Consider the caricature of Pierre. What it added to the concept and
the photograph was a dimension that yielded “Pierre in flesh and blood.”
That was thesensof Sartre’s friend; it expressed his “presence.” But
Sartre nuances this account when he later distinguishes “Pierre in gen-
eral, a prototype that acts as a thematic unity of all the individual
appearance of Pierre” from the unrepeatable Pierre “at that time and
place.” This is still Peter “in the flesh,” but generalized as to specifics of
his datable appearance. This introduction of “prototype” resembles
what the young Sartre called “typical” inThe Legend of Truthand the
problematic “concrete concept” that he insists is so essential to phenom-
enological description.^19
Likewise, what makes Franconay’s performance successful is her
conveying a certain “affective reaction” that one experiences in the
presenceof Chevalier. It renders him present as if “in flesh and blood.”
Her imitation “projects on the physiognomy of Maurice Chevalier a
certain indefinable quality that we can call his ‘sense’ (sens)” (Imaginary
28 ). Grounding this account is Sartre’s claim that “all perception is
accompanied by an affective reaction” (Imaginary 28 ). He explains
this most perceptively in his essay on the face, published shortly before
The Imaginary.^20
The third example of the relation betweensensandpresencecomes
from Sartre’s art criticism. In an essay published in 1961 , he contrasts
the realist paintings of Venice by Giovanni Canaletto, which Sartre
dismisses as “mere identity cards,” with the renderings of the same
subject by Francesco Guardi: “Venice ispresentin each of [Guardi’s]
canvases, as we have allexperiencedbut as no one has seen.” It is thesens
of Venice that Guardi captures and the Canaletto misses.^21 But by then
Sartre is clarifying the distinction: “asensis not a sign; it is not a
symbol – and not even an image” (Sitiv: 371 – 372 ). Sens seems to be
the noema of an imaging consciousness in which the “presence” of an
(^19) Imaginary 50.
(^20) “Visages” was first published inVervenos. 5 – 6 ( 1939 ): 43 – 44. An English translation by
Anne P. Jones is reprinted in Contat and Rybalkaii: 67 – 71. “Things are piled up in the
present, shivering but never budging from their place; the face projects itself ahead of itself
in space and time. If we call ‘transcendence’ the mind’s property of going beyond itself and
all things – of breaking free from itself in order to go lose itself, no matter where but
21 elsewhere – then the meaning of a face is to bevisibletranscendence” (^71 ).
Sartre, “Le Peintre sans privile ́ge,”Sitiv: 371 – 372.
114 Consciousness as imagination