BROADFOOT K. Perspective-Damisch W Lacan

Damisch with Lacan
Keith Broadfoot

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Perspective Yet Again: Damisch with Lacan
Keith Broadfoot
I
In the course of his analysis of the panels with which Filippo Brunelleschi
1. Samuel Y Edgerton, The Renaissance demonstrated the practice of perspective in painting, Samuel Edgerton relates
Kahsccrerj of Una* Perspeaire (Basic Bookl: New
m
gnt i d ng fantasy of time t r avel :
York, 1975), p. 124.
b J
2. E d g e r t o n , 7 7 K Kmamaace Rediscovery of Linear ,
f H G We
|
r s f a m o u s Ume
machine were ever t o be on loan t o our historical fancy, one of the
m
P
ta>rc
- P-
m o r e
fascinating destinations for which we could set the dial would be: Florence, Italy, Piazza
3. E d g e r t o n , 7 7 K Rmaksancc Rediscovery of Unear del Duomo, 1425, on that day (assuming it t o be a helpful and suggestive machine) when a
Perspective, p. 125. short, middle-aged man arrived at the piazza between the Cathedral and facing Baptistery toting
4. E d g e r t o n , 7 7 K Renaissance Rediscovery of Linear * cunously small square wooden panel, and a similarly square mirror.
1
Paspeaive, p. 185
Returning to this point in time, Edgerton proceeds to imagine how we could
watch as Brunelleschi himself 'stands within the portal, looking out toward the
Baptistery opposite, with one hand holding the small painted panel, oddly
enough, obversely right up against his face, and the other balancing the flat
mirror'.
2
Beyond however even observing Brunelleschi himself, the real
fascination of this imaginary return lies for Edgerton in the prospect of taking
into one's own hands this small painted panel with the accompanying mirror
and seeing what Brunelleschi could see: 'If our time machine is generous
enough, we might wait until he [Brunelleschi] suddenly beckons to a passer-by
one of us? to come over and see how good his painting is. '
3
To thus
complete what is suggested by this scenario: responding to Brunelleschi's
invitation we would perhaps move to that very spot at which Brunelleschi had
strategically positioned himself in the portal, and holding the painted panel and
the mirror as he had done so, we would look dirough a small hole in the
painted panel to see the painting as it is reflected in the mirror.
What is so attractive to Edgerton about this fantasy of time travel is the fact
that Brunelleschi's original painted panel is lost. Our only access to it, and also
to the panel in Brunelleschi's other perspective demonstration which he
completed some years after the first, is via a written account by the first
biographer of Brunelleschi, Antonio Manetti, who wrote about Brunelleschi's
panels some SO or 60 years after their initial appearance. Lamenting the loss of
Brunelleschi's two panels and attempting to find some other substantial
documentation of them other than that found in Manetti, Edgerton can only
end by regretting that 'sadly, we must conclude that, except for Manetti's own
recollection, no other trace of how these two pictures appeared has survived
the fifteenth century'.*
I have commenced this article on perspective by drawing attention to how
Edgerton frames his own study of the subject because, although it may seem as
if what Edgerton relates would suggest nothing more than that idle reverie into
which any historian may fall, some other more profound significance suggests
itself after we read that Hubert Damisch, in introducing his book, The Origin of
Perspective, proposes that:
The notion of a 'history of perspective' has no meaning except as It relates t o the movement,
constitutive of the paradigm as such, t hat continuously prompts a return t o its own origins,
logical as well as historical, and perhaps even mythic. If there is any aspect of perspective t hat
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS OXFORD ART JOURNAL 25 I 2002 71-94

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Keith Broadfoot
is worth examining yet again, It is t his movement, always resumed and always resumaWe,
because always obstructed and of necessity destined t o failure, there being no origin save one
t hat Is an Invention, In all senses of the word.
0
In this article I want to discuss the nature of the return that Damisch speaks of
here, examining how it is possible to understand the seemingly paradoxical
idea that a continual return to the origin of perspective does itself constitute
the very history of perspective. To do this I will be arguing that, in order to
fully comprehend the theoretical and methodological ambitions of Damisch's
book, it is necessary to elaborate upon the underlying debt that his work owes
to the ideas of Jacques Lacan. I will be elaborating upon this relation to Lacan
not, as has been done by Margaret Iversen, 'to allow Lacan to respond to
Damisch . . . because Lacan's own understanding of perspectival representa-
tion is very much at odds with Damisch's
1
. Rather, it will be to highlight the
subtle interplay between Damisch and Lacan, drawing attention to how
Damisch is able to offer a remarkable explication of some of Lacan's more
enigmatic, but for all that more lasting, observations on the nature of art. Yet,
with this having been said, I will also be following Iverson's lead and arguing
that what should be added to Damisch's analysis of perspective is Lacan's
concept of die real.
I I
What radically distinguishes the analysis of Damisch and Edgerton is how they
approach the loss of Brunelleschi's original panel. For Damisch the fact of the
loss is something other than a simple historical accident, something which is
not necessarily just the unfortunate result of someone's neglect or ignorance.
In a strange way, the loss of the original panel is essential to perspective's
history. What this is to suggest is that, rather than thinking of a separation
between the original panel and its subsequent reconfiguring, it is necessary to
follow the odd thought of how it could be said that Brunelleschi's panel only
exists within the fantasy of its reconstruction, that is, again strangely, how it is
necessary to conceptualize die 'original' demonstration of perspective as being
always already subject to repetition. What is crucially placed in developing
such an understanding of Brunelleschi's demonstration is Manetti's account,
because it is dirough the narrative of his account, Damisch argues, that
Brunelleschi's perspective demonstration passed into history.
7
To examine the ambiguous nature of this moment of entry into history let
us first quote a key passage from Manetti. This is how Manetti recalls
Brunelleschi's original model:
He fir st demonstrated his system of perspective on a small panel about half a oraccto square.
He made a representation of the exterior of San Giovanni In Florence, encompassing as much of
t hat temple as can be seen at a glance from the outside. In order t o paint it It seems t hat he
stationed himself some three braccla Inside the central portal of Santa Maria del Fiore. . . .
Since In such a painting It is necessary t hat the painter postulate beforehand a single point
from which his painting must be viewed, taking Into account the length and width of the sides
as well as the distance, In order t hat no error would be made in looking at it , he made a hole In
the painted panel at t hat point in the temple of San Giovanni which Is directly opposite the eye
of anyone stationed Inside t he central portal of Santa Maria del Fiore, for the purpose of
painting It. The hole was as tiny as a lentil bean on the painted side and It widened conically
like a woman's straw hat t o about the circumference of a ducat, or a bit more, on the reverse
side. He required t hat whoever wanted t o look at It place his eye on the reverse side where the
hole was large, and while bringing the hole up t o his eye with one hand, t o hold a flat mirror with
the other hand in such a way t hat the painting would be reflected In It. The mirror was extended
by t he other hand a distance in regular braccte from the place he appears t o have been when
he painted It up t o the church of San Giovanni. With the aforementioned elements of the
5 Hubert DamUch, The Origin ofPcnpectlrc,
trans John Goodman (MIT Preu- Cambridge,
MA, 1994), p. 47
6. Margaret Iverson, 'Orthodox and
Anamorphic Perspective!', Oiford An journal,
vol. 18, no. 2, 1995, p. 81 .
7. Damijch, The Origin of Pmpcalre, p. 85
74 OXFORD ART JOURNAL 25. 1 2002

