Techniques of The Observer

Techniques
of the Observer
ON VISION AND MODERNITY
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Jonathan Crary
Techniques of the Observer

On Vision and Modernity in the
Nineteenth Century
JONATHAN CRARY
A n O C T O B E R Book
M I T Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, E ngland
First M I T Press paperback edition, 1992

1 9 9 0 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. N o part of this b o o k m a y b e reproduced in any f o r m b y any elec
tronic or mechanical m e a n s (including photocopying, recording, or information storage
a n d retrieval) without permission in writing f r o m the publisher.
This b o o k w a s set in ITC G a r a m o n d b y D E K R Coip. a n d printed a n d b o u n d
in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crary, Jonathan.
Techniques of the observer
o n vision a n d modernity in the
nineteenth century /Jonathan Crary.
p. cm.
Oc to b er b o o k s
Ser. t.p.
Includes bibliographical references (p.
I S B N 978-0-262-03169-1 (he. : alk. paper) 978-0-262-53107-8 (pb. : alk. paper)
1. Visual perception. 2. Art, M o d e r n ~ 1 9 t h c e n t u r y ~ T h e m e s ,
motives. 3. Art a n d society~History~19th century. I. Title.
N7430.5.C7 1990
7 0 1 f.l5 dc20
90-6164
CIP
Illustration credits
M u s ^ e d u Louvre, Paris (page 4 4 )
Stadelsches Kunstinstitut,
Frankfurt (page 45); M u s e o Correr, Venice (page 53); T h e National Gallery, L o n d o n
(page 5 4 )
private collection, Paris, p hoto b y Lauros-Giraudon (page 63); National Gal
lery of Art, Wa s hington (page 65); photos b y L. L. Roger-Viollet (pages 117,123,130 )
Tate Gallery, L o n d o n (pages 140,144).
20 19 18 17
Contents
Acknowledgments
ix
Modernity a nd the Problem of the Observer
T h e C a m e r a Obscura a nd Its Subject
25
Subjective Vision and the Separation of the Senses
67
97
Visionary Abstraction
137
Bibliography
151
Index
163
Acknowledgments
A m o n g the people w h o m a d e this b o o k possible are m y three friends

and colleagues at Z o n e Sanford Kwinter, Hal Foster, and Michel Feher. It
w o u l d be impossible to suggest all the ways in which I have b e e n enriched
and challenged because of m y proximity to their w o r k and ideas. I w o u l d also
like to thank Richard Brilliant and David Rosand for their consistent support
and encouragement, especially w h e n these w e r e ne e d e d most. Their counsel
was invaluable to m e during the formulation of this project. I a m particularly
grateful to Rosalind Krauss for her discerning critical suggestions and help of
m a n y kinds. Yve-Alain Bois a nd Christopher Phillips read early versions of the
manuscript a nd m a d e probing and highly useful observations. I did m u c h of
m y research while the recipient of a Rudolf Wittkower Fellowship from the
Columbia Art History Department. T h e b o o k w a s completed while I wa s o n
a Mellon Fellowship in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia,
and thanks g o to m y friends at the H e y m a n Center during that time. In pre
paring the visual material I relied o n the assistance of Meighan Gale, A n n e
Mensior of CLAM , a nd G r e g Schmitz. T e d Byfield and m y research assistant
Lynne Spriggs provided last-minute editorial help. Finally, I w o u l d like to
thank Suzanne Jackson, w h o s e c o m m i t m e n t and risk taking as a writer c o n
tinually stimulated and strengthened m y o w n work.
For the materialist historian, every

epoch with which he occupies himself
is only a fore-history of that which
really concerns him. A n d that ispre
cisely w h y the appearance of repeti
tion doesn't existfor him in history,
because the m o m e n t s in the course of
history which matter most to him
become m o m e n t s of the present
through their index as
fore-bistory
and
change
their characteristics
according to the catastrophic or

triumphant determination of that
present.
Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project
1 Modernity and the Problem of the Observer
The field of vision has always seemed

to m e comparable to the g r o u n d of
a n archaeological excavation.
Paul Virilio
This is a b o o k about vision a nd its historical construction. Although it
primarily addresses events and developments before 1850, it w a s written in
the midst of a transformation in the nature of visuality probably m o r e p r o - ,
found than the break that separates medieval imagery from Renaissance per
spective. T h e rapid development in little m o r e than a decade of a vast array
of computer graphics techniques is part of a sweeping reconfiguration of rela
tions be tw ee n an observing subject and m o d e s of representation that effec
tively nullifies most of the culturally established meanings of the terms
observer a nd representation. T h e formalization a nd diffusion of computergenerated imagery heralds the ubiquitous implantation of fabricated visual
spacesradically different from the mimetic capacities of film, photography,

and television. These latter three, at least until the mid-1970s, w e r e generally
forms of analog m e d i a that still corresponded to the optical wavelengths of
the spectrum a nd to a point of view, static or mobile, located in real space.
Computer-aided design, synthetic holography, flight simulators, computer
animation, robotic image recognition, ray tracing, texture mapping, motion
control, virtual environment helmets, magnetic resonance imaging, and multispectral sensors are only a few of the techniques that are relocating vision
to a plane severed fr om a h u m a n observer. Obviously other older a n d m o r e
M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer
familiar m o d e s of
seeingwill persist a nd coexist uneasily alongside these
n e w forms. But increasingly these emergent technologies of image produc
tion are b e c o m i n g the dominant models of visualization according to which
primary social processes and institutions function. And, of course, they are
intertwined with the needs of global information industries a n d with the
expanding requirements of medical, military, and police hierarchies. Most of
the historically important functions of the h u m a n eye are being supplanted by
practices in w h ic h visual images n o longer have any reference to the position
of an observer in a
real,optically perceived world. If these images can be
said to refer to anything, itis to millions of bits of electronic mathematical data.
Increasingly, visuality will be situated o n a cybernetic and electromagnetic ter
rain w h e r e abstract visual and linguistic elements coincide and are consumed,
circulated, a nd exchanged globally.
T o c o m p r e h e n d this relentless abstraction of the visual and to avoid m y s

tifying it by recourse to technological explanations, m a n y questions w o u l d
have to be posed an d answered. S o m e of the most crucial of these questions
are historical. If there is in fact an ongoing mutation in the nature of visuality,
what forms or m o d e s are being left behind? W h a t kind of break is it? At the
s a m e time, what are the elements of continuity that link contemporary imag
ery with older organizations of the visual? T o what extent, if at all, are c o m
puter graphics a nd the contents of the video display terminal a further
elaboration and refinement of what G u y D e b o r d designated as the
society of
the spectacle?
1 W h a t is the relation between the dematerialized digital imag

ery of the present and the so-called age of mechanical reproduction? T h e most
urgent questions, though, are larger ones. H o w is the body, including the
observing body, b e c o m i n g a c o m p o n e n t of n e w machines, economies, appa
ratuses, whether social, libidinal, or technological? In what ways is subjectivity
b e c o m i n g a precarious condition of interface between rationalized systems
of exchange an d networks of information?
Although this b o o k does not directly engage these questions, it attempts
to reconsider an d reconstruct part of their historical background. It does this
by studying an earlier reorganization of vision in the first half of the nine
1.
See m y
Eclipse of the Spectacle,in A rt ^ te r M odernism
R ethinking Representa
tion, ed. Brian Wallis (Boston, 1984), pp. 283-294.
teenth century, sketching out s o m e of the events and forces, especially in the
1820s a nd 1830s, that p roduced a n e w kind of observer and that w e r e crucial
preconditions for the ongoing abstraction of vision outlined above. Although
the immediate cultural repercussions of this reorganization w e r e less dra
matic, they w e r e nonetheless profound. Problems of vision then, as now, w e r e
fundamentally questions about the b o d y and the operation of social power.
M u c h of this b o o k will examine how, beginning early in the nineteenth cen
tury, a n e w set of relations between the b o d y o n o n e ha n d and forms of insti
tutional and discursive p o w e r o n the other redefined the status of an
observing subject.
B y outlining s o m e of the
points of e m e r g e n c e of a m o d e r n and het
erogeneous regime of vision, I simultaneously address the related p ro bl em
of when, a nd because of what events, there wa s a rupture with Renaissance,
or classical, models of vision and of the observer. H o w and w h e r e o n e situates
such a break has an e n o r m o u s bearing o n the intelligibility of visuality within
nineteenth- an d twentieth-century modernity. Most existing answers to this
question suffer from an exclusive preoccupation with problems of visual rep
resentation
the break with classical models of vision in the early nineteenth
century w a s far m o r e than simply a shift in the appearance of images and art
works, or in systems of representational conventions. Instead, it w a s insepa
rable -from a massive reorganization of knowl ed ge and social practices that
modified in myriad ways the productive, cognitive, and desiring capacities of
the h u m a n subject.
In this study I present a relatively unfamiliar configuration of nineteenthcentury objects and events, that is, proper names, bodies of knowledge, and
technological inventions that rarely appear in histories of art or of m o d e r n
ism. O n e reason for doing this is to escape from the limitations of m a n y of the
dominant histories of visuality in this period, to bypass the m a n y accounts of
m o d e r n i s m a n d modernity that d e p e n d o n a m o r e or less similar evaluation
of the origins of modernist visual art a nd culture in the 1870s and 1880s. Even
today, with n u m e r o u s revisions and rewritings (including s o m e of the most
compelling neo-Marxist, feminist, and poststructuralist work), a core narrative
remains essentially unchanged. It goes something like the followingwith
Manet, impressionism, and/or postimpressionism, a n e w m o d e l of visual rep
resentation a nd perception emerges that constitutes a break with several cen
turies of another m o d e l of vision, loosely definable as Renaissance,

