Traditionally, the need to represent comes from
this will; to outbreak the double of the one. The
re-presentation is thus an iterative structure that
moves the ‘‘one’’ into a different spatiotemporal
fact, future or past, making it in this way accepta-
ble, because divided in two.
If in drama themimesisis in itself the representa-
tion, Plato, in hisRepublic, defines the impersona-
tor as the image creator as opposed to the creator
of reality. However Aristotle re-establishes the dig-
nity of sensitive items and the sensitive could not
be identified with error or evil. The increasing am-
bition to represent reality reaches its peak with
Emile Zola and the Naturalists. In the nineteenth
century, the possibility to imitate reality gains a
proportion never equaled due to the analogical
particularity of the photographic image: this med-
ium only knew how to respond to what Andre ́
Bazin considers a fundamental need to humanity,
the desire of analogy.
To Nelson Goodman, one knows not how to imi-
tate reality for the simple reason that one knows
not what reality is. However Man uses all sorts of
referential techniques, of which one is analogy. In
what way then can an image be considered as
reality? The reality image being the one who should
relieve the most relevant information, realism ap-
pears as a norm between representation and the
current esthetic and social system. Ernst Gombrich
shades the meaning of Goodman’s extreme thesis
as reality can be represented thanks to a mirror.
Analogy always has a double aspect, the mirror-
aspect and the map-aspect: an image redoubles
reality and is a sign of reality, which means that it
is the ‘‘code’’ to make the comprehension possible.
To Create
Photography, as opposed to painting, in its virtual
simultaneity that short-circuitsapriorithe artist, has
been from the start strongly criticized. ‘‘A forgery
falsifies art history; an imitator of photography fal-
sifies reality,’’ writes Susan Sontag. Yet firmly
rooted in the reality from which it proceeds, photo-
graphy deceives doubly: the camera is used to
enhance the value of appearances, explains Sontag.
Seen as a tool or a social means to liberate the
people, in contradiction it turns against itself, bury-
ing itself in a ‘‘realism’’ of comfort, of making truth.
More than any other means, photography is capable
of expressing the desires and the needs of the domi-
nant social stratum, because photography has what
might be termed an artificial objectivity. Parado-
xically, photographic representation, according to
Sontag, is ‘‘made anesthetic from a moral viewpoint
in as much as it is stimulating from a sensory view-
point.’’ By the confusion it entails, photography
gathers all human stakes and ideologies to present
them back to the viewer as being of similar value.
Photographic representation is thus deceiving: it
only shows one fragment of the world, only one
moment of temporality, given nevertheless as abso-
lute. Its interpretation is that of detail, of exception
or, on the contrary, of redundancy. Moreover, in
all arts, including photography, the principles of
which themimesisrelies on evolves therefore con-
tinuously. As a result from it, an underlying revo-
lution takes place in our philosophical perception
or interpretation of the world, facing an image,
argentic or digital, which appears little by little to
be auto-referenced because each steady reference is
progressively removed.
PatrickMathieuSeealso: Image Theory: Ideology; Photographic
Theory; Photographic ‘‘Truth’’Further Reading
Barthes, Roland.La Chambre claire. Notes sur la photogra-
phie. Paris: Gallimard, Le Seuil, 1980.
Bazin, Andre ́. ‘‘Ontologie de l’image photographique.’’- InQu’est-ce que le cine ́ma?Paris: Editions du
Cerf, 1981.
Bougnoux, Daniel. ‘‘Milieux, me ́dias, me ́diologie.’’ La com-
munication par la bande, introduction aux sciences de
l’information et de la communication. Paris: La De ́cou-
verte, 1991.
Debray, Re ́gis.Vie et mort de l’image. Paris: Gallimard
Folio Essais, 1992.
Derrida, Jacques. ‘‘La pharmacie de Platon.’’ InLa disse-
mination. Ed. Seuil. Paris: 1972: p. 87.
Derrida, Jacques. ‘‘La difference.’’ 1968.Marges – De la
philosophie. Paris: Minuit, 1972.
Dubois, Philippe.L’acte photographique. Paris: Nathan
Universite ́, 1990.
Freud, Sigmund. ‘‘Au-dela`du principe de plaisir.’’Essais de
psychanalyse applique ́. Paris, 1914; Paris: E ́ditions Payot,
Freund, Gise`le.Photographie et socie ́te ́. Paris: E ́ditions du
Seuil, 1974: 5–6.
Goodman, Nelson.Languages of Art. 1968, 1976. (Les lan-
gages de l’art), trad. fr. Jacqueline Chambon, 1990.
Peirce, Sanders Charles.E ́crits sur le signe. Paris: Seuil,
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(1973) Texte traduit par Ph. Blanchard, en coll. avec
l’auteur. Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1983–2000.
Walter, Benjamin. ‘‘Petite histoire de la photographie.’’ In
uvres II. Folio Paris: Gallimard, 2000: 301.
Walter, Benjamin. ‘‘L’oeuvre d’art al’ere de sa reproducti-
bilite ́technique.’’ InEssais 2. 1935–1940, Denoe ́l-Gon-
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