf Oberer (Berlin:Hes sli ng , 1964), pp. 99-168. [Tr ansl ated i n to Engl is h a s Perspective as Symbolic Form (trans.e. S.Wood, New York : Zone Books , 1991) ].

34 The Triumph of Painting - Essays by Alison M. Gingeras, Barry Schwabsk (London: Cape,2005).

sis of the image and the possible atti tude towards its conclusion on the medialreality of painting, has in itself a "non-Panofskyan" character, as virtually all ofPanofsky's studies are indifferent to issues of the specificity and the materiality ofmedium. The iconological cipher can relate to any kind of medium, be i t painting, sculpture, architecture, or other, and it constitutes an absolute continuityof interpretation ofvarious forms and mediums representing the same "theme".As such, the Iconological "symbol" is considered rather as a scheme than as aspecific material reality.33

I further suggest that a rehabilitation of painting as a response to poststructuralis t physical Iconoclasm, detached as much as possible from the discourse of "mourning", can be aided by a return to the theory of icons, createdalso in Byzantium asa response to aggressive theological gestures directed againstimages. Byzantine theologians formulated various re-definitions of the imagethat were directed to its rehabilitation.

As I noted above, in the recent debates revolving around the state of theimage, i t was the place of painting that was underl ined, and thus i t is paintingwhich must be rehabilitated today in contrast to installations, formless art, and"virtual images". Painting, beyond all other media, insists on its specific materialreality, on its distinction from its environment, and on its inner cohesion. Itresists the proclamat ions of i ts end. The important series of exhibi tions, "TheTriumph ofPainting", which took place at the Saatchi gallery in London (20052007)34, points to a renewed confidence in the painted figure, a confidencewhich must be, however, backed-up metaphysically. Post-structuralist criticism,aswe have presented i ts tendencies above, can no longer serve as a inst rumentfor this backing-up and rehabi li ta tion. The proper metaphysical basis shouldbe located beyond the discourse of death, disintegration, rebirth, and survival.Indeed this proposition is consciously highly speculative, and it also demandsthat the person whose research is "solely" historical take a metaphysical stance.

A starting point for this rehabilitation can be an iconic re-definition of painting, a rehabi li ta tion that describes paint ing as the taking place of a dual movement: that of a restoration of an exterior reality, simultaneous with a distinctionand separation from it. This movement separates by distancing. It distinguishesbetween the painted image and every reality it refers to, be it external reality, inner imagery, the divinity, the figure's past, or its cultural "environment".Thus, painting, as an elemental uni t of the figurative, should not be located in a

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philosophy into the early-modern era, thus raising moral and philological issuesrelated with the rise of Humanism.31Though in most cases Panofsky exhibits a remarkable abi lity to present and

analyse philosophical systems, one of the apparent problems of these Iconological studies is that i t entai ls a temptation to present the phi losophical contentin a superficia l, general manner, using it merely as an i llust ra tive tool for solving the visual "cipher". In such cases, both the cri tical view of philosophicalsystems and the singulari ty and specif ic ity of the image are lost. Many otherclaims were raised against this Panofskyan proposition of forming a liaison between art and thought , most of them deriving from the understandable concernabout the consummation of the reality of the work by the abstract reality ofthought.32 Nevertheless, even for "positivistic" critics of Panofsky's Iconology;the assumption is that every relationship between art and thought, even if iti s to be dispelled, is to be conceived primari ly on the basis of the lconologicalmodel . Therefore a cri tique and rehabi litat ion of the Iconological method issti ll indispensable for any re-structur ing of the science of art . Furthermore, asuccessful cri ticism and re-appropriation of the not ion of Iconology could beone of the venues ofengaging with the present crisis in the state of art and morespecifically of painting.

It may be that an enrichment of our understanding of the Iconologicalmethod by the sources of the theory of the Byzantine icon, will enable us tostart a reconstruction of a cognitive-oriented history of images, or rather offig-ures, that will not be threatened by being consumed in the f ire ofIdeas; instead,it will entai l the posing of a distance between figures and ideas by retaining thesovereignty and reality of the past and the coming-into-being of a figure. Inthe present article I shall not present a fully developed integration of Iconologyand lconicity; instead, I shall t ry to aff il ia te , and distinguish between, the twoorientations, and to suggest in what way this affiliation can contribute to anengagement with the aforementioned crisis.

As argued above, I maintain that any current endeavour to re-th ink the statusof western art, and to look for its rejuvenated cohesion in the face of the various post-structuralist gestures of its disintegration, should be made through thereturn to a basic unders tanding and definition of painting. It is worth notingthat my insistence on basing my understanding of the real ity of the current cri-


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88 Adi Efal Iconology and Iconicity 89

Hegelian dialectics of reconciliation and self-knowledge, understood as a Benjaminian dialectical image35, or appropriated in a Heideggerian finite history36.Instead, painting should be understood asa retroactive movement of restoration.

I shall argue further that painting, as a paradigm for the figurative arts andtheir history, is a restoration of a change. I approach "change" from a Cartes ian point of view, asa change in thought, which is the moment of "dis tinction"of "mental attention" (menti attenti ).37 Every dis tinct mental attention, saysDescartes, is also necessarily clear38, that is, i t is present and intuit ively accessible.39 But it is "dist inct" only as long as i t contains only what is clear, a characterist ic which makes the dis tinct perception most precise and separated fromother perceptions. As a thought can be clear without being dis tinct, we usuallyencounter figures only as clear, present to our inspection, but not as separatedand precise asa dist inct perception should be, that is not as exclusively clear.Thetask of the iconic his torian would be then to restore, retroactively, a moment ofdistinct mental attention corresponding to the clearly given figure.

Though this proposition certainly refers to Erwin Panofky's "Iconology"40,I dist inguish between the Iconological and iconic history. Iconic his tory of figures will only start by pointing out, in an iconological manner, s trong analogiesbetween a figure and phi losophical systems of i ts epoch, looking for a synthet icintuit ion of WTeltanschauung.41 Later on, iconic history will articula te the moment of the change of distinction. By posing the "ratio"42 between the figureand its histor ical "background" and present ing the dis tance between the two, i twil l approach, by approximation, the dist inct percept ion of this figure. Hence Iregard my proposition as "rationalising" figurative art-works. This rationalisingposesthefigure retroactively asa repetition of a changein thought. The radical past,the "efficient cause" of this change43 is forever unknown and unseen: but bymeasuring the proportions between, in the terms of Descartes44, that which isknown and that which we do not know in advance, we may approach, by atangent, the change of distinction, which is taken as the unknown in advance,

35 Walt er Benjamin, The Arcades Project, t rans . Howard E iland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press , 1999) , pp. 464,466,475.

36 Heid egger, Sein und Zeit, pp. 382-404. See also Jean-Luc Nancy, "I. :his toire f inie", in Nancy,La communautedesa:uvree (Paris: Bourgois, 1986) , pp. 235-278.

