The Emblematic Divide: Contemplating Reality, the Imaginary and Perception in Photographic Practices

Tanner, Nicolas

The Emblematic Divide: Contemplating Reality, the Imaginary and Perception in Photographic Practices

Thesis / Dissertation

2020

Abstract

In The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, Seminar XI, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1977) recounts the ancient Greek parable of the contest between the Zeuxis and Parrhasios, two artists competing to paint the most convincing trompe l'oeil painting. In the first instance, Zeuxis painted grapes so perfectly that birds flew down from the sky to peck on them. Satisfied with his undertaking, he then turns to Parrhasios and asks him to lift the veil to see the painting behind it – failing to realise that the veil itself is the lifelike painting. Naturally, Parrhasios won the competition. This is not due to any superior technical mastery, but because his painting reveals an interesting conception relating to the very nature of human perception. That is to say, perception is never ‘neutral', we never simply see reality ‘as it is' – there is always an underlying psychic economy of (unconscious) hopes, fears, and desires which structures our very perception of reality itself.

Keywords

Fine Arts

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