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Perspective Yet Again
8. Antonio di Tucao Manetti, The Life of
Brunellachi, trans. Catnenne Enggass (The
Pennsylvania State University Press: University
Park and London, 1970), pp 42-4.
9. Damisch, The Origin of Perspective, p. 1 26.
1 0. Darrusch, The Origin of Penpeaire, p. 1 27.
Fig. i- Brunelleschi's first demonstration.
burnished silver, the piazza, the viewpoint, et c., the spectator felt he saw the actual scene
when he looked at the painting. I have had it in my hands and seen it many times In my days
and can testify t o I t
8
To read between the lines of this explanation of the protocol for using
Brunelleschi's model, what is left unsaid in Manetti's description, and what
Damisch suggests Brunelleschi can be said to have demonstrated, is that in its
operation, perspective implies the projective coincidence of the point of view
and vanishing point. In the model as described, the viewer places himself
behind die panel, positioning his eye at a hole through which to see through
being the Latin meaning of perspective! he will see the painting. It is at this
point behind the panel that the spectator retrospectively, via die relay of the
mirror, establishes his point of view in front of the painting (Fig. 1).
Much of Damisch's analysis of Brunelleschi's demonstration revolves
around the question of why the inclusion of the mirror. What need is there to
introduce a mirror to demonstrate the theoretical suppositions and rules
constituting perspective? Damisch argues that it is the retrospective nature of
the return to the point of view that must be seen as the true significance of
Brunelleschi's use of a mirror because, simply to disclose to the spectator the
place at which he or she would need to stand to produce a painting analogous
to Brunelleschi's, the painting itself would have sufficed. A demonstration
proceeding by means of reflection must therefore respond to another
requirement. What the mirror effects, Damisch argues with direct reference
to Lacan via Panofsky, is a split between the imaginary and the symbolic:
If Brunelleschi's sole Intention was t o localize, by means of the mirror, the point t hat
perspective Is supposed t o designate, the experiment would have had consequences only for
the imaginary. Its demonstration t hat the point of view can be posited, grasped as such, In Its
value and function as origin, only retroactively and by means of a relay mechanism, a
subsequent scansion, t his dl-mostratlo, In the strict sense of the word, provided a rule governing
apportionment between the imaginary and the symbolic. Historically speaking, we would retain
Panofsky's argument t hat the discovery of the vanishing point, Its being brought to light,
chronologically preceded the Invention of the point of view, which was linked t o the assumption,
precisely at the point of the eye, of a 'subject' t o be defined as that of perspective . . .".
Of this rule dividing the imaginary and the symbolic Damisch says no more.
Nevertheless, for Damisch it is because of this rule that the reflection in
Brunelleschi's mirror introduces a movement of return that the whole
'history' of perspective will repeat. What I wish to propose is diat, in order to
understand the nature of this rule, it is here that Damisch's reference to Lacan
needs to be developed. At this point what should be included is what Lacan
adds to, and indeed at times places between, the symbolic and the imaginary -
that is, the category of the real. To establish, dien, the place of the real within
the history of perspective, what constitutes perspective's origin needs to be
considered in more detail.
I l l
What Damisch in fact specifies as the origin of perspective is neither the point
of view nor the vanishing point but that which precedes and creates both, the
hole in Brunelleschi's panel. 'The essential thing', Damisch writes:
The constitutive given of the experiment, the act organizing It as such, the Invention - In the
archaeological sense of the word - was the piercing of a hole in the panel's center t hat defined
something like a 'view'.
10
Before the 'subject's' assignment to a point either the point of view or the
OXFORD ART JOURNAL 25.1 2002 75

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Keith Broadfoot
vanishing point there is a hole. The 'subject' locates itself in this hole. What,
then, is the nature of this hole?
In his seminar of 195960, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, Lacan offers a general
statement on the nature of the existence of art, claiming that all art is
characterised by a certain mode of organisation around a void. Aware of the
seemingly all-encompassing scope of this statement, Lacan adds: 'I don't
believe that this is a vain formula, in spite of its generality, in guiding those
who are interested in explaining the problems of art; and I believe I have the
means of illustrating that to you in a variety of striking ways. '" Intriguingly for
us, perspective is the key example that Lacan uses to substantiate this general
claim. In his discussion of perspective, however, and this is also rather
intriguing in itself, Lacan never mentions Brunelleschi. Nevertheless, despite
this absence, his comments offer a remarkable insight into the significance of
Brunelleschi's place in the history of perspective and why it should be that
Damisch locates Brunelleschi's lost model at the origin of perspective, or
rather, at the basis of the very problematic of the designation of an origin. The
question that arises from Lacan's comments on perspective, therefore, is how
the hole with which Brunelleschi's panel was pierced is to be associated with
the void that Lacan claims all art organizes itself around. This is a question
which allows us to examine the particular conception of history that Damisch
develops in his book.
In Lacan's elaboration upon the general claim that all art is characterised by
a certain mode of organisation around a void, he begins by returning to how
the making of a pot has been mythically placed at the origin of art. Lacan
speaks of the creation of the pot (or vase) in relation to the enigmatic nature of
what is referred to as das Ding the Thing:
I posit the following: an object, Insofar as It Is a created object, may fill the function that
enables It not t o avoid the Thing as slgnifier, but to represent It. According t o a fable handed
down through the chain of generations, and t hat nothing prevents us from using, we are going
t o refer t o what is the most primitive of artistic activities, t hat of the po t t e r ."
To speak of both the potter and the Thing, Lacan is here referencing
Heidegger's discussion of both in his article, 'What is a Thing?'.
13
Heidegger,
Lacan says, is 'the last in a long line to have meditated on the subject of
creation; and he develops his dialectic around a vase. '
l+
What is immediately
important for Lacan in Heidegger's discussion of the vase and the question of
the Thing, is that for Heidegger the vase as die Thing is not to be understood
and diis initially strikes one as strange as an object in Cartesian space. The
significance of this distinction lies, for Lacan, in how he is understanding the
creation of the vase as being equivalent to the creation of the signifier. What is
crucial here, Lacan proposes, is that if the vase really is a signifier:
And t he first of such signlfiers fashioned by human hand, it is In Its signifying essence a
signifier of nothing other than of signifying as such or, in other words, of no particular
signified.
16
The first signifier is dien a pure signifier, what Levi-Strauss would term a
floating signifier. It is a signifier without any signified or any real reference.
This absence of content nevertheless emerges, Lacan specifies, through the
form of the vase:
This nothing In particular t hat characterizes It [the vase] In Its signifying function is that which in
it s Incarnated form characterizes the pot as such. It creates the void and thereby Introduces the
possibility of filling it . Emptiness and fullness are Introduced into a world t hat by itself knows
11 Jacques Lacan, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis,
ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Dennis Porter
(Tavistock/Roudedge: London, 1992), p 130.
12. Lacan, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, p. 1 1 9.
1 3. See Martin Heidegger, ' What is a Thing?' ,
in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert
Hofstadter (Harper & Row: New York, 1971).
14. Lacan, The Ethics of Psychoanalysts, p 1 20.
1 5. Lacan, The Eihta of Psychoanalysis, p . 1 20.
76 OXFORD ART JOURNAL 25.1 2002

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

16. Lacan, 77K Ethia of Psychoanalysis, p. 120.
17. Lacan, The Ethia of Psychoanalysis, p 121
18 Lacan, 77K Ethics of Psychoanalysis, p 121.
19. Lacan, 77K Ethics of Psychoanalysis, p. 122.
not of t hem, It Is on the basis of t his fabricated signifler, this vase, t hat emptiness and fullness
as such enter the world. . . .
1S
The point to stress here is diat the vase creates the void. What this means is that
there is not a void that pre-exists the vase, the void is not to be understood as
located in reality as such, something which could be found to be already
existing in nature. Rather, the void is to be situated in what Lacan designates as
the real. It is thus in relation to this association between the void and the real
that Lacan's proposal of how all art is characterised by a certain mode of
organisation around a void needs to be considered.
With this focus upon the creation of the void, it is evident that Lacan is
drawn into speculating upon the function of the creative act in art. Given the
prominence of the work of the potter within debates around the nature and
function of the creative act in art, Lacan's selection of this example is intended
to establish a point of difference. With the 'incarnated form' of the vase, Lacan
is speaking of how something gives body to, or comes from, no tiling. How can
something come from nothing? It is with this question, which poses one of the
oldest and most enduring conundrums of philosophy, that Lacan wishes to
change the direction and purpose of how the example of the vase has been used
to speak of artistic creation.
Within philosophical debate, the vase has traditionally been used because its
production evidenced a transformation of matter. The purpose of this
emphasis upon the matter of die vase was to affirm the way in which the
substance of the vase conforms to a philosophical heritage which asserts that
something cannot come from nothing. In contradiction to this, however,
Lacan suggests:
Now If you consider the vase from the point of view t hat I first proposed, as an object made t o
represent the existence of the emptiness at the center of the real which is called the Thing, this
emptiness as represented In the representation presents Itself as a nihil, as nothing. And t hat
Is why the potter, Just like you t o whom I am speaking, creates the vase with his hand around
t his emptiness, creates It, Just like the mythical creator, ax nlhllo, starting with a hole.
17
What Lacan is opposing here is an Aristotelian-based philosophy which would
put forward a reality of plenitude in which a void could not exist. For Lacan,
that Aristotelian philosophy could only affirm diat 'nodiing is made from
nothing' was an indication that it remained 'mired in an image of the world
that never permitted even an Aristotle and it is difficult to imagine in the
whole history of human thought a mind of such power to emerge from the
enclosure that the celestial surface presented to his eyes'. '
8
What the
introduction of the signifier causes is a disturbance of this perception of a finite
and closed world. In fact, Lacan aligns its introduction with the point in time
when:
The vault of the heavens no longer exists, and all the celestial bodies, which are.the best
reference point there, appear as If they could Just as well not be there. Their reality, as
existentialism puts It, Is essentially characterized by factlclty, they are fundamentally
contingent.
18
This is the moment, Lacan further specifies, of the birth of modem science
with Galileo. Yet, I would propose that this could equally be die moment of
the origin of perspective inasmuch as perspective, with the infinity of the
vanishing point, implies a condition no longer limited to the finite enclosure of
the sphere.
A quandary diough presents itself at diis point. How is perspective's
implication of infinity to be introduced to a world conceived of as finite?