37 Renat i Desca rtes , Principia Philosophia (Amsterdam: Elzevier, 1644) , p. 17, 45.38 Ibid., 46.39 Ibid., 45.40 Panof sky, " Iconography and I conology", pp. 38-41.41 Erw in Pano fsky , "Zum Probl em der Beschreibung und Inhaltsb edeu tung von Werken der

bildenden Kunst" (1932), in Panofsky, Aufiiitze zu Grundfragen derKunstwissenschaft, pp. 9395; Panofsky, "Iconography and Iconology", p. 41.

42 See Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Lati n Dic tionary fOunded on Andrews ' edit ion ofFreund's Latin Dictionary revised (Oxford: Clarendon Press , 1879) , pp. 1525-1527.

43 Ari stot le , The Metaphysics (London: Penguin, 1998) , p. 115 ( l013a-1014a) .44 Rene Descart es, Regula Ad Directionem Ingenii, in Descartes, CEuvresde Descartes, ed. CharlesAdam (Par is : Vrin, 1964), vo! . X, p . 468 (Regula XIX).

and to which we can refer as the "formal cause" of our f igure. Creating a ser ies ofdis tances , from the radical past to the change in thought, through the his toricalcontext and the accepted stories of the history of art and philosophy, finally tothe figure itself, is the task of the iconic historian of figures.

My propositions here are inspired by a reading of the writings of Jean-LucMarion. Marion belongs to a generation of philosophers s ti ll working today (together with Alain Badiou, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Jacques Ranciere) who, duringthe 1980s, moved away from post-st ructuralism, by re-reading and cri ticising,in various manners, German Idealism, Phenomenology, and the writings ofMartin Heidegger. One of the traits of this generation is an awakened confidence in the visual image, apparent in various essays by Jean-Luc Nancy45,Jacques Ranciere46, and Jean-Luc Marion. Marion, as early as 1977, turned tothe theory of the Icon and i ts implications for today's cul ture. Although Mariondescribes his thought as thoroughly phenomenological,47 here I wil l aff il iate i twith what I consider as the dualist temperament of the French philosophicaltradition, from Descartes to Bergson and Deleuze.

French dualism, I argue, is not, as is usually thought, a "mind-body" dualism; instead, it is more accurate to describe it is a dualism of change andresistance, in which change is concomitant with cognitive activity and resistance with the extended reality.48 This tradit ion treated the f igure49 as a resultof the distinguishing-movement (change) of thought, which isitself purely cognitive, unseen, and pre-exist ing, that can be traced only retroactively, and onlyby figures (numbers, symbols, words, or images). In this tradition, which generally considers thought, in Descartes's terms, as "really distinguished"50 fromthe resistant res extensa, figures are the place, the situation, of the two reali ties .The problematic status of the "crossing-point", the "pineal gland" in Descartes'thought may be overcome by defining i t merely asthe place of the two. As such,

45 Jean-Luc Nancy, Le regard du portrait (Paris: Ed. Galilee, 2000) ; Jean-Luc Nancy, Visitation(de la peinture chretienne) (Pa ri s: Ed. Gal il ee , 2001); J ean-Luc Nancy , Au fOnd des images(Paris: Ed. Galilee, 2003).

46 Jacques Rancier e, Le destin des images (Pari s: La Fabrique Ed. , 2003) Espec ia lly pp. 26-31;Jacques Ranciere,"La f in des images est der riere nous" ; in Ranciere, Malaise dans l'esthetique(Paris: Galilee, 2004).

47 Jean -Luc Mari on, Le visible et le revete (Par is : Ed. du Cerf , 2005) , pp. 75-97 , 165-18248 On Duali sm in t he Frenc h t rad iti on , see for e xample Pi erre Monteb ell o, La decomposition

de lapensee. Duali te et empirisme transcendantal chez Maine de Biran (Grenoble: Du Levant,1994); Frederic Worms, Bergson ou lesdeux sensde la vie (Paris: Presses Univ. de France, 2004).

49 See Henri Bergson, Matiere et memoire. Essai sur la relat ion du corps et l 'espri t (Paris: PressesUniv. de F rance, 1999) , pp. 25-39 , 59-69; Gil le s Deleuze , 'Timage de la pensee" , in Deleuze ,Diffirence et repetition (Pa ri s: P ress es Univ. de Fr ance , 1968), pp. 169-217; f or Desca rteson Figures; see Descartes , Regula, pp. 412-417 (Regula XII ), p . 438-454 (Regula XIVXV); for Desca rtes on Images see Rene Desca rtes , Meditations metaphysiques (Paris: PressesUniv. de France, 1979) , pp. 156-159, 169-177; Jean-Frans:ois Lyotard, Discours/Figure (Paris:Garnier-Flammarion, 1979).

50 Desca rtes , Meditations metaphysiques, pp. 172: "reali mentis a corpor dis tinctione."


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90 Adi Efa! Iconology and Iconicity 91figures have no metaphysical status of their own, only a heurist ic one. Thoughthis sta tement obviously can be difficult for an art historian or for the artist toaccept, as i t denies the image its metaphysical priori ty, I suggest that this l imitation of the status of the image-f igure is a fruit ful s trategy, orientated towardsovercoming the contemporary cris is of the figure and i ts science. In fact the arthistorian Henri Focillon constructed, during the 'forties, a historiosophy of figures (formes) quite close to what I have just described, and he may be regardedas a precursor of my present suggestion. 5I I read Marion's theory of the image, despite his alleged Heideggerianism, also asbelonging to this distinguishedtradition.

III Jean-Luc Marion's Theory of the Image andthe Task of the Iconic HistorianMarion's apologetics of the image saves painting from damnation, without either "killing" it or "reviving" it, and it is actually situated elsewhere than theproblem of the vitality or the death of painting. Marions' apologetic argumentleans most ly on the iconophil ic wri tings of the Byzantine era, which suggestedtheological justifications of the use of images in the Christian theurgy. For Marion, the exterior "unseen" is that which has not yet arr ived to vis ibili ty: it is thepossibly visible, that cannot, however, be predicted in advance. 52This possiblyvisible has temporal aswell asspatial characteristics. It is described by Marion asa void (un vide) and as depth (la profondeur).53 As I understand Marion's suggestion, we should actually distinguish two "unseens". The figure constitutes the"ratio" between these. They are: 1) the radical, actual past , the efficient cause,that-which-was, which can only be approached by a negative tangent, whichis resistant to change, and which, for the iconic historian, is to be identifiedwith the resextensa; 2) the cogni tive change of dist inction, equivalent to the rescogitans, which the figure retroactively restores. Aswe try to locate ourselves ina radically dualist frame of discussion here, it must be assumed that thoughtcan restore or distinguish only itself It isentirely self-referential. This iswhy thescience of history, being carried out, after all, by our cognitive faculties, can onlyexist as the history of thought i tself In other words, every history isa history ofthought. On this specific point, of course, iconic history and Icono.l0?y a?ree.The figure isnecessarily restorational: it restores the change of dlstInctlon ofitself, and carries with (and not within) itself a radical exteriority which is its

