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

52 Confronting Imageshe remains on the sidelines, he, too, must make a convincing impression,in other words to forever wear the mask of certainty.The history of art will fail to understand the visual efficacy of imagesso long as it remains subject to the tyranny of the visible. Becauseit is a history and because it strives to understand the past, it owes itto itself to take into account—at least where Christian art is concerned—thislong reversal: before demand there was desire, before thescreen there was the opening, before investment there was the place ofimages. Before the visible work of art, there was the requirement ofan ‘‘opening’’ of the visible world, which delivered not only formsbut also visual furors, enacted, written, and even sung; not onlyiconographic keys but also the symptoms and traces of a mystery. Butwhat happened between the moment when Christian art was a desire,in other words a future, and the definitive victory of a knowledgepositing that art must be conjugated in the past tense?