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Keith Broadfoot
Damisch, in his book Theone du Nuage: Pour une histoire de la peinture (prior to
The Origin of Perspective), suggests that the hole in Brunelleschi's original model
introduces an infinity which is fundamentally out of step with, if not
theoretically 'taboo' to, the Aristotelian conception of the world at die time of
the initial demonstration.
2
As a taboo, then, infinity is introduced only to be
immediately covered over, repressed. It is therefore to move too quickly, as
Damisch subsequently suggests in The Origin of Perspective, for Panofsky to say
diat 'Brunelleschi's disposition presupposed, and even less that it demonstrated,
the notion of an abstract, homogenous, and isotropic geometric space,
continuous and undefined, if not infinite, the quantum continuum central to
post-Cartesian science'.
21
On the contrary, Damisch argues diat if you
consider not only Brunelleschi's original model but also his other perspective
demonstration, which he completed some years later and which contained
representations of some of the buildings surrounding die Piazza della Signoria,
then attention should be given to 'die places the artist [Brunelleschi] chose to
represent two clearly delimited, enclosed piazzas', widi dieir very closure
signifying that Brunelleschi 'was not prepared to draw from his discovery die
theoretical conclusions it implied'.
2
Indeed, insofar as Brunelleschi's two
experiments appeared to apply diemselves to, Damisch says, 'solid objects,
notably buildings, which were solidly planted in die ground, to die exclusion
of die sky and its phenomena', dien it was as if, 'faithful in diis respect to die
Aristotelian conception of die cosmos, die inventor of perspective had
respected, in devising his experiment, die consecrated opposition between die
celestial and terrestrial realms'.
23
To diis, it could be added diat perhaps
Brunelleschi's sight was dien, like Aristotle's before him, mired by an image of
die world diat could not emerge from die enclosure diat die celestial surface
presented to him. Furthermore, it could even be proposed diat in die
functioning of BruneOeschi's model, widi die restrictions diat were placed on
die eye as it looked dirough die hole, it was as diough die model was
constructed to act as a blinker, preventing any wayward look upward diat
might lead to a questioning of die status of diat enclosed celestial sphere.
Yet die situation is not perhaps quite so forced as diis would suggest. There
is also a remarkable subterfuge to die model. What should not be forgotten,
and diis is what constitutes die truly ingenious nature of die experiment, is
diat it is one's own eye as it is placed to die hole diat itself accomplishes die act
of covering over die dieoretical gap in die experiment. It is one's own look
diat hides die hole diat has introduced infinity, die hole diat has pierced (at
least implicidy) die enclosure of die celestial surface. Placing one's eye in die
hole to see is also dierefore, you could say, to metaphorically enact a closing of
die eye, for at die very same spot, infinity is bodi given and at die same time
wididrawn. Hence, what die first dieoretical model of perspective
demonstrates, is diat a seeing of perspective is at die same time a not-
seeing of perspective: to look dirough die hole to see dirough, if we again
recall, being die meaning of perspectiva is at die same time not to see
perspective; or to say diis in anodier way, diere is a not-seeing of perspective
which occurs because, paradoxically, to see somediing in perspective one has
to 'look dirough' perspective. Strangely, dierefore, perspective is demon-
strated dirough blindness as much as dirough vision. A paradox is presented
whereby die more clear-sighted vision is, die more it is able to 'see dirough',
dien die more non-seeing, die more bund, diat vision is. Or, diis could be said
as well in anodier way: widi die hole in Brunelleschi's model, it is as if one is
to look dirough it and not at it, widi die implication of diis being diat die hole
itself does not form an object of dieoretical contemplation.
20. Sec Hubert Damuch, Thiorie du nuage- Pour
une histoire de la peinture (Editions Du Seuil-
Paru, 1972), section 4 2. 4: 'Le tabou de
l'lnfini'.
21 . Damisch, The Origin of Perspective, p 1 54.
22. Damuch, 77K Origin of Prnpectire, p . 153
23. Damisch, 77K Origin of Perspealre, p . 1 53.

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Perspective YefAgain
IV
24. Damijch, 7i Oripn o/Pmporirt, p. 116.
T o
farther pursue the implicit paradoxes and contradictions contained within
Brunelleschi's model we should, at this stage, subject Lacan's proposals to
further investigation. With Damisch's suggestion mat Brunelleschi's model is
itself shaped by an Aristotelian conception of die world, it is important to step
back for a moment and carefully examine what Lacan says Aristotle was unable
to see. Lacan draws a connection between the opening up of die closed world,
diat is, the possibility of seeing beyond the enclosure of die celestial surface as
it was presented to Aristotle's eyes, and the idea diat what is taken to be
reality is itself something that could be fictitious 'essentially characterized by
facticity'. What is remarkable here is that it could be argued diat it is precisely
this connection diat lies behind perspective. To suggest how diis is so, let us
reconsider die concluding words of Manetti, how he proposed diat with die
'elements of die burnished silver, die piazza, die viewpoint, etc. , die spectator
felt that he saw die actual scene when he looked at the painting' or, to give
here die translation diat John Goodman offers in The Origin of Perspective, 'it
seemed diat one was seeing trudi itself.
24
How are we to assess diis effect of trudi, or as Damisch terms it, diis 'trudi
value', diat Manetti assigns to Brunelleschi's original model? It is intriguing
diat, after Manetti puts forward diis experience of trudi, he should dien
immediately add witii die hope, we might imagine, of relinquishing any
doubts diat die reader may have diat he has looked dirough die hole in
Brunelleschi's model on a number of occasions: 'I have had it in my hands and
seen it many times in my days and can testify to it. ' Perhaps, to pursue
Damisch's suggestion of die taboo, what is not said in Manetti's text emerges
dirough die excess of what is said: why a number of times and not just one?
Was diere somediing lacking in die first moment of looking diat die
subsequent looks were seeking some compensation for? Here I would like to
propose diat what is repressed in die attempt to immediately cover over die
hole in Brunelleschi's model is die very questioning of die status of reality diat
its introduction implied. Thus, if Manetti proclaims, in an expression of almost
disbelief, diat it is die trudi itself diat is seen when one looks dirough die hole
in Brunelleschi's model, would not die diought diat, if Brunelleschi could
construct an image of die trudi an image diat would have die semblance of
die trudi be a diought diat could contaminate trudi itself? Would it not
suggest diat trudi might be no more man an image, a semblance, or indeed, an
effect?
A key point here is diat Brunelleschi's model was constructed widi die
possibility of die demonstration taking place in situ: one could stand, if not at
die very position diat die painter stood to paint die picture, as Manetti's
description of die model for die first experiment seems to suggest, dien at
least at a spot from which one could compare image and reality, continually
moving backwards and forwards between die two. Indeed, diis is an implicit
aspect of die functioning of die first model diat becomes much more
pronounced if Brunelleschi's second perspective experiment is examined.
Manetti relates how, after his first perspective panel, Brunelleschi, a few years
later, 'made in perspective die piazza of die Palazzo della Signoria in Florence,
togedier widi all diat is in front of it and around it, insofar as it was accessible
to view, standing outside die piazza'. Now, to accommodate diis view, die
second panel needed to be much larger dian die first. Manetti, consequendy,
proceeds to explain how, due to die size of diis panel, die same set-up of die
little hole to look dirough and die mirror held at die appropriate distance
OXFORD ART JOURNAL 25 I 2002 79

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Keith Broadfoot
could not be used. To replace this, Manetti proposes that in diis instance
Brunelleschi:
Left It t o the discretion of he who looks, as Is the case for all other paintings by other painters,
even though he who looks is never discrete. And In the place where he had put the burnished
silver in t hat of the San Giovanni, here he cut above the buildings the wood on which he had
painted. And he took it wfth him t o a spot where he could observe It with the natural
atmosphere above the buildings.
25
(Rg. 2).
To what spot, one cannot help asking, would have Brunelleschi taken it? As
Damisch suggests, nothing in Manetti's text precludes us from imagining that
Brunelleschi could have placed his painting so that it functioned as 'a kind of
screen at the entrance to the piazza', with the 'discreet' observer so placed
that the contour of the top of the buildings in the panel could be superimposed
upon the outline of the real buildings as they stood there in the piazza.
26
With
this set up, Brunelleschi has indeed taken his panel to a 'spot where he could
observe it with the natural atmosphere above the buildings'. Positioned in this
way, however, die effect of the panel is to create confusion between the
buildings, that is, a confusion between what is depicted and what is real.
What, then, if there was no difference between the buildings? What if the
image were the truth itself, would this not again subtly undermine the
substance of reality? What if what one was seeing in reality was no more than a
construction, an image, the facade of a building behind which was what
nothing? This thought is there, but it may be hidden. The fact that Manetti is
compelled to add that he has seen it (and it is ambiguous to what the 'it'
exactly refers) many times, so that he can testify to it, hints at this. Again, we
could ask, why the necessity to see it many times? Is it that the origin only
exists in its repetition, in its re-seeing?
25. I give here John Goodman's translation of
Manetti's text in Damisch, The Origin of
Pmpeaire, pp. 143+.
26. Damisch, 77K Origin of Pcnptalrc, p. 1 48.
'If Brunelleschi's discovery had inaugural import', Damisch argues:
This was t o the extent it created the Impression that, by Its means, representation gained
access t o a new kind of 't r ut h'. A subject placing his eye behind the hole, t his lumi&re or light
Fig. 2. Brunelleschl's second demonstration.