51 Hen ri Foci llo n, Vie desfOrmes (Paris: Presses Univ. de France, 1943) .52 Jean-Luc Marion , De surcroit: Etudes sur lesphenomenessatures (Paris: Presses Univ. de France,

2001), p . 131 .53 Jean-Luc Marion, La croiseedu visible (Paris: Presses Univ. de France, 1996) , p. 16; Je~-LucMarion, The Crossing of the Visible, trans . James K. A. Smith (Stanford: Stanford Umverslty

Pr es s, 2004) , p . 4 ; Engl ish pages f ol lowing the F rench ones.

not-having-been unti l a specif ic historical point. Restor ing a relation betweentwo moments, the moment of history with a certa in figure and the moment"preceding" it (which "in itself" is non-articulable), is the basic ratio that theiconic his tory of f igures searches to art iculate. This ratio also necess itates a rehabilitation of the history of thought - beyond and after a description of ahis torical environment, or of corresponding systems of thought, according tothe demands of iconological research. I t does so by making changes of dis tinction seen in it retroactively; such changes of distinction that it was and is onlypossible to restore through the certain figure. Therefore, there is a close affinitybetween the mechanism ofthe figure and the mechanism of the iconic historian:they have both a historical and restorative task.

It must be noted, in comparison, that Panofsky also bestowed an inherentlyhistorical nature onto the image, enta iling the essentia l relation between theimage and the past. In a way, all of Panofsky 's "cases" concern the manners inwhich visual images take upon themselves the task of the memory and survivalof forms of the ancient world. But inasmuch asthe nature of the figure in iconichistory is restorative, i.e. to "bring again to the crown" the two pasts consideredas lost, the nature of the image for the Iconologue is conservative: i .e. i ts work isto retain and sustain a tradi tion which is always present .

Returning again to the discussion of spatial parameters of the iconic situation, Marion describes the iconic image as the crossing-point between spaceas void ("ideal space"), which is radically external and transcendent , and spaceas actual phenomenon ("real space"), which is immanent to the painted reality, an actual or potential container of objects, both depic ted and rea154 Thecrossing-over between plain reali ty and the never present void refers to centralarguments of the Byzantine theory of the icon. The icon, as it was presented byJohn of Damascus, permits a "confused knowledge" of the prototype: the iconis the "type" of that which comes before the "type" - the pnito-type.55 In myview, differing from Marion, the icon isactually not a crossing-point but strictlya point, a f igure which is rigorously cogni tive and which allows a retroactive,heurist ic situating of the figure with a specific change of dis tinction (a formalpast). Thus, the figure is not a cohesive unit of spirit and matter, but a restoration of two intensities: the intensity of that which was, and the intensity of thechange of distinction. In this way, knowledge of a figure's formal (not efficient)cause is possible: a knowledge of the change in thought it restored, one of itstwo proto-types, ispossible by striving to restore retroactively the distinct formthat the clear figure entailed. The radical past, though, like the Divinity in thethought of Dyonis ius the Areopagite, can be only approached approximately

54 Marion, The Crossing of the Visible, pp. 15-17, pp. 2-555 Ib id. , p . 125 , p . 69 . Ma rion cite s John o f Damascus, "Against Tho se who Refuse Icons", i n

John of Damascus, The Orthodox Faith, inJaques-Paul Migne ed. , Patrologia cursus completus,series Graeca, vo!. 94 (Pa ri s: Lutet iae Pari siorum, 1857-1886) co! . 1241a , 1341a .


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92 AdiEfal Ieonology and Ieonicity 93and in a "negative" manner.56 Nonetheless, i t should be emphasised stronglythat the resextensa, i .e . the radical past, as well asthe change of distinction thatthe iconic historian restores, are not in any way "hidden", "covered", or "encrypted" by the figure. Our two prototypes, the radical past and the formal past,are just inherently non-visual. Their nature is simply other than visible. Onlythe figure, posited as the separating-distance (ratio) between the two pasts , hasthe capacity to clear visibil ity. I t is the responsibili ty of the iconic historian, asof the painter, to articulate as precisely as possible this mis-en-scene.

I accept Marion 's supposition that the transcendent unseen isa requisite forany restoration of the status of painting and of its science today. Yet I arguefurther that this unseen cannot be understood for this latter as the theologicalgift ofthat which has not yet been seen. Essentially, Marion's notion of the "notyet-been-seen" maintains the structure of the TOward (Zum) of the Heideggeriansystematisation ofphenomenological intentionality, and has furthermore strongapocalyptic overtones. The "unseen" should instead be referred to as the pastsof the figure: the efficient cause and the formal cause; the not-having-been of aspecific figure, and the change of distinction the figured restored.

The question of the Icon, in Mar ion's writings, as in the Byzantine documents, such as those of Dionysius the Areopagite (presented in L'idole et le dis-tance), John of Damascus, or the documents from the second council of Nicea(Presented in la croiseedu visible) is intertwined with the quest ion of the idol.There are in general three stages of Marion 's discussion of the Idol: 1) In l'idoleet le distance (I 977), Marion first presented a conceptual definition of the idol,issuing from a critique of onto-theology, trying to think its limits and beyondthemY 2) In La croiseedu visible (I 991), Marion discussed the paradoxical nature of painting as idolatrous and as iconic, and suggested a continuous routebetween perspectival painting and the Byzantine icon. 3) In Du surcrozt (2001),though, Marion suggested a more overtly iconoclastic attitude, which identifiesthe painterly experience itself, at its peak moments, as idolatrous58, while iconic"experience" ispossible only by the ethical recognition of the face of the Other,following Uvinas and his philosophy of exteriority59 . Marions' latest book dealing to a certain extent with visibility, Le visible et le revele (2005), abandonsthe notions of icon and distance and concentrates instead on the notion ofthe saturated phenomenon, while insisting on the phenomenological character

56 Evident ly, in Marions' s wr it ing ther e i sno discus sion of the d iv in ity of the past . The radicaldis tance refers always and exclusively to the Divinity. See L'idole et la distance - Cinq etudes(Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1977); The Idol and Dis tance. Five Studies , t rans. Thomas A. Carl son (New York: Fordham Univers ity Press , 2001), English pages following the French ones;pp. 180-253,137-195.57 Marion, The Idol and Distance, pp. 27-38,265-269, pp. 9-19,207-210.58 Marion, De surcrozt, pp. 65-98.