perspectival, or normative. Most theories of m o d e r n visual culture are still
b o u n d to o n e or other version of this
rupture.
Yet this narrative of the e n d of perspectival space, of mimetic codes, and
of the referential has usually coexisted uncritically with another very different
periodization of the history of E uropean visual culture that equally needs to
b e abandoned. This second m o d e l concerns the invention and dissemination
of photography an d other related forms of
realismin the nineteenth cen
tury. Overwhelmingly, these developments have b e e n presented as part of the
continuous unfolding of a Renaissance-based m o d e of vision in w hi ch p h o
tography, and eventually cinema, are simply later instances of an ongoing
deployment of perspectival space a nd perception. Thus w e are often left with
a confusing bifurcated m o d e l of vision in the nineteenth centuryo n o n e level
there is a relatively small n u m b e r of advanced artists w h o generated a radi
cally n e w kind of seeing and signification, while o n a m o r e quotidian level
vision remains e m b e d d e d within the s a m e general
realiststrictures that had
organized it since the fifteenth century. Classical space is overturned, so it
seems, o n o n e hand, but persists o n the other. This conceptual division leads
to the erroneous notion that something called realism dominated popular
representational practices, while experiments a n d innovations occurred in a
distinct (if often permeable) arena of modernist art making.
W h e n e x a m i n e d closely, however, the celebrated
ruptureof m o d e r n
ism is considerably m o r e restricted in its cultural and social impact than the
fanfare surrounding it usually suggests. T h e alleged perceptual revolution of
advanced art in the late nineteenth century, according to its proponents, is an
event w h o s e effects occur outside the most dominant a n d pervasive m o d e s of
seeing. Thus, following the logic of this general argument, it is actually a rupture that occurs o n the margins of a vast h eg e m o n i c organization of the visual
that b e c o m e s increasingly powerful in the twentieth century, with the diffu
sion and proliferation of photography, film, and television. In a sense, h o w
ever, the m y t h of modernist rupture depends fundamentally o n the binary
m o d e l of realism vs. experimentation. That is, the essential continuity of
mimetic codes is a necessary condition for the affirmation of an avant-garde
breakthrough. T h e notion of a modernist visual revolution depends o n the
presence of a subject with a detached viewpoint, from which m o d e r n i s m ~
whether as a style, as cultural resistance, or as ideological practice~can be

isolated against the background of a normative vision. M o d e r n i s m is thus pre
sented as the appearance of the n e w for an observer w h o remains perpetually
the same, or w h o s e historical status is never interrogated.
It is not e n o u g h to attempt to describe a dialectical relation be t we en the
innovations of avant-garde artists a nd writers in the late nineteenth century
and the concurrent
realisma nd positivism of scientific and popular culture.
Rather, it is crucial to see both of these p h e n o m e n a as overlapping c o m p o
nents of a single social surface o n wh ich the modernization of vision had
b e g u n decades earlier. I a m suggesting here that a broader and far m o r e
important transformation in the m a k e u p of vision occurred in the early nine
teenth century. Modernist painting in the 1870s and 1880s and the develop
m e n t of photography after 1839 can b e seen as later s y m p t o m s or
consequences of this crucial systemic shift, which w a s well under w a y b y 1820.
But, o n e m a y ask at this point, doesn
t the history of art effectively coin
cide with a history of perception? A r e n
t the changing forms of artworks over
time the most compelling record of h o w vision itselfhas mutated historically?
This study insists that, o n the contrary, a history of vision (if such is even pos
sible) depends o n far m o r e than an account of shifts in representational prac
tices. W h a t this b o o k takes as its object is not the empirical data of artworks
or the ultimately idealist notion of an isolable
perception,but instead the
n o less problematic p h e n o m e n o n of the observer. For the p r o b l e m of the
observer is the field o n w hi c h vision in history can be said to materialize, to
b e c o m e itself visible. Vision a n d its effects are always inseparable f rom the
possibilities of an observing subject w h o is both the historical product a n d
the site of certain practices, techniques, institutions, and procedures of
subjectification.
Most dictionaries m a k e little semantic distinction between the w o r d s
observera nd
spectator,a n d c o m m o n usage usually renders t h e m effec
tively synonomous. I have chosen the term observer mainly for its etymolog
ical resonance. Unlike spectare
the Latin root for
spectator,the root for
observedoes not literally m e a n

to look at.Spectator also carries specific
connotations, especially in the context of nineteenth-century culture, that I
prefer to a v o i d n a m e l y , of o n e w h o is a passive onlooker at a spectacle, as
at an art gallery or theater. In a sense m o r e pertinent to m y study, observare
means
to conf or m o n e
s action, to co m pl y with,as in observing rules, codes,
regulations, an d practices. T h o u g h obviously o n e w h o sees, an observer is
m o r e importantly o n e w h o sees within a prescribed set of possibilities, o n e
w h o is e m b e d d e d in a system of conventions a nd limitations. A n d by uconventionsI m e a n to suggest far m o r e than representational practices. If it can
be said there is an observer specific to the nineteenth century, or to any
period, it is only as an effect of an irreducibly heterogeneous system of dis
cursive, social, technological, a nd institutional relations. There is n o observ
ing subject prior to this continually shifting field.2
If I have mentioned the idea of a history of vision, it is only as a h y p o
thetical possibility. Wh e t h e r perception or vision actually change is irrelevant,
for they have n o a u t o n o m o u s history. W h a t changes are the plural forces a nd
rules comp os in g the field in w hi ch perception occurs. A n d what determines
vision at any given historical m o m e n t is not s o m e de e p structure, ecoitomic
base, or world view, but rather the functioning of a collective assemblage of
disparate parts o n
single social surface.
It m a y even b e necessary to consider
the observer as a distribution of events located in m a n y different places.3

There never w a s or will b e a self-present beholder to w h o m a world is trans
parently evident. Instead there are m o r e or less powerful arrangements of
forces out of wh ich the capacities of an observer are possible.
In proposing that during the first few decades of the nineteenth century
a n e w kind of observer took shape in Europe radically different from the type
of observer dominant in the seventeenth a nd eighteenth centuries, I doubt
less provoke the question of h o w o n e can pose such large generalities, such
2.
In o n e sense, m y aims in this study are
genealogical,following Michel Foucault
Idon
t believe the p r o b l e m can b e solved b y historicizing the subject as posited b y the
phenomenologists, fabricating a subject that evolves through the course of history. O n e has
to dispense with the constituent subject, to get rid of the subject itself, that
s to say, to arrive
at an analysis w h i c h can account for the constitution of the subject within a historical frame
work. A n d this is w h a t I w o u l d call genealogy, that is, a f o r m of history w h i c h can account
for the constitution of knowledges, discourses, d o m a i n s of objects, etc., without having to
m a k e reference to a subject w h i c h is either transcendental in relation to a field of events
or runs in its e m p t y sameness throughout the course of history.Power/Knowledge ( N e w
York, 1980), p. 117.
3.
O n scientific a n d intellectual traditions in w h i c h objects
are aggregrates of relatively
independent parts,see Paul Feyerabend, Problems o f Empiricism, vol. 2 (Cambridge,
1981), p. 5.
unqualified categories as
the observer in the nineteenth century.D o e s n
t
this risk presenting something abstracted and divorced from the singularities
and i m m e n s e diversity that characterized visual experience in that century?
Obviously there w a s n o single nineteenth-century observer, n o e xample that
can b e located empirically. W h a t I want to do, however, is suggest s o m e of the
conditions a nd forces that defined or allowed the formation of a dominant
m o d e l of what an observer w a s in the nineteenth century. This will involve
sketching out a set of related events that produced crucial ways in whic h vision
w as discussed, controlled, a nd incarnated in cultural a nd scientific practices.
At the s a m e time I h o p e to s h o w h o w the major terms and elements of a pre
vious organization of the observer w e r e n o longer in operation. W h a t is not
addressed in this study are the marginal a nd local forms by whi ch dominant
practices of vision w e r e resisted, deflected, or imperfectly constituted. T h e
history of such oppositional m o m e n t s needs to b e written, but it only
b e c o m e s legible against the m o r e h eg e m o n i c set of discourses and practices
in which vision took shape. T h e typologies, a nd provisional unities that I use
are part of an explanatory strategy for demonstrating a general break or dis
continuity at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It should not b e nec
essary to.point out there are n o such things as continuities a nd discontinuities
in history, only in historical explanation. So m y broad temporalizing is not in
the interest of a
true history,or of restoring to the record
what actually happened.T h e stakes are quite differenth o w o n e periodizes and w h e r e o n e
locates ruptures or denies t h e m are all political choices that determine the
construction of the present. W h e t h e r o n e excludes or foregrounds certain
events and processes at the expense of others affects the intelligibility of the
contemporary functioning of p o w e r in wh ich w e ourselves are enmeshed.
Such choices affect whether the shape of the present seem s
naturalor
whether its historically fabricated and densely sedimented m a k e u p is m a d e
evident.
In the early nineteenth century there w a s a sweeping transformation in
the w a y in w h ic h an observer wa s figured in a w id e range of social practices
and domains of knowledge. A m a i n path along which I present these devel
o p ments is by examining the significance of certain optical devices. I discuss
t h e m not for the models of representation they imply, but as sites of both
knowledge and p o w e r that operate directly o n the b o d y of the individual. S pe
cifically, I pose the camera obscura as paradigmatic of the dominant status of