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

27. Dunudl , 77K Origin of Pcnpcairc, p. 148.
28. Damisch, 77K Origin ofPasptalre, p. 149.
29. Lacan, Tht Ethics of Pychtxmaljrsls, p. 12
30. Damilch, 77K Origin of Penpcaire, p . 1 49.
31 . DamiJch, 77K Origin of PcTspcctlre, p. 150
32. Lacan, The Ethics of Psychoanaljrsis, p. 1 40.
hole pierced through trie center of the San Giovanni tawatetta, could only confirm a precise
correspondence between the perspective fiction and its object; Just as a 'discreet' observer
would, of necessity, see the upper contour of the second tavola coincide almost perfectly with
the silhouette of the buildings In the Piazza delta Stgnoria, without being required t o use only
one eye.
27
If there is a question though of an inaugural moment here, it is a moment that
Damisch then immediately qualifies as one which 'escapes all periodization'.
28
What can an inaugural moment that escapes all periodization be? To enter into
the paradox of this moment that both begins history and is at the same time
outside of history, it is necessary to first consider that the moment of which
Damisch speaks here concerns a confusion between reality and fiction, a
possible rendering of reality as fictitious. Now what is crucial about this
moment, if we return to Lacan, is the structure, how it is that, as Lacan would
emphasize many times, 'reality is structured as fictitious'. To thus elaborate
upon this structure what if, to change Damisch's 'historical placement' of
Brunelleschi's model within an Aristotelian tradition, we were to consider
perspective as something which arises from nofJiing? How, that is, can we
understand perspective as something which is structured around a void?
To oppose a tendency in Panofsky's argument diat would lead to situating
Brunelleschi's experiments within a space understood to be continuous and
infinite, Damisch observes that each of Brunelleschi's demonstrations was
'centered around an architectonic object that was at die same time a basic,
almost "ideal" body, a kind of limit-shape, to use Husserl's terminology,
denned entirely by a set of surfaces'.
30
The significance of this for Damisch is
that the demonstration can then be figured as operating within die strictures of
an Aristotelian world-view where to ask what is between bodies, that is, to
speak of a portion of space as blank or empty, had no sense. What Brunelleschi
was therefore doing was not so much 'imitating space', but, Damisch reasons,
'producing it', constituting this space as an object so that in this respect, 'like
the geometers of antiquity', Brunelleschi was 'less interested in space itself
than in the bodies it contained'.
31
Is it possible diough to view these
architectural bodies which were the central point of focus in Brunelleschi's
experiments in another way?
At the origin of perspective, there is undoubtedly die question of
architecture. This is a fact diat Lacan acknowledges by arguing for an intimate
connection between the two. As with art in general, Lacan assigns to
architecture die initiating aim of encircling a void. Such an intention, Lacan
suggests, is die audientic impression that die form of a temple or cadiedral
offers. Moving beyond diis form of architecture diough, what is to be
observed, Lacan notes, is that we see a:
Unk forged between the temple, as a construction around emptiness that designates the place
of the Thing, t o the figuration of emptiness on the walls of this emptiness Itself - t o the extent
t hat painting progressively learns t o master this emptiness, t o take such a tight hold of it t hat
painting becomes dedicated t o fixing It in the form of the Illusion of space.
33
This creation of die illusion of space is for Lacan coincident widi die discovery
of perspective, a discovery which sees perspective as maintaining die function
originally assigned to architecture. Lacan describes the transition from
architecture to painting as follows:
For economic reasons, one Is satisfied with painting images of t hat architecture, one learns t o
paint architecture on the walls of architecture; and painting, too, Is first of all something t hat is
organized around a void. Since It Is a matter of finding once more the sacred void of

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Keith Broadfoot
architecture In the less marked medium of painting, the attempt Is made to create something
that resembles It more and more closely, that Is to say, perspective Is discovered.
33
33. Lacan, 77* Ethla of Fijchoanaljib, p. 136 .
The relation between architecture and painting that Lacan is presenting here
u
^ ^ ^
ufi
^
Brvntllacbli p +2
throws new light upon Manetti's account of Brunelleschi's original
demonstration. What should now be seen as highly significant, is how
Manetti structures his account of Brunelleschi's invention of perspective in
terms of a retrospective return from painting to architecture. If one were to
travel back to Brunelleschi's youth, Manetti writes, then it would be
discovered that 'he propounded and realised what painters today call
perspective. '
34
The implication of this is that perspective in painting follows
what was produced and practised in architecture. On this particular point,
though, it is important to be aware that what Lacan is suggesting is more
complex than a simple progression from architecture to painting. What his
words also evoke is a confusion between architecture and painting, a confusion
that indeed effectively marks the fascination that Brunelleschi's original model
provides. In Lacan's reference to painting undertaking a process to 'more and
more' closely resemble architecture, it is to be imagined that in the logic of
this process a limit-point is reached where, due to the heightening exactitude
of resemblance, the distinction between architecture and painting cannot be
drawn and one becomes the other. What Brunelleschi's demonstration
registers within this process of the escalation of resemblance is a moment on
the threshold, a moment suspended, between architecture and painting. This is
another aspect of the sense of astonishment that Manetti returns to in outlining
his experience of Brunelleschi's model. The many times that Manetti saw the
model, his constant return, could be understood as an attempt to 'pinpoint'
the exact moment when architecture and painting exchange places, an attempt
to see that moment when architecture becomes painting and painting becomes
architecture.
Beyond, however, even this initial correspondence with Lacan's proposal,
what is truly remarkable is that Brunelleschi's demonstration responds to the
desire, to requote Lacan, 'of finding once more the sacred void of architecture
in the less marked medium of painting'. What, therefore, cannot now pass
without comment is that the location of Brunelleschi's original demonstration
is a sacred site. In fact, Brunelleschi's inaugural gesture is one which places the
vanishing point of painting a hole inside a building that was already there to
encircle and contain the void. As Manetti describes Brunelleschi's procedure:
'he made a hole in the painted panel at that point in the temple of San Giovanni
which is directly opposite the eye of anyone stationed inside the central portal
of Santa Maria del Fiore, for the purpose of painting it'. The vanishing point is
inside the temple. At the origin of perspective, therefore, to re-find the point
of view is to re-find the void of that place which encircles the Thing.
This return to a void within architecture also concurs with the significance
of Damisch's structuralist analysis of certain paintings that he proposes return
to Brunelleschi's original model. In paintings such as the Cnta ideale, Raphael's
Marriage of the Virgin, and Perugino' s Consignment of the Keys to Saint Peter, there
is a repetition of what Damisch classifies (with reference to Lacan's
conceptualisation of the nature of the reflection in the mirror of the mirror
stage) as the imago that is formed in the mirror of Brunelleschi's first
experiment. What one finds in each of these paintings is a centrally positioned,
dome-structured building which has sacred connotations. More to the point,
however, in the open door of each of these temples one finds the vanishing
point to each painting. Thus, according to the structuralist methodology that