59 Ibid., pp. 125-153.

of his research. Here, I believe, Marion 's thoughts ceases to be relevant to ourendeavour to rehabili tate painting and the history of art.In al l three former books, however, it is asserted that the present age is anidolatrous one. Marion identifies that which Mitchell has identified as the "Pictorial Turn" with a crisis of the image, which he terms "le desastre de l'image"6o:This isthe visual regime of the idol61 in which Being isidentified with "beingperceived" or "imagined"62. The universal aspi rat ion is to be perceived as apublic image, due to the fact that the invisible isconsidered as inexistent. Western contemporary culture contains only images of images.63 Nietzschean perspectivism64 and the declaration of the "Death of God", according to Marion,fostered the on-going self-imitation of the viewer or of the author as genius.65In La croisee du visible, the notion of the idol is presented as pertainingto an overly impressionistic att itude towards images. In the idol, the visible,and more precisely the flat-surfaced, visible impression, is wholly exposed andoffered to the viewer66.The idolatrous era makes the invisible disappear in thetechnology of reproduction and repetit ion, and thus prevents the advent ofanything new. In Du surcrozt,Marion argues that the idol defines that which theviewer can support of the plenitude ofphenomenality, the maximum of intuitiveintensity which I can endure while gazing at a spectacle distinctively visible.67Like Lacan's "Mirror-stage" mechanism68, the idol reflects and strengthens theself-image of the beholder.69 Idolatrous images inscribe the viewer in total visiblephenomenality by achieving his total fascination.7The notion of the idol thus presented may help to explain why we stilllack a metaphysical basis for the "triumph of painting". Painting, if it is tobe considered as an idol, has no need for an external bias; instead, it is seen,it is contextualised by a net of other images, and this is enough for creatingan over-flowing, indulgent, and auto-idolatrous effect of ?'leaning. Hencefortheven inter-textual efforts, of doubtlessly iconological nature, stating the affinitiesbetween a given artwork and similar "concepts" or "tropes", are actually, fromthe iconic historian point of view, idolat rous. The nihi listic visibi lity of ourepoch isimmanent to itself and has no need for any explanatory exteriority. An60 Marion, The Crossing o/the Visible, pp. 146,83.61 Marion, De surcrozt, p. 71.62 Marion, The Crossingo/the Visible, pp. 142,80.63 Ibid. , pp. 96, 5264 See also Marion's discussion of Nietzsche in Mar ion, L'idole et le distance, pp. 11-49, pp. 27-78.65 Marion, The Crossing o/the Visible, pp. 144-145,81-82.66 Marion, De surcrozt, pp. 95-98.67 Ibid. , p. 73 (my translation).68 Jacques Lacan, "Le stade du mirroir comme formation de la fonction duJe" , (1949) in Lacan,

Ecrits (Paris: Ed. du Seuil , 1966), pp. 93-100.69 See a lsoHubert Damisch, The Origin o/Perspective, trans . John Goodman (Cambridge, Mass. :

MIT Press, 1995), pp. 116-126.70 Ibid. , p. 73.


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94 AdiEfal Iconology and Iconicity 95idolatrous approach to painting invites an idolatrous history of images, in whicheither the image is considered as the first and final object of investigation, ora net of inter-textual analogies supplies the "content" for explaining an image.In either of these cases, a se lf-sufficient position leaves no place for the realexteriority of the specific past

For the iconic historian, who is engaged in "figuring-out" a work, even themost "contemporary" work exis ts as a past-phenomenon, as something whichhas been seen, even if only a moment ago. Thus any work of understanding, asany work of painting, i.e. any iconic-figurative act, isrestorative and henceforthhis torical in a radical sense. For Panofsky, though, nei ther the absolute nor theradical past exists assuch: historical time, and more precisely historical momentsofs imultanei ty are "created not by the coincidence (Zusammenfallen) of two ormore isolated phenomena in a natural point in time but rather merely by thecoincidence of two or more frames of reference (Bezugssysteme) in one [.. . ]st retch of t ime."71 Fully neo-Kantian at this his toriosophical point , Panofskyposes frames of reference as the absolute condi tion for the existence of the pastashis tory. For an iconic his torian, though, the radical past real ity isprior to anyset of condi tions of possibil ity. Therefore, the iconic histor ian displays indeedan Iconoclastic att itude, not so much towards images, as towards the schematicsets of reference that are used to construct and reconstruct the past.Marion presents his attitude towards the contemporary sta te of the imageexplicit ly as iconoclast ic72. Iconoclasm, as he presents i t, is an iconic attitudetowards the image, a doctrine of the visib ility of the image and the uses of thisvisibility. The icon, according to the council of Nicea II (787 AD)73 necessitatesrespectful veneration, but not adoration. Iconic history of figures and respectfulveneration, instead of adoring the charming image for itself, rationalise the figureas standing-after its two prototypes, being itself the separating-distance (ratio)between the two: that which was, i.e . its past, and the change of distinction.This kind of respectful veneration allows the past its right to resist, exactlybecause it exists asexcessive, always capable of being that which isre-configuredretroactively by drawing attention to new changes of distinction.In an iconic posi tion towards the f igure and i ts histor ical explanation, the f igure iss tudied asa "type" of a change implying necessar ily the res is tant exis tenceof the past. Iconic art history will look for a truth that is neither an abstract nora conceptual one. It is historical: a truth of a moment of change of distinction.Thus the "object" of the iconic historian should no longer be identified withthe "painted object" itself, but with its "moment" of generation, the change it71 Erwin Panof sky , "Ref le ctions on Hi sto ri cal Time" , tr ans. J. Baumann, Cri tical Inquiry 30

(Summer 2004) , p. 699. Erwin Panof sky , "At ranslat ion of 'Zum Problem der hi st or ischenZei t' '' , in Panofsky, Aufiatze zur Grundfragen der Kunstwissenschaft, ed. Hari ol f Oberer(Berl in: Spiess, 1985), p. 81.

72 Marion, The Crossing a/the Visible, pp. 105,58.73 Ibid., pp. 107,60.

was i tself a restoration of. This would entail , then, that iconic history is actuallyarcheology, striving to distinguish the "arche" (ap)(T]), the generative beginning,of a figure.

IV Perspectival and Iconic History ofArtIn La croisee du vis ible, Marion carries out a comparative examination of perspective paint ing and the icon. Following his lead, we suggest then two complementary modes of art history to be dist inguished from each other: Perspectivaland Iconic. Perspectival History, which isclosest to Iconology, explains the visible symbol by its invisible "background" which it makes, paradoxically, visible.Closer also to cul tural his tory or visual studies, it contextualises the figure, digsup a hidden "conceptual" reality covered by the work, and may reveal strongparal lels between philosophical systems or ideas and visual f igures. This interpretative att itude isrooted in the Platonic and neo-Platonic theory of art, whichwas actual ly the subject of one of Panofsky's fi rst research-projects. In his ear lyIdea74, Panosky indeed laid the theoretical ground for his later iconologicalmethod. In this magister ial essay, Panofsky presents the genealogy of the presentat ion of beaut iful artwork as a mimetic image (EIKWV, EIKova) of absoluteand abstract Idea (noos), in a narra tive deployed from Plato to Bellori (17thcentury).