the observer in the seventeenth a n d eighteenth centuries, while for the nine
teenth century I discuss a n u m b e r of optical instruments, in particular the
stereoscope, as a m e a n s of detailing the observer
s transformed status. T h e
optical devices in question, m ost significantly
are points of intersection w h e r e
philosophical, scientific, a n d aesthetic discourses overlap with mechanical
techniques, institutional requirements, and socioeconomic forces. Each of
t h e m is understandable not simply as the material object in question, or as
part of a history of technology, but for the w a y in w hi c h it is e m b e d d e d in a
m u c h larger assemblage of events a n d powers. Clearly, this is to counter m a n y
influential accounts of the history of photography an d cinema that are char
acterized b y a latent or explicit technological determinism, in w hi ch an inde
pendent dynamic of mechanical invention, modification, a n d perfection
imposes itself onto a social field, transforming itfrom the outside. O n the c o n
trary, technology is always a concomitant or subordinate part of other forces.
For Gilles Deleuze,
A society is defined b y its amalgamations, not b y its tools
.. tools exist only in relation to the interminglings they m a k e possible or that
m a k e t h e m possible.
4 T h e point is that a history of the observer is not redu
cible to changing technical a n d mechanical practices any m o r e than to the
changing forms of artworks an d visual representation. At the s a m e time I
w o u l d stress that even though I designate the camera obscura as a key object
in the seventeenth a n d eighteenth centuries, it is not isomorphic to the optical
techniques I discuss in the context of the nineteenth century. T h e eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries are not analagous grids o n whi ch different cultural
objects can occupy the s a m e relative positions. Rather, the position and func
tion of a technique is historically variablethe camera obscura, as I suggest in
the next chapter, is part of a field of k n ow ledge a n d practice that does not cor
respond structurally to the sites of the optical devices I examine subsequently.
In Deleuze
s words,
O n o n e hand, each stratum or historical formation
implies a distribution of the visible and the articulable which acts u p o n itself
o n the other, f r om o n e stratum to the next there is a variation in the distri
4.
Gilles D ele uz e a n d F^lix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus
Capitalism a n d Schizo
phrenia, trans. Brian M a s s u m i (Minneapolis, 1987), p. 90.
bution because the visibility itself changes in style while the statements t h e m
selves change their system.
5
I argue that s o m e of the mos t pervasive m e a n s of producing
realistic
effects in mass visual culture, such as the stereoscope, w e r e in fact based o n
a radical abstraction a n d reconstruction of optical experience, thus d e m a n d
ing a reconsideration of what
realismm e a n s in the nineteenth century. I also
h o p e to s h o w h o w the m os t influential figurations of an observer in the early
nineteenth century d e p e n d e d o n the priority of models of subjective vision,
in contrast to the pervasive suppression of subjectivity in vision in seven
teenth- a nd eighteenth-century thought. A certain notion of
subjective vision
has long b e e n a part of discussions of nineteenth-century culture, m ost often
in the context of Romanticism, for example in m a p p i n g out a shift in
the role
played by the m i n d in perception,from conceptions of imitation to ones of
expression, fro m me taphor of the mirror to that of the lamp.6 But central to
such explanations is again the idea of a vision or perception that w a s s o m e h o w
unique to artists and poets, that w a s distinct from a vision shaped b y empiricist
or positivist ideas and practices.
I a m interested in the w a y in whi ch concepts of subjective vision, of the
productivity of the observer, pervaded not only areas of art and literature but
w e r e present in philosophical, scientific, a nd technological discourses. Rather
than stressing the separation b etween art and science in the nineteenth cen
tury, it is important to see h o w they w e r e both part of a single interlocking
field of k n o w le dg e an d practice. T h e s a m e knowl e dg e that allowed the
increasing rationalization a nd control of the h u m a n subject in terms of n e w
institutional a nd e c o n om ic requirements w a s also a condition for n e w exper
iments in visual representation. Thus I want to delineate an observing subject
w h o w a s both a product of a nd at the s a m e time constitutive of modernity in
the nineteenth century. Very generally, what happens to the observer in the
nineteenth century is a process of modernization h e or she is m a d e adequate
to a constellation of n e w events, forces, a nd institutions that together are
loosely a n d perhaps tautologically definable as
modernity.
5.
6.
Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, trans. Se^n H a n d (Minneapolis, 1988), p. 48.

M. H. Abrams, The Mirror a n d the L a m p
Romantic Theory a n d the Critical Tradition
(London, 1953), pp. 57-65.
10
Modernization b e c o m e s a useful notion w h e n extracted from teleological and primarily ec on o m i c determinations, an d w h e n it encompasses not
only structural changes in political a nd econo m ic formations but also the
i m m e n s e reorganization of knowledge, languages, networks of spaces and
communications, a nd subjectivity itself. M ov in g out from the w o r k of Weber,
Lukacs, Simmel, a n d others, an d from all the theoretical reflection s p a w n e d
b y the terms
rationalizationa n d
reification,it is possible to pose a logic
of modernization that is radically severed from the idea of progress or devel
opment, an d that entails nonlinear transformations. For Gianni Vattimo, m o d
ernity has precisely these
post-historicalfeatures, in which the continual
production of the n e w is what allows things to stay the same.7 It is a logic of
the same, however, that exists in inverse relation to the stability of traditional
forms. Modernization is a process by which capitalism uproots an d m a ke s
mobile that wh i ch is grounded, clears a wa y or obliterates that which impedes
circulation, an d m a k e s exchangeable what is singular.8 This applies as m u c h
to bodies, signs, images, languages, kinship relations, religious practices, and
nationalities as it does to commodities, wealth, and labor power. Moderniza
tion b e c o m e s a ceaseless an d self-perpetuating creation of n e w needs, n e w
consumption, a n d n e w production.9 Far from being exterior to this process,
the observer as h u m a n subject is completely i m m a n e n t to it. O ve r the course
7.
Gianni Vattimo, The E nd o f M odernity, trans. J o n R. Snyder (Baltimore, 1988),
pp. 7-8.
8.
Relevant here is the historical outline in Gilles Deleuze a n d Felix Guattari, Anti-O ed
ipus
Capitalism a n d Schizophrenia, trans. Robert Hurley et. al( N e w York, 1978)
pp. 200
261. H e r e modernity is a continual process of
deterritorialization,a m a k i n g abstract a n d
interchangeable of bodies, objects, a n d relations. But, as Deleuze a n d Guattari insist, the
n e w exchangeability of forms u n d e r capitalism is the condition for their
re-territorializationinto n e w hierarchies a n d institutions. Nineteenth-century industrialization is dis
cussed in terms of deterritorialization, uprooting {deracinem ent), a n d the production of
flows in M a r c Guillaume, Eloge d u desordre (Paris, 1978)
pp. 34-42.
9.
See Karl Marx, G rundrisse, trans. Martin Nicolaus ( N e w York, 1973)
pp. 4 0 8 - 4 0 9
H e n c e exploration of all nature in order to discover new, useful qualities in things

