150THE END OF THE DAYDREAMoutlined. The most important aspect of Foucault’s tableau-objet is there-
fore that it turns the inherent transcendentalism of classical painting on
its head—clearly restituting painting to the material realm as an object
capable of actively moving the viewer’s body in order to change the viewer’s
conceptual perspectives. The tableau-objet, by definition, is representation
with a pronounced type of agency.
Foucault never actually connected the concepts of tableau-objet and
event. It seems plausible, however, that the two could be interrelated to pro-
vide a more extensive mapping of new aesthetics in art. Foucault discussed
the importance of the event in his essay on Gerard Fromanger’s work,
where he claimed that the idiomatic in photography was rediscovered
through the intercession of painting. Foucault argued that Fromanger’s ap-
propriation and transfiguration of images proposes an event that endlessly
takes “place in the image, by virtue of the image.”^40 Circulating beyond the
remit of the original photograph, an event is able to draw the viewer into a
nonaffirmative experience.^41 This process of magnification, making mani-
fest, or becoming aware acquires considerable relevance when animals are
present in the picture plane. From this vantage point, Horn’s Dead Owl
appears to propose a complex form of event unleashed by the infringement
of the classical semantic structure of the photographic idiom.
Thus far I have introduced five key concepts from Foucault’s writings on
art. These are quattrocento painting, the tableau-objet, resemblance, simili-
tude, and the event. These concepts will be further explored in the discus-
FIGURE 4.4 Structural diagram of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper. Image in public
domain.