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

35. Dunbch, 77* Origin ofFmptalrt, p. 439.
36. U o n , 77K Bihlaaffsychoaaalpis, p. 121.
37. Sl ivoj i l i e k , fo/ 77Kf Knoir Mx What They
Do: Eajojrmcnt as a Political Factor ( Verso: London
jnd New York, 1991), p. 216.
Damisch adopts, these works a posteriori justify Damisch's claim that in
Brunelleschi's original experiment the vanishing point to the painting was
located inside the door of the San Giovanni Baptistery.
35
Why, though, a
posteriori! This is where it is necessary to speak of what Damisch does not.
VI
In their return to perspective's origin, each of diese paintings repeats the
retroactive principle that Brunelleschi's mirror inaugurated. Why this
repetition? On this point, we should return to expand upon Damisch's
suggestion that the mirror in Brunelleschi's model and the 'retrospective
scansion' that it introduces corresponds to 'an apportionment between the
imaginary and the symbolic'. As has already been suggested, it is also necessary
to add to this reference to the Lacanian terms of the symbolic and the
imaginary the missing third term, the concept of the real.
The a posteriori element of Damisch's argument corresponds to die mode of
retroactive causality that characterises the symbolic for Lacan, a causality
which does not run in a standard linear direction with effect following cause,
but rather one where effects chase after causes in a constant rewriting of the
past. The reason for this dislocation from the past is that the symbolic order as
conceptualised by Lacan is a synchronous order whose origin cannot be
explained diachronically. As Levi-Strauss says of language, which is the
paradigm of the symbolic order, it appears 'all at once'. But how, then, and
this is the interesting question, to account for that which is suddenly and
miraculously there? How can a 'history' of die appearance of a symbolic order
be given?
The idea of structural linguistics that language forms a differential system
such that one element has a meaning only in relation to all die odier elements,
implies that it is a priori impossible to explain the emergence of this system
diachronically. Everything is, to repeat, simply present all at once. Yet,
Lacan's interpretation of structuralist methodology, which gives his rule for
the division between die imaginary and die symbolic, is that, if diere is a
totality given all at once, diis is only, paradoxically, because somediing has
initially been subtracted from the whole. The totality is dierefore never, in
fact, a totality. That a step-by-step diachronic history of die emergence of a
symbolic order cannot be given is why, to return to art's mode of
organisation around a void, Lacan maintains diat 'the fashioning of the
signifier and die introduction of a gap or a hole in reality is identical'. The
retroactive causality of die symbolic order is thus one which is perpetually
returning to an absent cause insofar as its appearance is reliant upon a gap, a
discontinuity in the causal chain diat led to it, what Slavoj Zizek has named
the missing link.
Widi diis concept of die missing link, Zizek, after Lacan, convincingly
argues diat die structuralist principle of die priority of die synchronic over die
diachronic is really nodiing odier than die positive reverse of die impossibility
of returning to die origin diat is constitutive of the symbolic order. The result
of diis is, as he explains:
That the symbolic order Is defined by the paradox of a finite totality; every language constitutes
a 't o t alit y', a universe complete and closed In itself; it allows no outside, everything can be said
In it ; yet t his very totality Is simultaneously marked by an irreducible flnttude. The inner tension
of a finite totality Is attested by a loop t hat pertains t o our basic attitude towards language:
spontaneously, we somehow presuppose t hat language depends on 'external' reality, t hat It
'renders' an Independent state of things, yet t his 'external' reality Is always-already disclosed
through language, mediated by i t "

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Keith Broadfoot
As Zizek also argues, it is this impossibility of moving outside of the symbolic
order, the fact that there is 'always-already' mediation that provides the true
meaning of the famous proposition of structuralist semiotics concerning the
'arbitrariness of the signifier'. This statement should not be read as suggesting
that we can somehow compare words and things from an 'outside' position
and say that their connection is arbitrary why a table should be called 'table',
or 'Tisch', or so on but rather as marking:
The very Impossibility of assuming such an external position from which we could 'compare'
words and t hings. Words mean what they mean only with regard t o their place In the totality of
language; t his t ot alit y determines and structures the very horizon within which reality Is
disclosed t o us; within which we can eventually 'compare' Individual words with t hings.
38
To state this even more simply, there is no reality outside of language; the
symbolic order creates what we perceive and understand to be reality. The
implication of Lacan's proposal of an association between the making of a
signifier and a hole is that it is impossible to find any ultimate grounding of
language the symbolic in reality. What language eventually refers back to is
the hole that created its own possibility. Language is, therefore, a self-referring
system that endlessly turns back upon itself, always chasing its own tail.
This, then, is language as a symbolic order. What, though, of perspective as
a symbolic order? What of Damisch's provocative adoption in The Origin of
Perspective of the structuralist principle of the priority of the synchronic over
the diachronic? What of his proposal that the 'history' of perspective must be
understood in terms of a structural order? It is now possible to elaborate upon
the insights that his approach contains.
Like the structuralist approach to language, Damisch suggests that
perspective arrives 'in a single blow'.
39
Thus, there is a fundamental enigma
to perspective that can never be properly deciphered or revealed. No
diachronic process can explain the appearance of perspective because its origin
is, on the contrary, a gap a discontinuity which is, I am arguing, the hole
with which Brunelleschi's tableau was pierced. It is indeed this idea of a
constitutive discontinuity that can justify Damisch's hypothesis concerning the
nature of Manetti's return to Brunelleschi's model. Damisch argues that,
because Manetti's text displays a lack of attention to the procedure of
construction, with the focus instead placed upon the protocol of the
experiment, his approach registers what Husserl, writing on the condition for
the emergence of science, determines as the moment of reversal from a
practical to a tJieoretical interest.
40
However, for Damisch's hypothesis to be
presented in its full force at this point, it needs to be related to the idea of the
missing link. With the existence of a gap in any causal chain leading back to the
invention of perspective, the implication is that the procedure of perspective's
construction could never be adequately explained inasmuch as perspective
emerges ex nihilo, out of nothing, it is a true invention. It is, consequently, upon
establishing this connection between the origin of perspective and the concept
of the missing link that it becomes possible to draw out the significance of the
impossibility of considering what would be 'outside', or indeed also what
would be 'before', perspective.
If we reconsider Zizek's comments on language as symbolic order, they
become all the more pertinent when applied to the case of perspective as
symbolic order. In particular, Zizek's reference to the 'very impossibility of
assuming an external position from which we can compare words and things'
takes on added significance because the notion of a point of view is implicitly
invoked. Thus, for example, the peculiarity of a return to the origin of
38. Zlick, For Thej Know Not What They Do,
p. 200
39. Dimudl , 77K Origin o/Penpealre, p. 127.
40. Damisch, The Origin of Penpeaire, p 1 57.

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

perspective can be thought of in this context if we were to ask how it could be
that perspective itself could ever be the content of a scene. We speak of a
41. Dimisch, TJ* On
g
m offcnpeaivt,
P
. 1+0. painting being in perspective, but can it ever be the subject of a painting? Can
. , . , J . . . . , . . perspective reverse, or rather perhaps invert, itself so that it is the contained
42. Jaccjua Lacan, Emu. A Selection, tram. Alan r r > r r '
Shendan (Tamtock Publications London, rather than the container? The impossibility of such an exercise is self-evident.
1977), p. 223. There is no external position from which to see perspective, for a painting is
'always-already' in perspective. One cannot present a painting that is outside
of perspective with the intention of seeing perspective itself. In a closed,
synchronous order not allowing any external support, perspective, like the
'totality' of language, turns in a vicious circle upon itself. Hence the
importance of the mirror in Brunelleschi's experiment, for it indeed
demonstrates (if it is possible for such a thing to be demonstrated) the self-
referring nature of this circle that turns or rather reflects back upon itself.
As Damisch himself writes of the image that appeared in the mirror at the rear
of the configuration:
It was neither the Imprint nor the reflection of an external reality. . . . Far from capturing the real
directly, as cameras and telescopes can, t his 'view' corresponded t o a bracketing, t o a veritable
phenomenologteal reduction: within the brackets established by the panel and the mirror, the
real was excluded, was outside the circuit. . . . Thus a system t hat , however empirically open it
may have been, was theoretically isolat ed, closed in on Itself. . . .
41
The slight modification, however, that needs to be made to Damisch's
observation here is that it is indeed the very exclusion of reality that actually
creates reality. The point of Lacan's insistence on the fact that reality is not
simply fictitious, but structured as fictitious, is that one must pay attention to
this structural rule whereby reality first appears through its withdrawal. What
one could then say is occurring with the 'bracketing', with this circuit which
closes in on itself, is that Brunelleschi's model is a kind of doubling of the
reality that is created by the initial absence of reality, the reality created by that
missing part that is withdrawn to allow for a reality that is 'structured as
fictitious'. It is this doubling, we could now say, that gives the truth-value to
what is seen in the mirror. This is a truth that acknowledges that reality
appears at the very same moment as that reality is rendered fictitious, as that
reality, again in Damisch's words, is isolated, closed in upon itself.
Within this closure, though, it is necessary to remember that there is also an
opening. There is the hole, the void which the 'totality' of the horizon of
perspective is defined by and around which it circulates. To properly
understand this paradoxical relation between what is closed and at the same
time open, it needs to be related back, I wish to suggest, to the particular way
in which Lacan draws a distinction between reality and the real. To attempt to
capture the exact nature of this distinction and its connection to the case under
consideration here, there is a statement by Lacan that seems to be strikingly
appropriate. Replacing, as he did in his later seminars, the terminology of the
Thing with the objet a, Lacan writes that 'the field of reality is sustained only by
the extraction of the objet a, which, however, gives it its frame'.
42
This
statement, on an initial reading, is rather enigmatic. If the objet a is absent, how
can it still frame reality, that is, how can one look through it to see the 'field of
reality'? In asking this question, however, it can uncannily seem as though
Lacan's theory of the distinction between reality and the real was made after
reflecting upon Brunelleschi's model. What is extraordinary to note about the
original demonstration of perspective is that the procedure of piercing a hole,
reversing the panel, and then using a mirror, effectively answers this question
of how the objet a, in being absent, is nevertheless able to frame reality. With