uni
versal exchange of the products of all alien climates a n d lands
n e w (artificial) preparation
of natural objects, b y w h i c h they are given n e w use values. T h e exploration of the earth in
all directions, to discover n e w things of use as well as n e w useful qualities of the old
.
likewise the discovery, creation a n d satisfaction of n e w needs arising f ro m society itself
the cultivation of all the qualities of the social h u m a n being, production of the s a m e in a
f o r m as rich as possible in needs, because rich in qualities a n d relationsproduction of
this being as the m o s t total a n d universal possible social product.
11
of the nineteenth century, an observer increasingly h a d to function within dis

junct a nd defamiliarized urban spaces, the perceptual an d temporal dislo
cations of railroad travel, telegraphy, industrial production, a nd flows of
typographic and visual information. Concurrently, the discursive identity of
the observer as an object of philosophical reflection a nd empirical study
underwent an equally drastic renovation.
T h e early w o r k ofJean Baudrillard details s o m e of the conditions of this
n e w terrain in w hich a nineteenth-century observer wa s situated. For B a u
drillard, o n e of the crucial consequences of the bourgeois political revolu
tions at the e n d of the 1700s w a s the ideological force that animated the myths
of the rights of man, the right to equality a nd to happiness. In the nineteenth
century, for the first time, observable proof b e c a m e ne e d e d in order to d e m
onstrate that happiness a nd equality had in fact be e n attained. Happiness had
to b e
measurable in terms of objects and signs,something that w o u l d b e
evident to the eye in terms of
visible criteria.
10 Several decades earlier, Walter

Benjamin had also written about the role of the c o m m o d i t y in generating a
phantasmagoria of equality.Thus modernity is inseparable from o n o n e

han d a remaking of the observer, and o n the other a proliferation of circu
lating signs and objects w h o s e effects coincide with their visuality, or what
A d o r n o calls Anschaulichkeit.11
Baudrillard^ account of modernity outlines an increasing destabiliza
tion and mobility of signs a nd codes beginning in the Renaissance, signs pre
viously rooted to relatively secure positions within fixed social hierarchies.
There is n o such thing as fashion in a society of caste an d rank,
since o n e is assigned a place irrevocably. Thus class mobility is
non-existent. A n interdiction protects the signs and assures t h e m
10.
Jean Baudrillard, La societe de consom m ation (Paris, 1970)
p. 60. Emphasis in orig
inal. S o m e of these changes have b e e n described b y A d o r n o as
the adaptation [of the
observer] to the order of bourgeois rationality and, ultimately, the age of advanced industry,
w h i c h w a s m a d e b y the eye w h e n it accustomed itself to perceiving reality as a reality of
objects a n d h e n c e basically of commodities.In Search o f Wagner, trans. R o d n e y Living
stone (London, 1981), p. 99.
11.
T h e o d o r Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, trans. C. Lenhardt (London, 1984), pp. 13 9 -1 4 0
B y denying the implicitly conceptual nature of art, the n o r m of visuality reifies visuality
into an opaque, impenetrable quality~a replica of the petrified w o r ld outside, w a r y of
everything that might interfere with the pretence of the h a r m o n y the w o r k puts forth.
12
a total clarityeach sign refers unequivocally to a status In caste

societies, feudal or archaic, cruel societies, the signs are limited in
number, an d are not widely diffused, each o n e funaions with its
full value as interdiction, each is a reciprocal obligation between
castes, clans, or persons. T h e signs are therefore anything but arbi
trary. T h e arbitrary sign begins when, instead of linking two rsons
in an unbreakable reciprocity, the signifier starts referring back to
the disenchanted world of the signified, a c o m m o n denominator
of the real world to whic h n o o n e has any obligation.12
Thus for Baudrillard modernity is b o u n d u p in the capacity of newly e m p o w
ered social classes a n d groups to o v e r c o m e the
exclusiveness of signsand
to initiate
a proliferation of signs o n d e m a n d . Imitations, copies, counter
feits, and the techniques to produce t h e m (which w o u l d include the Italian
theater, linear perspective, an d the camera obscura) w e r e all challenges to the
aristocratic m o n o p o l y and control of signs. T h e pr o b l e m of mimesis here is
not o n e of aesthetics but of social power, a p o w e r founded o n the capacity to
produce equivalences.
For Baudrillard an d m a n y others, however, it is clearly in the nineteenth
century, alongside the development of n e w industrial techniques and n e w
forms of political power, that a n e w kind of sign emerges. These n e w signs,
potentially indentical objects produced in indefinite series,herald the

m o m e n t w h e n the p r o b l e m of mimesis disappears.
T h e relation b et ween t h e m [identical objects] is n o longer that of
an original to its counterfeit. T h e relation is neither analogy nor
reflection, but equivalence a nd indifference. In a series, objects
b e c o m e undefined simulacra of each other... W e k n o w n o w that
is o n the level of reproduction, of fashion, media, advertising,
information, an d communication (what M a r x called the unessen
tial sectors of capitalism) ... that is to say in the sphere of the simu
lacra a n d the code, that the global process of capital is held
together.13
12.
Jean Baudrillard, Vechange sym bolique et la m ort (Paris, 1976), p. 7 8

Sim ulations,
trans. Paul Foss ( N e w York, 1983), pp. 84-85.

13.
Baudrillard, L 'echange sym bolique et la m ort, p. 86.
13
Within this n e w field of serially produced objects, the mos t significant,

in terms of their social and cultural impact, w e r e photography a nd a host of
related techniques for the industrialization of image making.14 T h e photo
graph b e c o m e s a central element not only in a n e w c o m m o d i t y e c o n o m y but
in the reshaping of an entire territory o n whi ch signs a nd images, each effec
tively severed from a referent, circulate a nd proliferate. Photographs m a y
have s o m e apparent similarities with older types of images, such as perspectival painting or drawings m a d e with the aid of a camera obscura but the vast
systemic rupture of wh ic h photography is a part renders such similarities
insignificant. Photography is an element of a n e w and h o m o g e n e o u s terrain
of consumption an d circulation in which an observer b e c o m e s lodged. T o
understand the
photography effectin the nineteenth century, o n e must see
it as a crucial c o m p o n e n t of a n e w cultural e c o n o m y of value a nd exchange,
not as part of a continuous history of visual representation.
Photography and m o n e y b e c o m e h o m o l o g o u s forms of social p o w e r in
the nineteenth century.15 T h e y are equally totalizing systems for binding a nd
unifying all subjects within a single global network of valuation an d desire. As
M a r x said of money, photography is also a great leveler, a democratizer, a
m e r e symbol,a fiction
sanctioned by the so-called universal consent of
mankind.
16 Both are magical forms that establish a n e w set of abstract rela
tions be tween individuals and things a nd impose those relations as the real.
It is through the distinct but interpenetrating economies of m o n e y a nd p h o
tography that a w h o l e social world is represented and constituted exclusively
as signs.
Photography, however, is not the subject of this book. Crucial as p h o
tography m a y b e to the fate of visuality in the nineteenth century a n d beyond,
14.
T h e m o s t important m o d e l for serial industrial production in the nineteenth century
w a s a m m u n i t i o n a n d military spare parts. That the n e e d for absolute similarity a n d
exchangeability c a m e out of the requirements of warfare, not out of developments in an
e c o n o m i c sector, is argued in M a n u e l D e Landa, W ar in the Age o f Intelligent M achines
( N e w York, 1990).
15.
For related arguments, see J o h n Tagg,
T h e Currency of the Photograph,in Think
ing Photography, ed. Victor Burgin (London, 1982), pp. 110- 14 1 a n d Alan Sekula,
The
Traffic in Photographs,in Photography Against the G rain
Essays a n d Photo W orks 1973
1983 (Halifax, 1984), pp. 96-101.
16.
Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, trans. S a m u e l M o o r e a n d E d w a r d Aveling ( N e w York,
1967). p. 91.
14
its invention is secondary to the events I intend to detail here. M y contention