Not only the image, then, but also the scientist of images is occupied withthis "Platonist-Idealist" project. Therefore in order to decipher the "documentalsense" (Dokumentsinns)" or the "essential sense (Wesenssinn)" of the image75,the iconologue must synthesise his subject ive "original comportment expressing a world-view" ("weltanschauliches Urverhalten") with the objective generalhis tory of the spiri t ("al lgemeine Geistesgeschichte") .76 The'specific sense ofthe historical object then is to be construed from a mixture of neo-Kantian ,Platonist, and "Idealistic" components.

Iconic History of the figure, in its turn, with the preliminary aid of theperspectival excavation of its analogies with the "general history of the spiri t" ,will work to change retroactively that which was by exploring the figure as aspecific historical change of distinction.

74 Erwin Panofsky, Idea. Ein Bei trag zur Begri ff igeschichte der alteren Kunst theorie (Berlin:Hessling, 1975).

75 Those two not ions are taken from Karl Mannheim. See Panofsky, "Zum Problem der Beschre ibung und Inhal tsbedeu tungvon Werken der bil denden Kuns t" , p. 93.76 Ibid., p. 95.


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96 Adi Efa! Iconology and Iconicity 971 Art and philosophy after the "End of History':'Arthur DantoDanto's declaration of rhe end of art can be understood as resting on an idolatrous conception of the image, as he argues rhar rhe original historical responsibil ity of painting was the cognitive development of the representation of visualreality,?? and rhat as photographic and cinematic images came into existenceand the age of high modernism ended (in which the task of the visual artworkwas first and foremost philosophical), visual art lost its right to insist on itshistorical agency and was eventually left only with the liberty of pluralism andof experiencing with endless variations.78 Belting's proclamation of the end ofthe history of art actually also depends on an active submission to the requisitesof the pluralistic post-historical era. Marion's arguments go in the opposite direction: painting exisrs only as separate and "distanced" from the reproductionof reality. From the point of view of the iconic historian, the figure was and isalways "philosophical", in the sense that it restores a hitherto un-distinguishedchange in thought. The figure is required (i.e. caused) asa restoration of change,i.e. of the reality of thought. The historical responsibility of painting must indeed only be ventured when it is released from its illusionistic duties in orderto take on the responsibili ty of figurabil ity. This lat ter should not take on itselfagain the task of technical representation, of a more powerful formalism, or ofmourning for "reality". Instead, the figure always works for a historical truth.Contrary to Danto, who questions the historical responsibility of painting intoday's culrure (under an essentially Hegelian definition of historical responsibili ty), I argue that historical reali ty is the exclusive reference-point of bothpainting and art history. And again in opposition to Danto, who differentiatesbetween historical significance and philosophical significance, since he suggeststhat philosophical questioning is sti ll possible in a post-historical era,?9 I suggest that philosophy and history are non-detachable terms, since thought existsasspecific change. It isinherently historical, a fact which does not make philosophyrelative or pluralistic, but indeed makes it necessarily specific. 80

In a today's culture, the icon isone of the few elements that can stil l demandauthority and hierarchy,8l due to the fact that it exists as cohesive with its prototype. As iconic, painting has grave responsibil ity, that of authority. And as Isuggested above, the authoritative source of a painting does not necessarily haveto be understood in theological terms or in terms of the artist genius. It can alsobe understood as the not having been of a certain figure, i.e. the specific pastof a figure. With this, a separating distance is created, one that distinguishes77 Danto, After the End ofArt, pp. 137, 140;Danto, The Philosophical Disenfranchisement ofArt,p. 107.78 Ibid. , pp. 114-115; Danto, After the End ofArt, pp. 114,150.79 Seefor example Danto, After the End ofArt , pp. 33-35, 114. . "80 SeeHenri Bergson, La pensee et le mouvant (Paris: PressesUmv. de France, 2003), p. 1, Ce

a certain figure. The process of rationalisation of a figure distinguishes it bothfrom its past and from its cultural "background", by seeing as exactly aspossible,what, in a figure, is not commensurable with what we know of the history ofideas, and by taking this "difference" seriously, as a call for a rehabilitation ofthis history itself.

2 Distance and IconicityHal Foster ends his book The Return ofthe Real with a declaration of the importance of "Crit ical Distance" for coping with post-modern visual culture.82 ForMarion, too, distance is required, but this time it is not a "critical" and "contextualising" distance, but the radical distance between the prototype and the"givens". Iconic history, in its turn, demands the acknowledgement of a radicaldistance between the two prototypes. The figure itself, thus, is the [traceable]distance between those two.

An idol isan image that lacks distance separating the visible and the unseen,contrary to the icon which isa figure as distance. Referring to the historiographyof art, a distance between the visible and the unseen, between a figure andits radical past which is sought, will not be the full, interpretative, frequentlyintentional-phenomenological distance between the historian and his object. Allthis would sti ll pertain to (idolatrous) hermeneutics. What is required instead isa separating, distinguishing distance, opened by the figure, between its two pasts(radical and formal). The concept of distance can replace the post-structuralistphysico-iconoclastic concept of "spacing" that was mentioned at the beginningof this essay. Distance and the spatial ontology of the figure take us away fromthe rhetoric of "spacing" , from the flat-surfaced movement of difference, becausethey entail the demand for depth, a depth to be found in the radical past. Thus,we can propose replacing the French term "espacement" with the neologism"espassement." Espassement denotes the existence of the past as the res extensa,existing always as seperated and distanced from the rescogitans.

Marion points out another important iconic distance, which exists in everypainting, between the supporting surface (i.e. the canvas or the wall) and thepainted brush-stroke marks, which Marion also refers to as "ectypes"83. Theectypes, again a Catholic term, are the (re-)presentatives of the Prototype. Inpainting, the ectypes are the specific coloured stains; l ike stigmata marks, theyembody the emergence of a figure out of the unseen, as well as the ascension ofthe unseen to the surface of the visible.84

82 Ha! Foster, "Questions of Distance", in Foster,The Return ofthe Real. The Avant-Garde at theEnd ofthe Century, (Cambridge Mass.:MIT Press,1999), pp. 222-226.


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98 Adi Efal Iconology and Iconicity 99

The "type" stands for the f igure i tself, embodying the dis tance (hierarchy)between the prototype and the ectypes.85 AsJohn of Damascus, Dyonis ius theAreopagite and other Byzantine theoreticians of the Icon argued, the prototypeis both radically exterior to and generative of the "ectypes", the visible concretes igns; and these are not mimetic replicas, but distancing gestures. In the midstof the formal existence of the surface of the ground and the surface of thepaint, exists a dis tance, a depth, residing even in the most f lat-surfaced colourf ield painting, a distance which is not i llus ionist ic but mater ial, metaphysical ,and his torical, as it records the successive acts of dis tancing which created thespecific painting.