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Keith Broadfoot
the hole in Brunelleschi's panel one looks through it to see, as Manetti relates
to us, truth itself, that is, the hole presents a framing of reality. Thus, the
crucial theoretical point is that the hole located at the origin of perspective is
+3 Ucan
^ ^^ ^p^,^^
p
.
140
.
created by the extraction of the objet a. This theoretical point is of capital
u
Lum, V* &ht
a
tf Pychoanai&s, p. 141.
importance for it now enables us to restate the 'history' of perspective that
Damisch has boldly presented. What this history is, that consists of the
continual return to an ever-absent origin, is the return of the real. Lacan
himself theorised the return of the real in art with the concept of the gaze as
objet a. How, then, can this gaze as objet a be figured within this history of
perspective that Damisch offers? To encounter this gaze we need to turn to
what is perhaps perspective's 'other': anamorphosis.
VII
In Lacan's brief account of perspective in The Ethics of Psychoanalysis in his
comments regarding the passage from architecture which surrounds the void
to the figuration of the void on the walls of architecture itself it would seem,
he suggests, that a history of painting could be organised around the
progressive mastery of the illusion of space. Yet there is something that
remains to subvert this mastery. With the discovery of perspective, Lacan
writes, 'one arrives at illusion'. Illusion though is not the whole story, Lacan
adds, for at this moment:
One finds a sensitive spot, a lesion, a locus of pain, a point of reversal of the wfiole of history,
Insofar as It Is the history of art and Insofar as we are Implicated in It; t hat point concerns the
notion that the Illusion of space Is different from the creation of a void. It Is t his t hat the
appearance of anamorphosis at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth
centunes represents.*
3
With this point of reversal of the history of art of which Lacan speaks, we find
Damisch's thesis: 'the notion of a "history of perspective" has no meaning
except as it relates to the movement, constitutive of the paradigm as such, that
continuously prompts a return to its own origins'. Yet, this is perspective that
Damisch is speaking of, not anamorphosis. What then is the nature of the
connection between the two? This is a question that again arises as Lacan goes
on to further describe anamorphosis:
As a turning point when the artist completely reverses the use of t hat illusion of space, when he
forces it to enter Into the original goal, t hat is t o transform It into the support of the hidden
reality - It being understood t hat , t o a certain extent, a work of art always involves encircling the
Thi n g ."
How, then, is the turning point of anamorphosis to be related to the return
movement that the origin of perspective institutes? The answer, I wish to
propose, lies with their mutual encircling of the Thing, that is, the gaze as
objet a.
In this early seminar, and in the chapters on the gaze included in die later
seminar, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, Lacan was particularly
drawn to a description given by Baltrusaitis of a spectator's reaction to Hans
Holbein's The Ambassadors (Fig. 3). What caught Lacan's eye was the temporal
factor and, crucially, die process of 'return' involved in the perception of the
anamorphic image. The spectator, viewing the painting front on, sees a stain in
the foreground of the image, a stain which, although capturing the interest of
the spectator, remains an incomprehensible form. As Baltrusaitis describes the
spectator's encounter with the painting, it is only upon leaving the room
through a door located beside the painting and 'turning around' for the final

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

time that the spectator, at the required oblique view, sees the image appear
from within its former di~tortion.~' As we know, when The Ambussodors is
45. JUI ~I S B a l d t i s . .hamorphlc An, mans.
viewed from the side the image of a skull miraculously appears. What is so
W. J. Strachan (Ahrams: New Y O I ~ , 1977), astonishing about thls appearance is not simply that from an incomprehensible
pp. 104-5.
stain a recopsable image is formed, but that the image which appears does so
in front ofthe plane ofrepresentation of the painting, that is, it presents itselfbeyond
the limits of representation in a space in front of the painting itself.
It is with this movement from representation to presentation that there is a
return to Lacan's description of the pot, or more specifically, of the void in the
pot which in presenting itself in the representation 'presents itself as nihil, as
nothing'. Like the pot, therefore, what the 'incarnated form' of anamorphosis
gives body to is nothmg. Yet, the crucial question here is: what is this nothing?
Flg. 3. Hans Holbein the Younger. The Ambassados. 1533. oil on oak. 207 x 209.5 cm. National Gallery. London. (Photo: National Gallery. London.)
OXFORD ART JOURNAL 2 5 . 1 2002 87

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Keith Broadfoot
I wish to propose that it is the nothing of the void that perspective re-finds.
Anamorphosis materialises the Tiling, the objet a, it gives body to the hole with
which Brunelleschi's tableau was pierced. Now, admittedly, on first 46. Ucm, 77 &A,
a
o/PycAoanaTrA,
P
. 71.
consideration, this idea may seem nonsensical: how is that which appears in
front of the picture plane, that is, outside of the bounds of the field of
representation, to be related to that hole which is at the centre of the painting
in Brunelleschi's demonstration, the hole which forms the nucleus of its
interior? To answer this question, it is once again necessary to follow the
distinction that is to be drawn between Lacan's concept of the real and reality
as such.
To assist us here in thinking about diis not quite so .straightforward
relation between the exterior and the interior, it is far from coincidental that
at the very moment that Lacan introduces a discussion of anamorphosis in his
seminar, he should also begin using the neologism of the extimate extimite
a word that combines the exterior and the intimate in one. What is odd
about Lacan's proposal that the work of art always involves encircling the
Thing is that, prior to this proposal, when a topographical representation of
the Thing had been attempted, Lacan admitted that this would be difficult
because
c
das Ding is at the centre only in the sense that it is excluded'.
4
* It is
this paradoxical conception of an 'intimate exteriority', of something being
at the centre only because it is outside, that also describes the peculiar nature
of the relation between the real and the symbolic: the real is at once outside
of the symbolic, an effect of die symbolic diat cannot be represented within
its domain, and inside the symbolic as the cause of its structural order. What
is fascinating here is that this also serves as a description, I am suggesting, for
the nature of the relation of the gaze as objet a to perspective, that is, to
specify this within the context of the particular example that I am using here,
the nature of the relation between anamorphosis and perspective. Thus, the
image that materialises in anamorphosis is excluded from the symbolic
domain of perspective. It occupies a place outside of the limits of the space
of representation (this being understood as the image that presents itself in
front of the picture plane) yet, at the same time, this position of being
outside only arises because the image is a materialisation of the central core,
the hole, which constitutes perspective as die domain of the symbolic in the
first place.
The odd nature of this relation between exterior and interior could also be
explained in another way. In anamorphosis, what is in front of the picture
plane does not locate itself in an external reality but in the real. This is what
makes the image that forms itself diere a presentation rather than a
representation. The strangeness of this situation, however, should be
acknowledged, for die real is not a reality that precedes or comes after
perspective, a reality that would be outside the symbolic order; the real is a
lack that arises from widiin the symbolic order itself. How, then, to fill this
hole diat is not in reality but in the real? Anamorphosis does so, not by
representing any object in reality, an external reality diat is before or beyond
representation, because that reality, after all, only exists already within die
symbolic, already within representation, but by means of a presentation, diat
is, by diat which presents itself widiin representation widi die paradox to
add here, diough, diat what presents itself, because it is not a representation of
any pre-existing diing, cannot be 'within' representation. The perplexing
nature of die presence of diis object (die gaze as objet a) is dierefore diat it is
die incarnation of a lack, die materialisation of a void. This is die
understanding Lacan has of anamorphosis when he returns to discuss it again