is that a reorganization of the observer occurs in the nineteenth century
before the appearance of photography. W h a t takes place from around 1810 to
1840 is an uprooting of vision from the stable a nd fixed relations incarnated
in the camera obscura. If the camera obscura, as a concept, subsisted as an
objective gr o u n d of visual truth, a variety of discourses a nd practices~~in phi
losophy, science, an d in procedures of social n ormalizationtend to abolish
the foundations of that g r ou n d in the early nineteenth century. In a sense, what
occurs is a n e w valuation of visual experience it is given an unprecendented
mobility and exchangeability, abstracted from any founding site or referent.
In chapter 3
I describe certain aspects of this revaluation in the w o r k of
Goethe and Schopenhauer and in early nineteenth-century psychology and
physiology, w h e r e the very nature of sensation an d perception takes o n m a n y
of the features of equivalence and indifference that will later characterize ptiotography and other networks of commodities an d signs. It is this visual
nihilismthat is in the forefront of empirical studies of subjective vision, a vision
that encompasses an a u t o n o m o u s perception severed from any external
referent. W h a t must b e emphasized, however, is that this n e w a u t o n o m y and
abstraction of vision is not only a precondition for modernist painting in the
later nineteenth century but also for forms of visual mass culture appearing
m u c h earlier. In chapter 4 I discuss h o w optical devices that b e c a m e forms
of mass entertainment, such as the stereoscope and the phenakistiscope, orig
inally derived from n e w empirical k n owledge of the physiological status of
the observer a nd of vision. Thus certain forms of visual experience usually
uncritically categorized as
realismare in fact b o u n d u p in non-veridical the
ories of vision that effectively annihilate a real world. Visual experience in the
nineteenth century, despite all the attempts to authenticate and naturalize it,
n o longer has anything like the apodictic claims of the camera obscura to
establish its truth. O n a superficial level the fictions of realism operate undis
turbed, but the processes of modernization in the nineteenth century did not
d e p e n d o n such illusions. N e w m o d e s of circulation, communication, pro
duction, consumption, and rationalization all d e m a n d e d and shaped a n e w
kind of observer-consumer.
W h a t I call the observer is actually just on e effect of the construction of
a n e w kind of subject or individual in the nineteenth century. T h e w o r k of
15
Michel Foucault has b e e n crucial for its delineation of processes a nd insti

tutions that rationalized an d mo dernized the subjectin the context of social
a nd ec on o m i c transformations.17 Without maki ng causal connections, F o u
cault demonstrates that the industrial revolution coincided with the appear
ance of
n e w m et h o d s for administeringlarge populations of workers, city
dwellers, studentsprisoners, hospital patients, and other groups. As individ
uals b e c a m e increasingly torn aw a y from older regimes of power, from agrar
ian and
artisanal production,
and
from
large familial setups, n e w
decentralized arrangements w e r e devised to control and regulate masses of

relatively free-floating subjects. For Foucault, nineteenth-century modernity
is inseparable from the w a y in which dispersed mec ha ni sm s of p o w e r coin
cide with n e w m o d e s of subjectivity, and he thus details a range of pervasive
and local techniques for controlling, maintaining, and maki n g useful n e w
multiplicities of individuals. Modernization consists in this production of
manageable subjects through what he calls
a certain policy of the body, a cer
tain w a y of rendering a g roup of m e n docile a nd useful. This policy required
the involvement of definite relations of p o w e r it called for a technique of
overlapping subjection a nd objectificationit brought with it n e w procedures
of individualization.
18
Although h e ostensibly examines
disciplinaryinstitutions like prisons,
schools,*and the military, h e also describes the role of the newly constituted
h u m a n sciences in regulating and modifying the behavior of individuals. T h e
m a n a g e m e n t of subjects d e p e n d e d above all o n the accumulation of k n o w l
edge about them, whether in medicine, education, psychology, physiology,
the rationalization of labor, or child care. O u t of this k no wledge c a m e what
Foucault calls ua very real technology, the technology of individuals,which
he insists is
inscribed in a broad historical process the development at about
the s a m e time of m a n y other technologiesagronomical, industrial,
economical.
19
Crucial to the development of these n e w disciplinary techniques of the
subject w as the fixing of quantitative and statistical nor m s of behavior.20 T h e
17.
18.
19.
20.
Michel Foucault, D iscipline a n d Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan ( N e w York, 1977).

Foucault, D iscipline a n d Punish, p. 305.
Foucault, D iscipline a n d Punish, pp. 224-225.
For G e o rg e s Canguilhem, processes of normalization overlap with modernization
16
assessment of
normalityin medicine, psychology, an d other fields b e c a m e
an essential part of the shaping of the individual to the requirements of insti
tutional p o w e r in the nineteenth century, a n d itwa s through these disciplines
that the subject in a sense b e c a m e visible. M y concern is h o w the individual
as observer b e c a m e an object of investigation a n d a locus of know le d ge begin
ning in the first f ew decades of the 1800s, an d h o w the status of the observing
subject w a s transformed. As I have indicated, a key object of study in the
empirical sciences then w a s subjective vision, a vision that h ad b e e n taken out
of the incorporeal relations of the camera obscura an d relocated in the h u m a n
body. It is a shift signaled by the passage from the geometrical optics of the
seventeenth a n d eighteenth centuries to physiological optics, whi ch d o m i
nated both scientific an d philosophical discussion of vision in the nineteenth
century. Thu s k n o w l e dg e w a s accumulated about the constitutive role of the
b o d y in the apprehension of a visible world, and it rapidly became* obvious
that efficiency a n d rationalization in m a n y areas of h u m a n activity d e p e n d e d
o n information about the capacities of the h u m a n eye. O n e result of the n e w
physiological optics w a s to expose the idiosyncrasies of the
normaleye. Ret
inal afterimages, peripheral vision, binocular vision, a nd thresholds of atten
tion all w e r e studied in terms of determining quantifiable n o r m s and
parameters. T h e widespread preoccupation with the defects of h u m a n vision
defined ever m o r e precisely an outline of the normal, and generated n e w
technologies for imposing a normative vision o n the observer.
In the midst of such research, a n u m b e r of optical devices w e r e invented
that later b e c a m e elements in the mass visual culture of the nineteenth cen
tury. T h e phenakistiscope, o n e of m a n y machines designed for the illusory
simulation of m o v e m e n t , w a s p ro duced in the midst of the empirical study of
retinal afterimagesthe stereoscope, a dominant form for the consumption of
photographic imagery for over half a century, w a s first developed within the
effort to quantify an d formalize the physiological operation of binocular
vision. W h a t is important, then, is that these central c om po ne nt s of nine
in the nineteenth century
Like pedagogical reform, hospital reform expresses a d e m a n d

for rationalization w h i c h also appears in politics, as it appears in the e c o n om y , u n d e r the
effect of nascent industrial mechanization, a n d w h i c h finally ends u p in w h a t has since b e e n
called normalization.The N orm al a n d the Pathological, trans. Carolyn Fawcett ( N e w York,
1989)
pp. 237-238. C a n g u i l h e m asserts that the verb
to normalizeis first us e d in 1834.
17
teenth-century
realism,of mass visual culture, preceded the invention of
photography an d in n o w a y required photographic procedures or even the
development of mass production techniques. Rather they are inextricably
dependent o n a n e w arrangement of kno wl e dg e about the b o d y a nd the co n
stitutive relation of that k no w l e d g e to social power. These apparatuses are the
o u t c o m e of a c o m p l e x remaking of the individual as observer into something
calculable an d regularizable a nd of h u m a n vision into something measurable
and thus exchangeable.21 T h e standardization of visual imagery in the nine
teenth century must b e seen then not simply as part of n e w forms of m e c h
anized reproduction but in relation to a broader process of normalization and
subjection of the observer. If there is a revolution in the nature and function
of the sign in the nineteenth century, it does not h a p p e n independently of the
remaking of the subject.22
Readers of Discipline a n d Punish have often noted Foucault
s categor
ical declaration,
O u r society is not o n e of spectacle but of surveillance___W e
are neither in the amphitheatre nor o n the stage but in the Panoptic
machine.
23 Although this remark occurs in the midst of a comparison

between arrangements of p o w e r in antiquity and modernity, Foucault
s use of
the term
spectacleis clearly b o u n d u p in the polemics of post-1968 France.
21.
M e a s u r e m e n t takes o n a primary role in a b road range of the physical sciences
between 1800 and 1850, the key date being 1840 according to T h o m a s S. Kuhn,
T h e Func
tion of Measurement in M o d e r n Physical Science,in The Essential Tension
Selected Stud
ies in Scientific Tradition a n d Change (Chicago, 1979), pp. 219-220. K u h n is supported b y