Distance, ultimately equivalent to ratio and to figurabi li ty itself , is the basicinstrument of the iconic art historian. It serves both asa metaphysical presuppos ition and asthe mechanism for point ing out changes of dis tinction. The searchafter changes of distinction requires a reconsideration of the accepted narrativesrelating to the his tory of thought and to the history of art, aswell asan intervent ion in the habitual narrat ive of the "being-seen" of a f igure. Iconic restorat iondoes not "correct" reali ty into ideal spat iali ty (as in perspectival his tory, whichfits the figure into the pre-existent ideal grid86). Instead, it works in a double gesture of distancing made by subtract ion. Subtracting the "known history" fromthe figure and finding what is not possible expla in through the given historywill leave uswith the formal past ( the change of dist inct ion). Then, subtract ingagain this time the f igure from its formal past, we achieve by approximation, andnot positively but as the background of a silhouette , the residue of the radical,effic ient past of the figure. This process of subtraction can lead to a regressiveseries of distancing gestures of "figuring" the past.

3 Perspective and HistoryA tangled and complicated meeting-point between Panofsky and Marion in ourdiscussion would be their respective views of the perspectival pictorial schemeand its epistemological and moral implications. In fact it is from this pointthat we cease to view Marion's and Panofsky's alternatives as simple "opposites"and start to reconstruct an orientat ion reformulating iconici ty and Iconologyone with the other and one through the other. It is then through the f igure ofperspective that we suggest to take our project a step forward.

First I shall c larifY what I mean by the term "perspectival history of art",referring to Marion's and Panofsky's ideas, and then I shall demonstrate its intricate posit ion in iconic his tory. Marion poses perspect ive asa point of depar turefor the metaphysical unders tanding of western painting87. In contras t to Panof-85 Ibid., pp.n, 39.86 Ibid., pp. 41, 20.87 Ibid., pp. 12-13, 19,26-27; pp. 2, 6, 11-12. In this, Marion agrees with Hubert Damisch,

"Perspect ive, a Thing of the Past?", in Damisch, The Origin o/Perspective, pp. 22-39.

sky,who emphasised the humanistic aspects of the construction of perspective, 88Marion sees perspective as pertaining to a substant ial subordination of the human to the infinite . Perspective, according to Marion, does not adhere only tothe vis ible; ins tead, it acts as the paradox of the visible: the co-existence of idealspace and real space, a co-existence existing also in the structure of the icon.The vanishing point in perspectival painting is an empty point, embodying noobject, manifest ing invisible ideal space in the midst of the painterly real space.In that way, conical perspect ive spat iali ty is not some art if icial formalisation ofseeing, but a substant ial form of visual ity itself , defined (also by Panofsky) as aprocedure of distancing.89

But inasmuch as for Marion perspectival distancing is radical and infinitein its nature and scope, as the radical distance that the icon embodies takes usaway from the subjective "Type" to the absolute "Prototype", for Panofsky, thefunction of perspectival construct ion is mainly a regulative one, embodying theidyll ic equil ibrium between the subject and the object achieved by RenaissanceHumanism. Panofskyobserved quite sharply, that both "Subjectivism" and "Objectivism", are indeed the polar ends of the same tendency, which isthe empiricalone:

The perspect iva l view [Anschauung] , whether it i s evaluat ed and inte rp re ted more inthe sense of rationality and the objective, or more in the sense of contingency and thesubje cti ve, r es ts on the wil l to construct p icto rial space [Bi ldraum], in pr incip le, out ofe lements of, and according to the plan [Schema] of, empirical visual space [empirischenSehraum] .90

I fMarion's dis tance refers to the transcendent-Infinite, then Panofsky's perspect ival dis tance refers to the transcendental-In-finite: i.e. to the finite schemes ofhuman experience.

Correspondingly, in Panofsky's wri tings , we can find a strong correlationbetween the presenta tion of perspectival structure and the theme of Humanism and the Humanist s tance. Humanis t perspectivism, again through the neoKantian prism, acts mostly as a limitation. Panofsky writes: "Historically theword humanitas has had two clearly dis tinguishable meanings, the fi rst aris ingfrom a contrast between man and what is less than man; the second, betweenman and what is more . In the first case humanitas means a value, in the second,a limitation."91 And he concludes:

I t i sfrom this ambivalent concept ion of Humanitas that humanism was born. It is not somuch a movement as an attitude which can be defined as the conviction of the dignityof man , based on both the insi stence on human values ( rati ona lit y and f reedom) and the

88 Panofsky, "Die Perspekt ive al s 'symbolische Form" ', pp. 123-124 ; Perspective as SymbolicForm, pp. 67-68.89 Ibid.90 Ibid., pp. 125-126; p. 71.91 Panofsky, "The History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline", p. 1.

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Iconology and Iconicity 101acceptance of human l imitat ion (fa ll ibil ity and fra il ty); from these rwo postula tes resul tresponsibility and tolerance.92

Humanism, then, and its 19th century representative, the Humanities, workactually as an Archimedean-point berween value and l imitat ion. A humanis tposition then, according to Panofsky, is a regulated one. This Kantian cognit ive trust in "regulative ideas" is also apparent in Panofsky's ear ly and important essay "Der Begriff des Kunsrwollens"93, in which he suggested the fruitfulnotion of the "Archimedean point" of interpretation, as the basis for an examination of histor ical art ist ic phenomena.94 This Archimedean point shouldbe found outside the chaotic and multip le "hyle" of both artistic and historica l data , and should serve as a regula tive point of reference to our historical,artistic , and subjective points of view. The Archimedean point exactly parallels the place of the vanishing-point in perspectival construction, as Panofskypresented i t. The spatial construction of pictorial perspect ive requires an exterior vanishing-point, which will be the support of the "concentration" of theoptico-spatia l cone of rays, and which "embodies" infinite space and even inf inity i tself Indeed, Panofsky shows that some central is ing factor is essentialto all western versions of models for space-presentat ion, at least f rom ancientGreece to 18th century Europe. But even ifthe systematised perspectival model,in its Renaissance apex, indeed was an embodiment of the Infinite, it was nevertheless placed, located, and designed amongst the rational parameters of thecondit ions of this spatial construction of experience. I t is" infini ty not only pref igured in God, but indeed actually embodied in empirical reality."95And thus,perspective, as Panofsky presents it, interiorises and domesticates the infinite.He stresses : "The his tory of perspective may be understood with equal just iceas a triumph of the distancing and objectifying sense of the real, and as thetriumph of the distance-denying human struggle for control."96 The differencefrom Marion's point of view is apparent: Marion insists on keeping the statusof the vanishing-point as standing for an absolutely and radically Other, idealspace, exterior to any positive or palpable experience, while for Panofsky it isthe agent of the human capacity to organise his or her world a priori and aposteriori.