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

47. Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts
of Psycho-Aaalpu, trani. Alan Shendan (Norton:
New York, 1977), pp. 88-9
48. Slavoj Zliek, The Sublime Object of Ideology
(Verso: London and New York, 1989), p. 157.
49. Erwin Panofsky, Penpectire as Sjmbohc Form,
trans. Christopher S. Wood (Zone Books: New
York, 1991), p. 57.
in The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, referring to the image of the
skull in The Ambassadors as both the 'phallic ghost' and the 'imaged
embodiment* (' 1'incarnation imagee') of the lack of castration.
47
To properly appreciate the nature of the process of 'embodiment' that
Lacan is referencing here we could do no better than closely follow the precise
definition that Zizek gives to what serves for Lacan as another term for the
gaze as objet a, that is, the phallus as signifier:
The phallic signifier is, so t o speak, an Index of Its own impossibility. In Its very posith/tty it
Is the signifier of 'cast rat ion' - t hat Is, of its own lack. The schcalled pre-phallic objects . . .
are lost objects, while the phallus Is not simply lost but Is an object which gives body to a
certain fundamental toss In its very presence. In the phallus, toss as such attains a positive
existence.**
An 'index of its own impossibility': this is how I propose we are to understand
the image of the skull in The Ambassadors. At first, the indexical aspect
corresponds to how we read the image of the skull when we are looking at the
painting face-to-face, because from this position it is experienced as an abstract
stain that is registering the trace of the brush in contact with the surface of the
canvas. But after this, the impossible part of the equation enters when this
abstract element is viewed from the side and a figurative image appears that, in
the process of appearing, seems to have erased all trace of its indexical contact
with the surface. Beyond the limits of the support, arising and floating above it,
there is to be witnessed the miracle of art, a something that has come from
nothing, a veritable, or indeed virtual, creation ex nihilo.
VIII
To evoke here some almost mystical act of incarnation, it perhaps should not
be that surprising to find that this analysis of anamorphosis equally applies to
the critical role played by perspective in quite a number of Annunciation
paintings. Damisch, for example, refers to the pivotal position occupied by
Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Annunciation (Fig. 4) in Panofsky's Perspective as Symbolic
Form. Considering once again the question of the origin of perspective, and
assessing those arguments put forth that the theoretical understanding of
perspective is something that evolves from within the day-to-day practice
undertaken in the artist's studio (the idea, that is, that within the application of
a technique implicit knowledge is gradually rendered explicit) Damisch recalls
Panofsky's argument of how, through the perfection of a procedure utilising a
chequered ground plane, the most advanced and progressive Trecento artists
were able to arrive at a theoretical understanding and discovery of the
vanishing point. Damisch, however, disputes Panofsky's assessment that the
decisive step taken by Ambrogio Lorenzetti seeming to have the orthogonals
that were visible in the ground plane converging towards a single vanishing
point was a step made, in Panofsky's words, 'undoubtedly with full
mathematical consciousness' .
+9
This does not seem to be the case because what
Damisch draws our attention to is that the point towards which the
orthogonals converge in Lorenzetti's Annunciation does not in fact appear, it is
hidden behind a column. What is even stranger though, is the bizarre spatial
location of this column. As an extension of the gilded frame, the column is
located outside of, that is, in a position in front of, the painting. Yet it is also
clear that the column is nevertheless placed inside the painting, positioned
both within the foreground on its lower edge and also, as one's eye follows the
column either up or down, located within the painting's background. Damisch
thus observes how:

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Keith Broadfoot
Rg. 4. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Annunciation, 1344, tempera on panel, 122 x 117 cm. Pinawteca
Nazionale, Siena. (Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library.)
In its spatial ambiguity, functioning as it does as a kind of mask or screen, this architectonic
element 1s the lynchpin of an eminently contradictory structure in which the paving's recession
is in open conflict with the flanenmg effect created by the gold ground -within wh~ch the
van~shing point is geometrically situated.50
It is this eminently contradictory structure that we could alternately designate
as the extimate. Indeed, this is an association that is made all the more
compelling when Damisch continues to note how numerous 'other examples
of such contradiction could he cited; it is almost as though the point designated
by the construction was somehow so powerful, yet so suspect, that it cannot
be openl? ackno\vledged, that it had to be dissimulated behind a mask or
veil.'" With this statement Damisch secms to be inadvertently presenting
nothing other than Lacan's thesis of how perspective emerges in relation t o the
Thing. What thus must be drawn from this parallel is that it becomes necessary
to understand how this eminently contradictor). structure 1s perspective. What
this means is that it should not be imagined that the column is somehow
preventing a proper revealing of perspcrtive, as if it could only be when it was
removed that there could be a fully conscious and theoretically sound
understanding of perspective; and further still, as if it could only be then that
onc would anivc at (or is it to return to?) the origin of perspective, with the
point designated by the construction being finally clear and transparent for all
to see. It is, rather, how the obstruction of the column is essential to
persprctivc. It is. i f wc return to the proposal of Damisch's with which we
50. Damisch. The Ongrn ofPerrpcnrre, p. 81
5 I . Dam~sch, Thc Or~gtn ojPerrparre, p. 8 1 .

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

52. It is tfai] desire to see whit is behind that
also drove Bnmelleschi. As Damisch notes of
Brunelleschrs conitruction:
The importance of manipulation in the
experiment should not be underestimated.
For it was thil that made of the painting an
object to be handled as well as seen, to be
turned round and round, just as 'savages',
It is said, turned the first mirron presented
to them round and round to see what was
hidden behind diem. Bnmelleschi did
exactly the same dung, wanting to discover
what was hidden behind perspective, he
went to see for himself, going so far as to
place his eye behind it to capture its
operation in the mirror (The Origin of
Pmptctlrt, p. 138)
53 Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of
Psycho-Analysis, p 96 .
commenced this article, how the column is there to mark a history of
perspective which is but a return to its own origins, part of 'this movement,
always resumed and always resumable, because always obstructed [my emphasis]
and of necessity destined to failure, there being no origin save one that is an
invention, in all senses of the word*. Behind the column, then, there is no
vanishing point. There is not even any vanishing point there that will be
revealed sometime in the future according to some evolutionary schema of
theoretical articulation. What is behind, if we could invoke the question posed
by Zeusis in Pliny's famous fable, is nothing.
52
The column is, we should
perhaps now specify, and this should not really be that unexpected, phallic. In
collusion with the thematic of the Annunciation, the column, as the phallic
signifier, is the materialisation of nothing, the index of the impossible.
This analysis of the strategic significance of the column in Ambrogio
Lorenzetti's Annunciation painting could lead us back to another viewing of
Holbein's The Ambassadors. It could enable us to see, for example, something
else in the obscure placement of a crucifix in the top left-hand corner of the
painting. It seems as though a curtain has been ever so slightly drawn so as to
reveal this crucifix hanging on the wall. The attempt to depict the suffering of
Christ incarnate could now perhaps be seen as structurally related to the
incarnate form that anamorphosis itself equally attempts to figure. Without
entering into the specificity of this particular connection, the more general
relation that is being made here between anamorphosis and the column as it
appears not just in Lorenzetti's Annunciation painting but in the numerous
other Annunciation paintings to which Damisch alludes, is to suggest that it is
ultimately, in this seeming materialisation of nothing, that diere is to be found
the secret link to perspective. What is there in both cases is the attempt to give
body to perspective as a lost object, or, to be precise, Brunelleschi's lost
model. The nature of this lost object should, however, be qualified for it must
now be seen that the loss of Brunelleschi's model is essential to perspective's
very appearance. With anamorphosis, let us specify further, perspective
appears as a lost phallic object, that is, it is an object whose loss arrives through
its very presence. Thus when, for example, the image of the skull in The
Ambassadors is seen, its presence comes about through the loss of its relation to
the support, so that what occurs is that it gives body to a certain fundamental
loss in its very presence. This is, once again, why the return to the origin of
perspective is a necessary failure, why the return is always 'obstructed', or
alternatively, why the origin of perspective is nodiing other than this phallic
'obstruction' itself.
From the outset, to return once again to the 'original' viewing of
Brunelleschi's model, the eye which positioned itself at die hole (what
Edgerton refers to as a 'peephole') was also perhaps nothing other than a
phallic obstruction itself. If anamorphosis can be understood to materialise the
hole with which Brunelleschi pierced his painting, is this not also precisely
what a spectator such as Manetti would have done in placing his eye not just to
the surface of the back of Brunelleschi's panel but actually inside the hole,
which is to say, inside the painting? On this point, Brunelleschi's
demonstration would seem to confirm Lacan's proposal (a proposal which
we should note has an extimate structure to it): 'I am not simply that
punctiform being located at the geometral point from which the perspective is
grasped. No doubt, in the depths of my eye, the picture is painted. The
picture, certainly, is in my eye. But I am in the picture. '
53
What anamorphosis
images, therefore, is this eye, or more precisely, this eye as it embodies the
gaze.

