The famous book Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes, about the nature of experiencing a photograph, refers to his depth of feeling about a photograph we never see, a photograph of his mother. This picture Lesende (Reader) affects me considerably, but not as much as one of my mother as a young woman leaning on her bicycle. It affects me for reasons I can bring to mind, but also affects me beyond such reasoning. (At first I thought it was a photograph – it is an oil painting in just one of Richter’s extraordinary range of styles.) We are much more than what we think, we are, in addition to that which is known, a mystery – even to ourselves.
The depth of affect (feeling) is determined by the subject, that is by the unique admixture of experiences and personal history each of us has had. But of course most have experiences in common; pleasure, pain, loss etc. The personal history is what determines the exact nature of the punctum, the ‘pain’ we feel when we are grabbed, held and moved by an art object.
Photographs then , or more accurately the experience of them, are created, like other forms of communication, from what the viewer brings added to what the artist provides. That is we ‘read’ a work of art with a combination of what is there, objectively, and what we subjectively bring.
It makes sense to refer to a) the affective resonance as compared to b) the cultural provision by the particular art work. Or the punctum and studium as per Barthes.
‘Resonates’ seems apt because it is a kind of shaking or spasm or feinting – depending on the surprise and depth of the aesthetic experience. We say, “It resonates with me, or “It didn’t resonate with me.” When there is a perfect alignment between the elements of the art object and our subjective self we are ‘swept away’, ‘riveted’, ‘the earth moves’, ‘we cease to exist’ (at least as a reasoning objectifying entity), we are stunned, speechless etc.
Of course the artist/photographer had his/her own co-equivalent to the punctum – the germ and urge to en-form some movement of spirit.
In narrative terms the above picture by Gerhard Richter sets up a host of possibilities – is she reading exam results, a newspaper story, a letter from a friend…… But that is not what takes us in the first place nor we return from the unitive experience of our first encounter is it such possibilities that are the really interesting philosophical payoffs.
For me it is that we are reading, just as she is reading, and it is the intensity of the focus in her reading – the set of her mouth and jaw that creates the power of the piece.
We are also on the edge of intrusion, in the tension of personaal and social space. That’s the punctum for me, that’s where the resonances are. Where are they for you?
SOURCES
Barthes’s Punctum – Michael Fried
What Do We Want Photography to Be? A Response to Michael Fried – James Elkins
LESSON POSSIBILITIES
You need to know more about what Candida Lucida says – start with WikiPedia article.
1 Find different reproductions of the painting – what difference does it make?
2 How would you name and explain punctum and studium in a more accessible language?
3 Have a look at Richter’s other work – an extraordinary range of styles.
4 Do philosophical inquiry lessons (PFC) on the major concerns of the article.
5 Make your own pictures of the Reader picture.
What are your own ideas for yourself or your class.
SOME QUESTIONS
What is a Camera Lucida and why might it have been a metaphor for Barthes
How and in what way is each mind, or soul, a Camera Lucida?
Is the use of a camera Lucida cheating? (See the whole debate started by the painter David Hockney)
What are your own questions for yourself or your class?
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Soul Needs - One Garden 