Namuth, Hans. ‘‘Albert Renger-Patzsch, ‘The World is
Beautiful.’’’ART news80, no. 10 (1981).
Pfingsten, Claus.Aspekte zum fotografischen Werk Albert
Renger-Patzsch, Witterschlick/Bonn: M. Wehle, 1992.
Ru ̈ter, Ulrich. ‘‘‘Die Welt ist scho ̈n’ von Albert Renger-
Patzsch, Anmerkungen zu einer Inkunabel der Photoli-
teratur.’’Jahrbuch des Museums fu ̈r Kunst und Gewerbe
Hamburg15/16 (1996–1997).
Stokoe, Brian. ‘‘Renger-Patzsch: New Realist Photogra-
pher.’’ InGermany, The New Photography, 1927–1933,
edited by David Mellor. London: Arts Council of Great
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Wilde, Ann, Ju ̈rgen Wilde, and Thomas Weski, eds.Albert
Renger-Patzsch. Meisterwerke. Sprengel Museum Han-
over, 1997; also as Munich, Paris, London: Schirmer/
Mosel, 1997.REPRESENTATION
Each and every representation is above all else pre-
sentation, an act of showing and an act of bringing
out an item by means of a sign.
One could not conceive a mental, intellectual, or
social stage prior to the one of representation since
mankind isanimal parolans. The representation is
inevitable, and more or less mimetic according to
its linguistic or artistic representation. If the phe-
nomena are fully given without delay, only the
communication of the experience may be achieved
thanks to the representation.
Yet, as and when the techne` of our societies
becomes complex, as well as its languages (artistic,
data processing, etc.), a gap is created between the
world and its representation: the present evolution
reveals an increase in the distance between the item
and the token never equaled. Moreover the artist
mediator has constantly been disparaged as yielding
a sacrilegious imitation of reality, without giving
access to this wished presence. Finally, the mimetic
pleasure it conveys is traditionally condemned by the
philosopher, if not by the religious man. Today, with
the democratization of culture, the classical values
crumble giving priority to reason, to loss of transcen-
dence, and to technological development enabling
the creation of synthetic images, representation suf-
fers a violent crisis, a ‘‘semiotic cut’’ (Bougnoux).
Nonetheless, despite the rejection of themimesis,
literature and art still keep on representing. To
represent is to go from the tokens to the items;
however, it is also to create an imitation. In the
end, to represent comes back to the act of creation.
From the Tokens to the Trueness of Items
Paradoxically, if the philosopher and the religious
man may condemn the image to mislead mankind
in his search for truth, the proselyte image enables
mankind to render sensitive what goes beyond the
understanding, assuring Man of a divine presence.
As a result, its necessity relies on mankind’s anxiety
facing the temporary; religion and art have for
a long time found some common ground by es-
tablishing values alleged as perpetual against the
rapidity of existence. Likewise, the image enables
a work of bereavement and relief. Did not the
Egyptians do the same thing with the pictures
of Fayoum?
Freud did not neglect stigmatizing the complex
of emptiness, out from the apologue offort-da.A
child is able to sublimate the mother’s absence by
playing with a reel that he throws in the distance
and that he pulls back toward him. Similarly, the
image works as a tranquilizer and a painful spur
by the creation of an autonomous world in which
the principal of pleasure is entitled to quote. It
is, according to Derrida,pharmakon, both remedy
and poison.
To Plato, philosophy should leave the realm of
shadows and throw light on the intoxicating ap-
pearances; he draws the original separation be-
tween reality and his representation. This desire
for enlightenment and truth, inner wisdom among
the Ancients, eschatology among the Christians, is
found again by the photographer attempting to
capture light in an animist sacrifice: the world’s
luminous vibration pervades human beings and
things, toward human beings and things, fascinates
him, whom works in the order of imminence.To Imitate
In the antiquity, the will to represent has been
attributed to a propitiatory ritual (‘‘the premises’’).RENGER-PATZCH, ALBERT