Ian Hacking
After 1800 or so there is an avalanche of numbers, m o s t notably in the social

sciences.... Perhaps a turning point w a s signaled in 1832, the year that Charles Babbage,
inventor of the digital computer, published his brief p a mphlet urging publication of tables
of all the constant n u m b e r s k n o w n in the sciences a n d the arts.Hacking, Representing a n d
Intervening
Introductory Topics in the Philosophy o f N atural Science (Cambridge, 1983),
pp. 234-235.
22.
Baudrillard
s notion of a shift f r o m the fixed signs of feudal a n d aristocratic societies
to the exchangeable symbolic regime of modernity finds a reciprocal transformation artic
ulated b y Foucault in terms of the individual
T h e m o m e n t that s a w the transition fr o m

historico-ritual m e c h a n i s m s for the formation of individuality to the scientifico-disciplinary
mechanisms, w h e n the n o r m al took over fr o m the ancestral, a n d m e a s u r e m e n t f r o m status,
thus substituting for the individuality of the m e m o r a b l e m a n that of the calculable m an , that
m o m e n t w h e n the sciences of m a n b e c a m e possible is the m o m e n t w h e n a n e w technology
of p o w e r a n d a n e w political a n a t o m y of the b o d y w e r e implemented.Discipline and Pun
ish, p. 193.
23.
Foucault, D iscipline a n d Punish, p. 217.
18
W h e n h e wrote the b o o k in the early 1970s,

spectaclewa s an obvious allu
sion to analyses of contemporary capitalism by G u y D e b o r d and others.24 O n e
can well imagine Foucault
s disdain, as h e wrote o n e of the greatest medita
tions o n modernity a n d power, for any facile or superficial use of
spectacle
as an explanation of h o w the masses are
controlledor
d u p e d by m e d i a
images.25
But Foucault
s opposition of surveillance a nd spectacle se em s to over
look h o w the effects of these t w o regimes of p o w e r can coincide. Using B e n
tham's panopticon as a primary theoretical object, Foucault relentlessly
emphasizes the ways in w h ic h h u m a n subjects b e c a m e objects of observation,
in the form of institutional control or scientific and behavioral studybut he
neglects the n e w forms by w hi c h vision itself b e c a m e a kind of discipline or
m o d e of work. T h e nineteenth-century optical devices I discuss, n o less than
the panopticon, involved arrangements of bodies in space, regulations of
activity, and the deployment of individual bodies, whic h codified a nd nor
malized the observer within rigidly defined systems of visual consumption.
T he y w e r e techniques for the m a n a g e m e n t of attention, for imposing h o m
ogeneity, anti-nomadic procedures that fixed a nd isolated the observer using
partitioning an d cellularity in whi ch the individual is reduced as a polit

ical force.T h e organization of mass culture did not proceed o n s o m e other
inessential or superstructural area of social practiceit w a s fully e m b e d d e d
within the s a m e transformations Foucault outlines.
I a m hardly suggesting, however, that the
society of the spectaclesud
denly appears alongside the developments I a m detailing here. T h e
spectacle
as D e b o r d uses the term, probably does not effectively take shape until
several decades into the twentieth century.26 In this book, I a m offering s o m e
24.
G u y D ebord, The Society o f the Spectacle, trans. D o n a l d Nicholson-Smith ( N e w York,
1990). First published in France in 1967.
25.
O n the place of vision in Foucault
s thought, see Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, pp. 4 6 69. See also J o h n Rajchman,
Foucault
s Art of Seeing,October 44 (Spring 1988), pp. 8 9 117.
26.
Following u p o n a brief r e m a r k b y Debord, I have discussed the case for placing the
onset of the
society of the spectaclein the late 1920s, concurrent with the technological
a n d institutional origins of television, the beginning of synchronized s o u n d in movies, the
use of ma s s m e d i a techniques b y the Nazi party in G e rmany, the rise of urbanism, a n d the
political failure of surrealism in France, in m y
Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory,
October 50 (Fall 1989), pp. 97-107.
19
notes o n its prehistory, o n the early background of the spectacle. Debord, in

a well-known passage, poses o n e of its ma i n features
Since the spectacle
s job is to cause a world that is n o longer
directly perceptible to be seen via different specialized m e d i a
tions, it is inevitable that it should elevate the h u m a n sense of sight
to the special place once occupied by touch the most abstract of
the senses, and the most easily deceived, sight is naturally the
most readily adaptable to present-day society
s generalized
abstraction.27
Thus, in m y delineation of a modernization and revaluation of vision, I indi
cate h o w the sense of touch h ad b ee n an integral part of classical theories of
vision in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. T h e subsequent dissocia
tion of touch from sight occurs within a pervasive
separation of the senses
and industrial remapping of the b o d y in the nineteenth century. T h e loss of
touch as a conceptual c o m p o n e n t of vision me a nt the unloosening of the eye
from the network of referentiality incarnated in tactility and its subjective rela
tion to perceived space. This autonomization of sight, occurring in m a n y dif
ferent domains, w a s a historical condition for the rebuilding of an observer
fitted for the tasks of
spectacularconsumption. Not only did the empirical
isolation of vision allow its quantification and homogenization but it also
enabled the n e w objects of vision (whether commodities, photographs, or the
act of perception itself) to assu me a mystified and abstract identity, sundered
from any relation to the observer
s position within a cognitively unified field.
T h e stereoscope is o n e major cultural site o n which this breach b etween tan
gibility an d visuality is singularly evident.
If Foucault describes s o m e of the epistemological a nd institutional con
ditions of the observer in the nineteenth century, others have detailed the
actual shape an d density of the field in w hi c h perception w a s transformed.
Perhaps m o r e than anyone else, Walter Benjamin has m a p p e d out the het
erogeneous texture of events an d objects out of which the observer in that
century w a s composed. In the diverse fragments of his writings, w e encounter
27.
Debord, The Society o f the Spectacle, sec. 18.
20
an ambulatory observer shaped by a convergence of n e w urban spaces, tech

nologies, a n d n e w e co n o m i c a n d symbolic functions of images a nd p r o d
ucts~forms of artificial lighting, n e w use of mirrors, glass an d steel
architecture, railroads, m u s e u m s , gardens, photography, fashion, crowds. Per
ception for Benjamin w a s acutely temporal an d kinetiche m a k e s clear h o w
modernity subverts even the possibility of a contemplative beholder. There
is never a pure access to a single objectvision is always multiple, adjacent to
and overlapping with other objects, desires, and vectors. Even the congealed
space of the m u s e u m cannot transcend a world w h e r e everything is in
circulation.
It should not g o u n r e m a r k e d that o n e topic is generally u n e x a m i n e d by
Benjamin nineteenth-century painting. It simply is not a significant part of the
field of w h i c h h e provides a rich inventory. O f the m a n y things this omission
implies, it certainly indicates that for h i m painting w a s not ^primary element
in the reshaping of perception in the nineteenth century.28 T h e observer of
paintings in the nineteenth century wa s always also an observer w h o simul
taneously c o n s u m e d a proliferating range of optical a nd sensory experiences.
In other words, paintings w e r e p roduced an d as s u m e d m e a n in g not in s o m e
impossible kind of aesthetic isolation, or in a continuous tradition of painterly
codes, but as o n e of m a n y consumable a nd fleeting elements within an
expanding chaos of images, commodities, a nd stimulation.
O n e of the few visual artists that Benjamin discusses is Charles Meryon,
mediated through the sensibility of Baudelaire.29 M e r y o n is important not for
the formal or iconographic content of this work, but as an index of a d a m a g e d
sensorium responding to the early shocks of modernization. M e r y o n
s dis
turbing images of the mineral inertness of a medieval Paris take o n the value
of
afterimagesof an annihilated set of spaces at the onset of S econd E mpire
urban renewal. A n d the nervous crosshatched incisions of his etched plates
bespeak the atrophy of artisanal handicraft in the face of serial industrial
reproduction. T h e example of M e r y o n insists that vision in the nineteenth
28.
See, for example, Benjamin, Reflections, trans. E d m u n d Jephcott ( N e w York, 1978 )
p. 151:
With the increasing scope of communications systems, the significance of painting
in imparting information is reduced.
29.
Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era o f High Capitalism,
trans. Harry Z o h n (London, 1973)
pp. 86-89.
21
century w a s inseparable from transience~that is, from n e w temporalities,

speeds, experiences of flux a nd obsolescence, a n e w density an d sedim en
tation of the structure of visual m em o r y . Perception within the context of m o d
ernity, for Benjamin, never disclosed the world as presence. O n e m o d e wa s
the observer asflaneur, a mobile c o n s u m e r of a ceaseless succession of illu
sory commodity-like images.30 But the destructive d y n a m i s m of moderniza
tion w a s also a condition for a vision that w o u l d resist its effects, a revivifying
perception of the present caught u p in its o w n historical afterimages. Ironi
cally,
the standardized a n d denaturedperception of the masses, to whi ch
Benjamin sought radical alternatives, o w e d m u c h of its p o w e r in the nine
teenth century to the empirical study and quantification of the retinal after
image and its particular temporality, as I indicate in chapters 3 a nd 4.
Nineteenth-century painting w as also slighted, for very different reasons,
by the founders of m o d e r n art history, a generation or two before Benjamin.
It is easy to forget that art history as an academic discipline has its origins
within this s a m e nineteenth-century milieu. Three nineteenth-century devel
o pments inseparable from the institutionalization of art historical practice are
(1) historicist a n d evolutionary m o d e s of thought allowing forms to b e
arrayed a n d classified as an unfolding over time (2) sociopolitical transfor
mations involving the creation of leisure time an d the cultural enfranchise
m e n t of m o r e sectors of urban populations, o n e result of which w a s the public
art m u s e u m and (3) n e w serial m o d e s of image reproduction, w hi ch per
mitted both the global circulation a nd juxtaposition of highly credible copies
of disparate artworks. Yet if nineteenth-century modernity w a s in part the
matrix of art history, the artworks of that modernity w e r e excluded from art
history
s dominant explanatory and classifying schemes, even into the early
twentieth century.
For example, two crucial traditions, o n e ste mm in g from Morelli and
another from the W a r b u r g School, w e r e fundamentally unable or unwilling
to include nineteenth-century art within the scope of their investigations. This
in spite of the dialectical relation of these practices to the historical m o m e n t
of their o w n e m e r g e n c e the concern of Morellian connoisseurship with
30.
See Susan Buck-Morss,
T h e Flaneur, the S a n d w ic h ma n , a n d the W h o r e
T h e Politics
of Loitering,New G erm an Critique 39 (Fall, 1986), pp. 99-140.
22
authorship an d originality occurs w h e n n e w technologies a nd forms of

