georges didi huberman, confronti... - lensbased.net

86 Confronting Imagesby a new angel of the resurrection who christened himself the Historianof Art (Fig. 3). In the angel’s hand there shone forth a torch—andthrough it that concept essential to the whole Vasarian problematic:eterna fama, the Eternal Renown that, in its conjunction of two simplewords, already stated that collusion of ethical, courtly, and politicalideals with metaphysical and gnosological ones that gave foundationsto this new knowledge about art.We are heir to all that. Directly or indirectly. When we contemplatethe ‘‘history-of-art’’ phenomenon over the long term, when wequestion its practice in general, we cannot help but be struck by thecontinuous and insistent movement of its ends. The fascination withits biographical component remains intact; it manifests itself today asan obsession with monographs, and in the fact that the history of artis still massively recounted as a history of artists—works of art beingcalled upon more often as illustrations than as objects of the gaze andof interrogation. The mania for clinical judgment has found a newfield of application in the inappropriate use of psychopathology andpsychoanalysis. Nor has the binary interplay of rules and transgressionsceased: stylistic reference points are constituted as the discourseunfolds, with licenza diverting bad painters downward and geniusesupward. Over the extent of these deviations there reigns a scale ofvalues so tangible as to be readily translatable into monetary terms.So the courtly ideals of Vasari’s history have not disappeared: theyhave become ideals—but also realities, ‘‘needs,’’ as they say—of amercantile order. We lack a recent sociology or even ethnology of thepopulation that now, between auction rooms and art galleries, betweenprivate prestige and public museums, between the marketplaceand the scholarly community, makes art ‘‘live.’’ 2 None of which activityprevents the constant ebb and flow of the ‘‘death of art’’ and its‘‘rebirth.’’ Whether one considers them a cause for celebration or acause for concern, such ideals are integral to the discussions now takingplace everywhere about art and culture in general. The idealshave perhaps been inverted; but to invert a metaphysics is not tooverthrow it—it even amounts, in a sense, to renewing or extendingit.However, this model of continuity remains quite vague and still