In both vers ions, perspectival painting si tuates the invis ible as the centre ofthe spatial composition. What I refer to as "perspectival history" stems moreclearly from the Panofskyan presentat ion of perspective, but it is relevant , on adeeper level , also to Marion's Heideggerian creed. Indeed, one way to approach92 Ibid., p. 2.93 Erwin Panofsky, "Der Begr if f des KunsrwoI Iens", i n Panof sky, Auf idtze zu Grundftagen der

Kunstwissenschaft, pp. 29-43.94 See alsoAIlister Neher, ' ''The concept ofKunsrwoIIen ', neo-Kan t ianism, and Erwin Pan ofsky's

early art theoretical essays", WOrdand Image 20/1 Oanuary-March 2004), pp. 41-51.95 Pan ofsky, "Die Perspektive als ' symbol ische Fotm"', p. 122; Perspective as Symbolic Form, p. 65.96 Ibid., p. 123; p. 67.

the co~pariso~ berween Marion and Panofsky would be to present it fromth~ pomt .of view. ~f their respective but different a llegiances to the GermanphllosophlC~1 trad~t~on, from Kant to Heidegger. Both Marion and Panofskyadh:re to thl~ tradltlon: The former develops his thought from the question ofthe Ground (Grund), the lat ter, from the construction of Kantian schematism(Schematismus). But it is exactly to both these "German-idealist" orientations,that the present proposition of iconic history strives to formulate a tenablealternative.

Perspectival history holds onto a spatial metaphysics of the "In", which I~egar~ a~s~ccumbing to the regime of Heidegger's "Being-in" (In-sein) .97Them~lll.te IS.I~~~rio~is~~,"int~" t,~e ?ictorial :orld-space, as the meaning of thepamtlng IS mtnnslc to Its bemg-there. In perspectival history, meaning~I?eutung), s~mehow ."dwells" (einraumt), in a dis-closed (unverborgen) status,zn- the-work . (In Heldeggerian language this can be coined the "In-dem- U7erksein.")

It isnot without .si?nificance: even irdisconcerting to mention, that Panofskyact~ally relate~ explICItly to Heldegger s Kantbuch when he discusses ( in 1931)the mterpretatlve ch~racter of art history research, and derives from Heidegger'sapproa~h to Kant hiS own hermeneutical approach of trying to state and todetermme not what the work says explicitly ,,[ ... ] sondern was sie als nochUngesagtes vor Augen legt. "98 The task of the art historian, parallel to that ofthe scholar of philosophical systems, is to state what is hidden, what is notsaid explicitly, in the work. Perspectival research discloses the hidden-unseeninside visuality, and thus makes the unseen in-visible. Panofsky's use of the term"I~trinsic Meaning"99 further indicates this interpretative metaphysics of theeXistence of the content "inside" the investigated object. By contrast to thisPt" I "I (I h . ) 100'" . h'erspec Iva nness, n elt ,ICOlllC Istory of art maintains a metaphysicsof ~er ies, of. t~e "with" and the "beside". The iconic histor ian places the unseenbesIde the vIsible, and thus makes the visible seen-again, seen-after.

Michael-~n ~ollylOI has strongly argued that the discipline of art history cannot divest Itself of its essential perspectival nature. Historical researchof w~stern visuali ty is always orientated in terms of perspective. Indeed, per~pectlval restoration of painting, or Iconology, looks at a painting as pointingbac~ards", or more precisely "inwards", toward an unseen "Idea"; it locates

the vIsible around th is point of idea and inside the conceptual framework issu-

97 Heidegger, Sein undZeit, pp. 104-110,130-134.98 Pano~!'Y' "Zum Problen; der Beschre ibung und Inhal tsbedeurungvon Werken der bildendenKunst , ~. 92 . Panofskys re ference to Heidegger is t o t he lat ter 's Kan t und das Prob lem derMetaphyszk (Bonn: Cohen , 1929) , p . 192ff .99 Pa~ofsky , " Iconography and Icono logy" , p . 40 .100 Heldegger, Sezn undZeit, p. 53.101 MichaeI An; , H~IIy, PastLooking. Historical Imagination and the Rhetoric of theIma e (Ithaca'CorneII Umverslty Press, 1996), pp. 15-23,78-79. g< .

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Iconology and Iconicity 103ing from it. Here the figure isconceived asan "expression" of the idea. It revealsa "covered" "content" of a figure and locates it inside and around the visible.Panofsky himself articulated the perspectival dynamics of expansion and introversion: "Perspective creates dis tance between human beings and things [. .. ]but then in turn it abolishes this distance by, in a sense, drawing this world ofthings [. .. ] into the eye."102

Iconic restoration, asI understand it, will try to arise above this antinomy ofexter ior ity/interiori ty by claiming that the arche, the Archemedean point of acertain figure, cannot be described aslocated either outside or inside the figure,due to the fact that the past of the f igure does not exist "outs ide" or "inside" i t,but with it , a s ituation which is almost impossible to descr ibe in strict spat ialterms. Iconic restoration wil l seek neither for an "inside" nor an "outs ide" tobe found neither "in-front" nor "behind" the figure. Instead, it will seek toidentifY a reason for the existence of the figure existing simultaneously with thefigure i tself Though it wil l use Iconological perspect ivism as a required basis,iconic restoration will not only go from the figure to the "unseen idea", but wil lalso move retroactively from the unseen back to the figure. For this restoration,though, the unseen will not be an Idea, but the dual prototype of the figurediscussed above: its past(s). We can say that in iconic restorat ion, the "Idea"would be the figure itself with its reason (ratio). In fact this formulation comesquite close to one of the defini tions of "Intr insic Meaning" given by Panofsky:" [. .. ] a unifYing principle which underl ies and explains both the visible eventand its inte ll igible significance, and which determines even the form in whichthe visible takes shape."103The only difference between this definition and theiconic explanation would be in the sense of the term "intelligible significance".The latter points to a cipher hidden in the visual shape and thus makes of the"visual event" an essentially communicative one. Iconic history will endeavour topresent the ratio between the figure and its past asa cognitive act of distinction,inexplicable by any net or set of the given history of ideas. The ratio betweenthe figure and its Iconological "Anschauung", as probably most historians willagree, always leaves a gap, a gap that is really a call for a rehabilitation of thehistory of ideas , by articulating a change which took place in this history andwhich was and is only figurable by the specific figure we study. This is alreadytaking Iconology beyond its accepted limits. Moreover, this procedure will enactretroact ive changes of dis tinctions regarding the past . Thus, the radical past isnot a Kantian thing-in-itself, totally inaccessible; instead, radical past, exactlybecause i t never changes, because i t is substantial ly resistant , is that which iseternally and always the subject of figuration and re-figuration, eternally givento rehabilitation and restoration.

102 Panofsky, "Die Perspektive als 'symbolische Fotm" ', p. 123; Perspective as Symbolic Form, p. 67.103 Panofsky, "I conogtaphy and Iconology" , p . 28.