exchange put in question notions of the
hand,authorship, and originality
and the quest by W a r b u r g School scholars for symbolic forms expressive of
the spiritual foundations of a unified culture coincides with a collective cul
tural despair at the absence or impossibility of such forms in the present. Thus
these overlapping m o d e s of art history took as their privileged objects the fig
urative art of antiquity an d the Renaissance.
W h a t is of interest here is the penetrating recognition, subliminal or oth
erwise, b y the founding art historians that nineteenth-century art wa s fun
damentally discontinuous with the art of preceding centuries. Clearly, the
discontinuity they sensed is not the familiar break signified by Manet and
impressionism rather it is a question of w h y painters as diverse as Ingres,
Overbeck, Courbet, Delaroche, Meissonier, v o n Kobell, Millais, Gleyre, Fried
rich, Cabanel, G e r o m e , a n d Delacroix (to n a m e only a few) together incar
nated a surface of mimetic an d figural representation apparently similar to but
disquietingly unlike what ha d preceded it. T h e art historian
s silence, indif
ference, or even disdain for eclecticism a nd
degradedforms implied that
this period constituted a radically different visual language that could not be
submitted to the s a m e m e t h o d s of analysis, that could not b e m a d e to speak
in the s a m e ways, that even could not b e read.31
T h e w o r k of subsequent generations of art historians, however, soon
obscured that inaugural intuition of rupture, of difference. T h e nineteenth
century gradually b e c a m e assimilated into the mainstream of the discipline
through apparently dispassionate an d objective examination, similar to what
had h a p p e n e d earlier with the art of late antiquity. But in order to domesticate
that strangeness from w hi ch earlier scholars had recoiled, historians
explained nineteenth-century art according to models taken from the study
of older art.32 Initially, mainly formal categories from Renaissance painting
31.
Th e hostility to most contemporary art in Burckhardt, Hildebrand, Wolfflin, Riegl,
a n d Fiedler is recounted in Michael Podro, The Critical H istorians o f Art ( N e w Haven,

1982), pp. 66-70.
32.
O n e of the first influential attempts to i m p o s e the m e th o d o l o g y a n d vocabulary of
earlier art history onto nineteenth-century material w a s Walter Friedlaender, D avid to
D elacroix, trans. Robert Goldwater (Cambridge, Mass., 1952 )original G e r m a n edition,
1930. Friedlaender describes French painting in terms of alternating classical a n d baroq u e
phases.
23
w e r e transferred to nineteenth-century artists, but beginning in the 1940s

notions like class content a n d popular imagery b e c a m e surrogates for tradi
tional iconography. B y inserting nineteenth-century painting into a continu
ous history of art an d a unified discursive apparatus of explanation, however,
something of its essential difference w a s lost. T o recover that difference o n e
must recognize h o w the making, the consumption, a nd the effectiveness of
that art is dependent o n an o b s e r v e r a n d o n an organization of the visible
that vastly exceeds the d o m a i n conventionally ex am in e d by art history. T h e
isolation of painting after 1830 as a viable a nd self-sufficient category for study
b e c o m e s highly problematic, to say the least. T h e circulation and reception
of all visual imagery is so closely interrelated by the middle of the century that
any single m e d i u m or form of visual representation n o longer has a significant
a ut o n o m o u s identity. T h e meanings a nd effects of any single image are always
adjacent to this overloaded and plural sensory environment a nd to the
observer w h o inhabited it. Benjamin, for example, s a w the art m u s e u m in the
mid-nineteenth century as simply o n e of m a n y d r e a m spaces, experienced
and traversed by an observer n o differently from arcades, botanical gardens,
w a x m u s e u m s , casinos, railway stations, and department stores.33
Nietzsche describes the position of the individual within this milieu in
terms of a crisis of assimilation
Sensibility immensely m o r e irritable
... the abundance of dispar
ate impressions greater than ever cosmopolitanism in foods, lit
eratures, newspapers, forms, tastes, even landscapes. T h e t e m p o of
this influx prestissimo
the impressions erase each other o n e
instinctively resists taking in anything, taking anything deeply, to
digestanything a weakening of the p o w e r to digest results from

this. A kind of adaptation to the flood of impressions takes place
m e n unlearn spontaneous action, they merely react to stimuli from
the outside.34
Like Benjamin, Nietzsche here undermines any possibility of a contemplative
beholder a nd poses an anti-aesthetic distraction as a central feature of m o d 33.
See Walter Benjamin, D as Passagen-Werk, vol. 1 (Frankfurt, 1982), pp. 510-523.
34.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The W ill to Power, trans. Walter K a u f m a n n a n d R. J. Hollingdale
( N e w York, 1967)
p. 47.
24
ernity, o n e that G e o r g S i m m e l an d others w e r e to examine in detail. W h e n

Nietzsche uses quasi-scientific w o r d s like
influx,
adaptation,
react,and
irritability,it is about a world that has already b e e n reconfigured into n e w

perceptual components. Modernity, in this case, coincides with the collapse
of classical m od el s of vision and their stable space of representations. Instead,
observation is increasingly a question of equivalent sensations and stimuli that
have n o reference to a spatial location. W h a t begins in the 1820s a nd 1830s is
a repositioning of the observer, outside of the fixed relations of interior/exte
rior presupposed by the camera obscura a nd into an undemarcated terrain o n
which the distinction betwe en internal sensation a nd external signs is irrev
ocably blurred. If there is ever a
liberationof vision in the nineteenth cen
tury, this is w h e n it first happens. In the absence of the juridical m o d e l of the
camera obscura, there is a freeing u p of vision, a falling away of the rigid struc
tures that ha d shaped it a n d constituted its objects.
But almost simultaneous with this final dissolution of a transcendent

foundation for vision e merges a plurality of m e a n s to recode the activity of the
eye, to regiment it, to heighten its productivity and to prevent its distraction.
Thus the imperatives of capitalist modernization, while demolishing the field
of classical vision, generated techniques for imposing visual attentiveness,
rationalizing sensation, an d m anaging perception. T he y w e r e disciplinary
techniques that required a notion of visual experience as instrumental, m o d
ifiable, an d essentially abstract, an d that never allowed a real world to acquire
solidity or permanence. O n c e vision b e c a m e located in the empirical i m m e
diacy of the observer
s body, it belonged to time, to flux, to death. T h e guar
antees of authority, identity, a nd universality supplied by the camera obscura
are of another epoch.
2 The Camera Obscura and Its Subject
This kind of knowledge seems to be

the truest, the most authentic, for it
has the object before itself in its
entirety a n d completeness. This bare
fact of certainty, however, is really
a n d admittedly the abstractest a n d
the poorest kind of truth.
G. W. F. Hegel
A prevalent tendency in methodo

logical discussion is to approach
problems of knowledge sub specie
aeternitatis, as itwere. Statements are
compared with each other without

regard to their history a n d without
considering that they might belong to
different historical strata.
Paul Feyerabend
Most attempts to theorize vision and visuality are w e d d e d to models that
emphasize a continuous an d overarching Western visual tradition. Clearly it
is often strategically necessary to m a p the outlines of a dominant Western
speculative or scopic tradition of vision in s o m e sense continuous, for
instance, f ro m Plato to the present, or from the quattrocento into the late nine
26
The Camera Obscura a n d Its Subject
teenth century. M y concern is not so m u c h to argue against these models,

