of the image comprises three messages: linguistic,
denoted, and symbolic (cultural or connoted). It
is essentially in explicating the denoted message
that Barthes must address the inherent difference
between a photograph and, for example, a drawing.
At the structural level of denotation the photo-
graph presents an ‘‘uncoded’’ message, while the
drawing’s message subsists as coded. The literal
message of the photograph derives not from a trans-
formation between signifieds and signifiers but
from a registration that is mechanical. The re-
gistration of a drawing, on the other hand, arises
through human intervention.
The Third Meaningconcerns the Soviet avant-
garde filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, but the focus
of the essay is not the moving pictures that Eisen-
stein has created but rather the movie stills that
have accompanied his works. The first two mean-
ings that Barthes ascribes to the photographic still
are (1) informational, which serves the realm of
communication and (2) symbolic, which functions
on at least four levels—referential, diegetic, Eisen-
steinian, and historical—and which represents the
still’ssignification.Yet to such seemingly complete
categories with regard to ‘‘meaning’’ in the photo-
graph, Barthes feels compelled to add a third, for,
quite simply, the first and second meanings are
‘‘obvious.’’ To the stratification and understand-
ing of meaning Barthes inserts the proposition
that something may remain in the analysis of the
photographic still that transcends conventional or
obvious meaning, something that he cannot be
certain is justified or can be generalized. The third
meaning possesses a theoretical individuality, and
Barthes distinguishes this meaning as ‘‘obtuse,’’
that which supplements and cannot be absorbed
by intellectual analysis—a meaning both persistent
and fugitive, apparent and evasive, and beyond
culture, knowledge, and information.
InCamera Lucida, a text commissioned byCah-
iers du cine ́ma, Barthes offers not only his longest
critique on the medium of photography but also
his most controversial and compelling. Comprising
two parts, Barthes begins by attempting to quantify
and qualify the medium’s unique essence (its
noeme). To this end he employs methodological
tools and schemata that inform his structural ana-
lysis. By Part Two his attempt at an impartial,
scientific investigation is fully abandoned for a
highly personal reflection on the medium and its
noeme.He begins this inquiry by looking through
family photographs, where he discovers an image
of his mother and her brother when they were
children (known as the Winter Garden photo-
graph). The power of this one photograph to cap-
ture and convey to him the unique individual who
was his mother (she had recently died) suggested
to Barthes that what distinguishes the photo-
graphic medium from any other is its ability to
authenticate ‘‘that-has-been.’’ He offers as new
terms to the critical discussion of the mediumstu-
diumandpunctum, the former referring to the field
of cultural information that a photograph may
possess and that is generally available for analysis
and the latter referring to the undefinable and
varying aspect that overtakes an individual viewer.
Studiumrelates to the field of connoted messages
articulated in earlier essays;punctumcan be linked
to the obtuse meaning described in The Third
Meaningbut exceeds that notion by Barthes’s in-
vocation of thepunctum’s ability not only to dis-
turb but also to wound. Among the most radical
assertions that he makes inCamera Lucidais that
photography’snoemehas nothing to do with ana-
logy (a feature it shares with all kinds of represen-
tations): the photograph is not a copy of reality but
rather an emanation of past reality. Barthes now
suggests that to ask whether a photograph is ana-
logical or coded is not a good means of analysis.
The book concludes that photography’s madness
and its ecstasy is its essential link with intractable
reality, obliging the viewer to return to the very
letter of time.NANCYM. Shawcross
Seealso:SemioticsBiography
Born in Cherbourg, France, 12 November 1915. Attended
the University of Paris, where he received degrees in
classical letters (1939) and grammar and philosophy
(1943). Taught at lyce ́es in Biarritz, France (1939),
Bayonne, France (1939–1940), Paris, France (1942–
1946), at the French Institute, Bucharest, Romania
(1948–1949), University of Alexandria, Egypt (1949–
1950), and Direction Ge ́ne ́rale des Affaires Culturelles,
Paris (1950–1952); research appointments with the Cen-
tre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris (1952–
1959); director of studies at the E ́cole Pratique des
Hautes E ́tudes, Paris, (1960–1976); visiting professor at
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (1967–1968); and
chair of literary semiology at the Colle`ge de France, Paris
(1976–1980). Died in Paris, France, 26 March 1980.Selected Works
Mythologies, 1957;Mythologies, selected and translated by
Annette Lavers, 1972
Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes, 1975;Roland Barthes by
Roland Barthes. Translated by Richard Howard. 1977BARTHES, ROLAND