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

250 Appendix: Detail and PanIt is The Lacemaker in the Louvre (Fig. 15), a work that can be saidto exemplify our problem perfectly, if only because its dimensions (21x 24 cm) not only permit close-up knowledge but require it. There issomething ‘‘obvious’’ about the picture, first because the motif isclear, ‘‘without history’’: it doesn’t oblige us to undo an iconographictangle of some sort (it would seem). The painting is ‘‘obvious’’ alsobecause the eye doesn’t even have to sweep the visual field, so narrowis it; and recognition of the motif—the said pre-iconographic recognition—seemsunproblematic: there is a woman and there is thread,fabric, and lace, from which it follows that the woman is a lacemaker.We might expect, faced with so clear and distinct a picture, and moreoverone that’s so small, we might expect that it gratifyingly provideus, on its ‘‘descriptive surface,’’ with nothing but details that are noless clear and distinct. But such is absolutely not the case.Claudel, who was as sharp-eyed as they come, what did he seehere? He saw details, and his deictic—‘‘Look!’’—only inspires confidencein the precision and authenticity of his observations:Look at the lacemaker (in the Louvre) tending to her tambour,where everything—the shoulders, the head, the handswith their double workshop of fingers—directs us toward thepoint of the needle: or the pupil in the center of a blue eyethat is the convergence of a whole face, a whole being, akind of spiritual coordinate, a flash loosed by the soul. 39If we look closer—if we search the painting for the things discussedin the text—we discover that Claudel’s ekphrasis carries to an extremewhat I have called the aporia of the detail (Fig. 16). In effect, if welook for the referents of the description, what do we find? A tambour,yes; shoulders, a head, two hands ‘‘with their double workshop offingers,’’ without a doubt. But I, for my part, don’t see what, accordingto Claudel, ‘‘everything directs us’’ toward: I don’t see any pupilin the center of any blue eye: when it comes to the eyes of the lacemaker,I see only eyelids that, strictly speaking, prevent me from declaringthem either open or closed . . . Likewise, I don’t see the tip ofthe needle that Claudel mentions: however closely I look, I don’t see