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

228 Confronting ImagesNow this heavy constraint also breached the world of images, whatwe call the images of Christian art, the image-objects that have beensuch a focus of the discipline of the history of art. It affected themintegrally, structurally—in ways that extend far beyond its mereiconographic implementation, for example. Beyond the ‘‘theme’’ or‘‘concept’’ of death, a constant work of oscillation—of ebb andflow—has agitated the Western image: between ruse and risk, betweena dialectical operation and the symptom of a rend, between afiguration always posed and a disfiguration that always interposes. Itis a complex interplay of imitation and incarnation. Before the firstwe grasp worlds, we see. The image is posed before us, it is stable,susceptible to having ever more knowledge drawn from it.* It excitesour curiosity endlessly through its representational configurations, itsdetails, its iconological riches. It will almost ask us to go ‘‘behind theimage’’ 183 to see whether some key to the enigma might not still behidden there.Before the second, the ground collapses. Because there exists aplace, a rhythm of the image in which the image seeks something likeits own collapse. Then we are before the image as before a gapinglimit, a disintegrating place. 184 Here fascination becomes exasperated,reverses itself. It is like an endless movement, alternately virtual andactual, powerful in any case. The frontality where the image placedus suddenly rends, but the rend in its turn becomes frontality; a frontalitythat holds us in suspense, motionless, we who, for an instant,no longer know what to see under the gaze of this image. Then weare before the image as before the unintelligible exuberance of a visualevent. We are before the image as before an obstacle and its endlesshollowing. We are before the image as before a treasure of simplicity,for example a color, and we are there-before—to quote the beautifulphrase of Henri Michaux—as if facing something that conceals itself. 185The whole difficulty consisting in being afraid neither of knowing,nor of not-knowing.*susceptible d’un savoir à tirer d’elle toujours plus avant.