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Keith Broadfoot
IX
To follow diis suggestion of the presence of the gaze rather than the eye at the
origin of perspective, the question could be posed: in the utilisation of
Brunelleschi's model, does the spectator discover, when he places his eye
behind the panel and looks through the hole, the reflection of his own eye?
Damisch suggests that Lichtenberg's paradox how can you see yourself in a
mirror widi your eyes closed? found a possible solution with photography.
But Damisch suggests this only to pose and consider the more peculiar paradox
of Brunelleschi's demonstration: how, in being opposite a mirror and captured
by the sight of what is reflected there, to not see oneself seeing?" If one does
not, then it is because ultimately Brunelleschi's demonstration is not
concerned widi that 'self-reflexive' philosophical condition where thought
grasps itself as thought and for which 'seeing oneself seeing' forms a ground of
certainty, which is to say it is not concerned with the condition of die 'seeing
oneself seeing' which Lacan specifies as the elision of the gaze. Quite to the
contrary, there is here an opening to the gaze. What one thus fails to perceive
is the gaze with which the tableau was pierced.
The nature of what Damisch specifies as the continual failure of the return
to the origin of perspective also follows on from diis inability to see the gaze. If
Brunelleschi's model demonstrates diat it is only retrospectively that a point of
view is established, this is because one's own look is originally subjected to
what Lacan, following Merleau-Ponty, presents as the 'pre-existence of a gaze
I see only from one point, but in my existence I am looked at from all
sides'. The hole in Brunelleschi's model is, dius, an absence which records
by means of its very absence this status of pre-existence that Lacan gives to the
gaze. Hence, also, die peculiar quality of the origin of perspective: it is a
return to a look which, though seeming to originate from oneself, always
precedes one's own look. The odd nature of this look could be grasped by
suggesting a relation to Freud's writing on die voyeuristic desire to see one's
own origin in what he terms die primal scene. In fact, Brunelleschi's model
may itself be positioned as the very model of the primal scene if we consider
diat, as Zizek stresses, what is involved in the return to die primal scene is not
die sight of any content but simply die experience of die gaze of die person
witnessing die event. The primal scene is a fantasy, Zizek explains, insofar as
the:
54. Damisch, The Origin of Pmpeaire, p 1 26.
55 Lacan, 77K Four Fundamental Concepts of
Prjrcho-Analjrsis, p. 83.
56. Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of
Psycho-Analysis, p 72.
57 Zi i ek, For They Know Not What They Do,
p. 1 97.
58. Damisch, Tht Origin offenpeaire, p. 126.
Basic paradox of trie psychoanalytic notion of fantasy consists In a kind of time loop - the
'original fantasy' is always t he fantasy of the origins - that Is t o say, the elementary skeleton of
the fantasy-scene Is for the subject t o be present as a pure gaze before its own conception or,
more precisely, at the very act of Its own conception.
57
There is die same time loop in perspective. When Damisch argues diat what
Brunelleschi demonstrates is that 'die point of view can be posited, grasped as
such, in its value and function as origin, only retroactively and by means of a
relay mechanism', Damisch does diis, if we recall, by proposing diat:
We retain Panofsky's argument t hat the discovery of the vanishing point, Its being brought t o
light, chronologically preceded the invention of the point of view, which was linked t o the
assumpt ion, precisely at the point of the eye, of a 'subject '. . . . "
Strangely, die vanishing point, which is itself preceded by die hole, precedes
die point of view, die point, diat is, at which die existence of die subject will
be assumed. At die origin of perspective, dierefore, diere is die basic paradox
of fantasy which, again according to Zizek, 'consists precisely in diis

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

59. Ziiek, For They Know Not What Thtf Do,
p. 197.
60. Damisch, 77K Ongin of Penpectlre, p. 1 21 .
61 . Dimijch, 77K Origin ofPmpcalrt, p. 1 21 .
62. Dambdl, 77K Origin of Ptnptalre, p. 122.
"nonsensical" temporal short circuit whereby the subject qua pure gaze so to
speak precedes itself and witnesses its own origin'.
59
This basic paradox of fantasy is an important paradox to maintain, as it
enables an understanding of an aspect of Brunelleschi's original model that
Damisch claims has been 'widely and grossly misunderstood'. Damisch argues
that:
If we are conect in saying t hat the point of view and the vanishing point coincide on the plane of
projection, it does not follow t hat there is symmetry between them. The vanishing point is not
an Image - narrowly constructed, a geometric Image - of the point of view; if they coincide on
the plane, t his Is due exclusively t o an effect produced by the projection onto the mirror.
00
In Brunelleschi's model, if the vanishing point is inscribed opposite the eye
within the frame of the baptistery door, then, Damisch reasons, the vanishing
point, as opposed to the point of view, will'be thrown far behind the image of
the observer, who will have it, so to speak, at his back or, to use Pascal's
language, "behind his head'"
61
(Fig. S). In other words, we would say, what is
always already behind the spectator's back is the gaze. What Brunelleschi's
model would then ultimately be the demonstration of is Lacan's assertion that
the subject is equivalent to a lack, that the subject is the objet a. When Damisch
states that 'the "subject" to which the perspective construction is attached,
though we might say it is snatched away by infinity, is restricted by the hole
Brunelleschi pierced through the panel to facilitate his demonstrative
exercise', the simultaneous assumption and removal of the subject that is
here invoked effectively highlights this paradox of the subject's existence as
constituted from what is missing, from the gap created by the removal of the
objet a.
62
In turning back one last time to anamorphosis, it is not surprising to find
that it deploys a similar paradox of pre-existence. Thus, for example, what is
intriguing about the skull in The Ambassadors as the materialisation of the gaze is
that, when the spectator does see the skull, he sees the skull facing towards the
place where he was standing in front of the painting. At the moment the
spectator sees the image of the skull, there is the retrospective realisation that
this image of death was 'always-already' looking at the spectator without the
spectator being able to see it. Therefore when the spectator turns to view the
painting from the side, the spectator is, in a certain sense, seeing the
appearance of a figure of their former blindness, that is, what could not be
seen, the pre-existence of the gaze.
To conclude our analysis of the relation between anamorphosis and
perspective, we should present one more general observation made by Lacan
/
^
" O **""
- ^ / > 'I
C
Fig. 6. Infinity as 'an Idea of what 's behind one's head.' After diagram in Damisch, 77>e Origin of
Perspective, p. 122.

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

Keith Broadfoot
on the nature of painting. This is a truly remarkable observation, for with it
Lacan seems to be unintentionally, as Damisch himself notes, returning to
Brunelleschi's original model.
63
Lacan offers his own rewriting of perspective's
63
DamUch, 77* Origin ofrmptatn,
P
. 129.
origin with this statement: ,. . _ _ _. , ,
r
,
o 64. Lacan, 77w Four Fundamental Concepts of
Psycho-Analysis, p. 108.
Indeed, there Is something whose absence can always be observed in a picture - which Is not
t he case In perception. This Is t he central field, where t he separating power of t he eye is
exercised t o the maximum In vision. In every picture, t his central field cannot but be absent, and
replaced by a hole - a reflection, in short, of the pupil behind which Is situated the gaze.
Consequently, and in as much as the picture enters Into a relation t o desire, the place of a
central screen Is always marked, which Is precisely t hat by which, In front of the picture, I am
elided as subject of the geometral plane.
84
This observation also effectively summarises what anamorphosis attempts to
see. hi relation to the practice of anamorphosis, it is highly significant that
Lacan should write that it is by means of a central screen which marks a hole
that I am elided as subject of the geometral plane injront of the picture, because
what does anamorphosis wish to make us see from the side of the painting if not
this very elision, that is to say, to figure this hole which is the reflection of the
pupil behind which is the gaze? In doing this, it could equally be said, what
does anamorphosis wish to see if not the very hole to which perspective owes
its existence, that is, to express this idea another way, what does anamorphosis
wish to embody if not the history of perspective itself? So it is, then, as one
painting after another enters into a relation to desire, that a history of
perspective will be written within the time of the turning of a head, following
the look of somebody who is drawn back by that unknown something that
irresistibly leads to the desire to view the work of art again to look at it, as
one might decide at that moment on the verge of departure, just one more
time.
94 OXPORD ART JOURNAL 25.1 2002

a
t

H
a
r
v
a
r
d

U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y

o
n

J
u
n
e

2
7
,

2
0
1
1
o
a
j
.
o
x
f
o
r
d
j
o
u
r
n
a
l
s
.
o
r
g
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

f
r
o
m

BROADFOOT K. Perspective-Damisch W Lacan

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

BROADFOOT K. Perspective-Damisch W Lacan

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Damisch with Lacan

You might also like