Instead of placing the Idea inside and around the f igure, the iconic historian will place ideas beside it, thus unfolding a series of ratios - of distances.This supports viewing that which isspecific in the figure, that which in the visible figure hangs as un-deciphered by the accepted his tory of ideas , and whichhence requires a rehabilitation of that history, clearly and distinctively. It requiresthinking, by thinking again the intellectual terms of the period, a change whichisnot yet known by them or by us. The perspectival iconological restorer , in order to approach a hidden "Idea", loses his object, the artwork, and "sees beyondit" into the conceptual in-visible. Iconic procedure, on the other hand, wins thefigure back: only because it pre-supposes the radical past, the not-having-been ofa certain figure, asits point of departure, it can aspire to achieve an articulationof the histor ical reali ty of this specific figure, that is, to restore its moment ofdistinction, its moment of appearance on the surface of history.The coming-beside (or rather after) the visible of the unseen isthe product of

rationalising, separating, and distancing the figure from the accepted systematicstories about the history of thought and their subsequent rehabilitation according to the certain figure. Figural real ity helps us to notice lacunae in historicalphilosophical systems and in the ways we relate their stories. Retroactively, theiconic art historian restores the history of the unseen.

Ar1almost final implication of my suggestions will regard the inter-relationbetween History and Art History. It is generally accepted that art history isan historical discipline. Inversely, iconic history suggests considering historical documents themselves as figures , and here i t is the science of history thatwill have to be considered under what is st il l known as "art histor ical" issues.Historical figures, that is to say, documents, textual, material, or visual, alwayscome to us his tor ians in some need of a restorat ion. Usual ly we fi ll the lacunaby using pre-existent, habitual systems of thought. Iconic history puts theseinto question. The historical figure does not "mimic" or "express" or completeany idea. Instead, it res tores a not-yet-seen change in the his tory of thought.The perspectival- Iconological model of history of figures enhances and strengthens the visibility of the current history of thought. It uses what it can learnfrom prepared and accepted material on the history of thought analogous tothe image. On the other hand iconic restoration is occupied with a double,simultaneous cri tique of the history of philosophy and the history of f igures.It seeks to articulate the figure as a point of generation, as a restoration ofa change, an art iculat ion that wil l necessari ly interrupt habi tudes of explanations.

As for ttying to define in a distinct, even ifprimary, manner the relationshipbetween art history, history of philosophy, and philosophical questioning, I shallopen by quoting Panofsky. In Iconological interpretation

we wish to get hold of those basic princ ip les which underl ie the choice and presentat ionof moti fs [. .. ] T o grasp t hese p ri ncip les we need a men tal facult y comparable to that of a


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104 Adi Efal Iconology and Iconicity 105diagnostician - a facul ty which I cannot describe bet te r than by the rather discredited term"syn the ti c in tui ti on" and which may be bet ter developed in a t al en ted l ayman than in ane rud ite scho la r. [ ... ] j u st so [. .. ] mus t our synthet ic i ntui ti on be co rrec ted by an ins igh tinto the manner in which, under varying historica l condi tions, the general and essentialt endenc ies o f the human mind we re exp ressed by spec if ic t hemes and concep ts . [. .. ] I tis in the search for intrinsic meanings or content tha t the various humanistic discipl inesmeet on a common plane. [... ] 104

Several important points arise here. First , i t is obvious tha t there exists a closeconnection between the transcendental bias outlined above, and the interpretative, hermeneutical creed to be found in Panofsky's Iconology. In fact Panofskyins is ts that i t is only when the identification of pictorial themes (Iconography)becomes interpretative, that it becomes also Iconological.I05 Secondly, Panofskyargues that the "diagnostics" of a work of ar t by "Synthet ic Intui tion" isnot dependent upon accumula ted knowledge, but can be performed by the "talentedlayman." The exact meaning of the term "Synthet ic Intui tion" and its relat ionto philosophical reflection should be explored extensively elsewhere, but whatisobvious isthat we are dealing here with a form of "Verstehen", (comprehending, understanding) which derives from a sort of Diltheyan Lebensphilosophie.This is an act (Akt) of grasping the complex unity (Zusammenhang) of the lifeof historical-cultural reality. lOG This wild "irrational" (This is Panofsky's term)capacity should be then regulated by a global knowledge of what cannot but beunderstood as a Universal history of ideas.

Let me present, in conclus ion, my arguments in a formal manner:We have this sequence interlaced by Panofsky asforming Iconological method:

Intrinsic Meaning> [consisting of] Interpretation-as-distancing > [performedby the gesture of] Synthet ic Intui tion> [regulated by] The History of Culturesand Ideas.

This chain can be put in opposit ion to Marion's sequence of Iconic theurgy:Exterior transcendent authority> [consisting of] Orthodox Dogma and hierarchy as radical distance> [performed by the gesture of] Faithful Subordination> [regulated by] sensual phenomenalism.

Iconic history will suggest, between these two sequences, the following third:Dual arche (Radical past and Formal past) > [consisting of] Restoration asespassement > [performed by the gesture of] subtract ion of accepted histories >[regulated by] the figure (real, specific, material document).Allow me to make a fina l remark regarding the relat ionship between history

and philosophy. At the beginning of this essay, I highlighted the need to reintegra te the history of metaphysics into the science of history. But above all, Iargue tha t i t is the discipl ine of philosophy itse lf which in our age requires the104 Panofsky, "Iconography and Iconology", pp. 38-39.105 Ibid. , p . 32. . ..106 See Wilhe lm Dil they, Der Aufbau dergeschichtlichen Welt In den Gezsteswzssenschaften (Frank

furt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1981), pp. 235,255-263,277-278.

discipl ine of his tory, because the lat ter is the only humanist ic pract ice whichstudies a specific change; and thought , is a lways, according to the tradit ion towhich I adhere, aspecific change.107 In contrast to dogmatic or didactic thought,the iconic his torian of f igures goes from the accepted to the generat ive form ofchange repeated by the figure. Bythis, the art historian can make a figure be seenagain, restored and distinguished. He thinks with the moment of the birth of afigure, and waives the idolatrous liberty of mourning. Painters and art historianstoday share the responsibil ity for the future of thought with philosophers andhistorians alike.All of the themes discussed above, of course, should lead us back to the currents tatus of painting, and to the poss ibil ity of rehabil itat ing paint ing through itss tr ic t def init ion as iconic restorat ion. I shal l leave this issue for fur ther spec if icat ion, elaborat ion, and demonstrat ion, while quoting the most precise andsubtle words of the ar t histor ian Henri Focillon: "Lespri t fai t la main, la mainfait l'esprit."108

107 Alain Badiou, L'etre et l'evlmement (Paris: Ed. du Seuil , 1988), especially pp. 95-104, 199213,371-378; Bergson, Lapenseeet le mouvant, pp. 157-176,189-192,211-212; Deleuze,Diffirence et repetition, pp. 1-41, 337-339.

108 "Spirit makes the hand; the hand makes spiri t" , Foc il lon, Vie desftrmes, p. 128.

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Iconology and Iconicity