which have their usefulness, but rather to insist that there are s o m e important
discontinuities such monolithic constructions have obscured. Again, the spe
cific account that interests m e here, o n e that has b e c o m e almost ubiquitous
and continues to b e developed in a variety of forms, is that the e m e rg en ce of
photography a nd cinema in the nineteenth century is the fulfillment of a long
unfolding of technological and/or ideological development in the West
w h e r e b y the camera obscura evolves into the photographic camera. Such a
sc h e m a implies that at each step in this evolution the s a m e essential presup
positions about an observer
s relation to the world are in place. O n e could
n a m e several d oz en books o n the history of film or photography in w h o s e first
chapter appears the obligatory seventeenth-century engraving depicting a
camera obscura, as a kind of inaugural or incipient form o n a long evolu
tionary ladder.
These mod e ls of continuity have be e n used by historians of divergent
and even antithetical political positions. Conservatives tend to pose an
account of ever-increasing progress toward verisimilitude in representation,
in which Renaissance perspective a nd photography are part of the s a m e quest
for a fully objective equivalent of a
natural vision.In these histories of sci
ence or culture, the camera obscura is m a d e part of the development of the
sciences of observation in Euro p e during the seventeenth and eighteenth cen
turies. T h e accumulation of knowl e dg e about light, lenses, and the eye
b e c o m e s part of a progressive sequence of discoveries and achievements that
lead to increasingly accurate investigation and representation of the physical
world. Privileged events in such a sequence usually also include the invention
of linear perspective in the fifteenth century, the career of Galileo, the induc
tive w o r k of Newton, and the em er g e n c e of British empiricism.
Radical historians, however, usually see the camera obscura and cinema
as b o u n d u p in a single enduring apparatus of political and social power, elab
orated over several centuries, that continues to discipline and regulate the sta
tus of an observer. T h e camera is thus seen by s o m e as an exemplary
indication of the ideological nature of representation, e m b o d y i n g the epistemological presumptions of
bourgeois h u ma ni sm .It is often argued that
the cinematic apparatus, emerging in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
27
centuries, perpetuates, albeit in increasingly differentiated forms, the s a m e

ideology of representation and the s a m e transcendental subject.
W h a t I h o p e to d o in this chapter is briefly to articulate the camera
obscura m o d e l of vision in terms of its historical specificity, in order subse
quently to suggest h o w this m o d e l collapsed in the 1820s a nd 1830s, w h e n it
was displaced by radically different notions of what an observer was, and of
what constituted vision. If, later in the nineteenth century, cinema or photog
raphy s e e m to invite formal comparisons with the camera obscura, it is within
a social, cultural, and scientific milieu w h e r e there had already b e e n a pro
found break with the conditions of vision presupposed by this device.
It has b e e n k n o w n for at least t wo thousand years that w h e n light passes
through a small hole into a dark, enclosed interior, an inverted image will
appear o n the wall opposite the hole. Thinkers as remote from each other as
Euclid, Aristotle, Alhazen, Roger Bacon, Leonardo, a nd Kepler noted this p h e
n o m e n o n and speculated in various ways h o w it might or might not b e anal
ogous to the functioning of h u m a n vision. T h e long history of such
observations has yet to b e written and is far r e m o v e d from the aims and lim
ited scope of this chapter.
It is important, however, to m a k e a distinction between the enduring
empirical fact that an image can b e produced in this w a y a nd the camera
obscura* as a historically constructed artifact. For the camera obscura w a s not
simply an inert a nd neutral piece of equipment or a set of technical premises
to b e tinkered with a n d improved over the yearsrather, it w a s e m b e d d e d in
a m u c h larger and denser organization of k nowledge a nd of the observing
subject. Historically speaking, w e must recognize h o w for nearly two h u n dr ed
years, from the late 1500s to the e n d of the 1700s, the structural and optical
principles of the camera obscura coalesced into a dominant paradigm
through whic h wa s described the status a nd possibilities of an observer. I
emphasize that this paradigm wa s dominant though obviously not exclusive.
During the seventeenth a nd eighteenth centuries the camera obscura w as
without question the mos t widely used m o d e l for explaining h u m a n vision,
and for representing the relation of a perceiver and the position of a k n o wi ng
subject to an external world. This highly problematic object w a s far m o r e than
28
Portable cam era obscura. M id-eighteenth century.
29
simply an optical device. For over two h u n d r e d years it subsisted as a philo

sophical metaphor, a m o d e l in the science of physical optics, a n d w a s also a
technical apparatus used in a large range of cultural activities.1 For two cen
turies it stood as model, in both rationalist a nd empiricist thought, of h o w
observation leads to truthful inferences about the w o rld at the s a m e time the
physical incarnation of that m o d e l wa s a widely used m e a n s of observing the
visible world, an instrument of popular entertainment, of scientific inquiry,
and of artistic practice. T h e formal operation of a camera obscura as an
abstract diagram m a y remain constant, but the function of the device or m e t
aphor within an actual social or discursive field has fluctuated decisively. T h e
fate of the cam er a obscura paradigm in the nineteenth century is a case in
point.2 In the texts of Marx, Bergson, Freud, a nd others the very apparatus that
a century earlier w a s the site of truth b e c o m e s a m o d e l for procedures and
forces that conceal, invert, a nd mystify truth.3
1.
T h e extensive literature o n the c a m e r a obscura is s u m m a r i z e d in A a r o n Scharf, A rt
a n d Photography (Harmond s wo r th , 1974), a n d in Law r en c e G o wing, Vermeer ( N e w York,
1952). General studies not m e n t i o n e d in those w o r k s are Moritz v o n Rohr, Z urE ntw icklu n g der d u n keln Kam m er (Berlin, 1925), a n d J o h n J. H a m m o n d , The Cam era Obscura
A Chronicle (Bristol, 1981). For valuable information o n the uses of the c a m e r a obscura in
the eighteenth century, see H e l m u t h Fritzsche, B ernardo B elotto g en a n n t C analetto
(Magdeburg, 1936) pp. 158-194, a n d Decio Gioseffi, C analetto
II q u a d em o delle Gallerie
V eneziane e Vimpiego della cam era ottica (Trieste, 1959). W o r k s o n the artistic use of the
c am e r a obscura in the seventeenth century include Charles Seymour, Jr.,
Dark Cha m b e r
and Light-Filled room: V er meer and the Camer a Obscura/5Art Bulletin 46, no. 3 (Septem
ber 1964), pp. 323-331; Daniel A. Fink,
Vermeer
s Use of the Came ra Obscura A C o m
parative Study/5Art Bulletin 53, no. 4 (Dec em be r 1971), pp. 493-505; A. Hyatt Mayor,
Th e
Photographic Eye,Afe/ropo saw M w s e w m o f A rt B ulletin 5, no. 1 ( S u m m e r 1946)
pp. 1526
Heinrich Schwarz,
V e r m e e r a n d the C a m e r a Obscura,P antheon 24 ( M a y - J u n e 1966),
pp. 170-180Arthur K. Wheelock, Perspective, Optics, and Delft Artists Around 1650 (New
York, 1977); a n d Joel Snyder,
Picturing Vision,Critical Inquiry 6 (Spring 1980), pp. 4 9 9 526.
2.
Cf. Colin M u r r a y Turbayne, The M yth o f M etaphor ( N e w Haven, 1962), esp. pp. 154158
203-208, w h i c h poses the c a m e r a obscura as a completely ahistorical concept linked
with representative or c o p y theories of perception f r o m antiquity to the present. A n equally
ahistorical discussion of the structure of m o d e r n photography a n d of the Cartesian c am e ra
obscura is Arthur Danto,
T h e Representational Character of Ideas a n d the P r o b l e m of the
External World,in Descartes
Critical a n d Interpretative Essays, ed. Michael H o o k e r (Bal
timore, 1978), pp. 287-298.
3.
Karl Marx, The G erm an Ideology, ed. C. J. Arthur ( N e w York, 1970), p. 4 7
Henri Ber g
son, M atter a n d M em ory [1896] trans. N. M. Paul a n d W. S. Palmer ( N e w York, 1988), pp.
37-39; S i g m u n d Freud, The Interpretation o f Dreams, trans. J a m e s Strachey ( N e w York,
30
W h a t then allows m e to suggest that there is a c o m m o n coherence to the

status of the camera obscura in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to
pose this broad expanse of time as a unity? Clearly the physical and opera
tional m a k e u p of the camera obscura underwent continual modification dur
ing this period.4 For example, the first portable devices w e r e in use b y 1650
and into the late 1700s models b e c a m e increasingly small. A n d obviously the
wide range of social and representational practices associated with the instru
m e n t mutated considerably over two centuries. Yet despite the multiplicity of
its local manifestations, what is extraordinary is the consistency with w hich
certain primary features of the camera obscura are repeated throughout this
period. There is a regularity an d uniformity with which the formal relations
constituted b y the camera are stated again a nd again, n o matter h o w heter
ogeneous or unrelated the locations of those statements.
I a m hardly suggesting, however, that the camera obscura h a d simply a
discursive identity. If w e can designate it in terms of statements, every o n e of
those statements is necessarily linked to subjects, practices, and institutions.
Perhaps the most important obstacle to an understanding of the camera
obscura, or of any optical apparatus, is the idea that optical device and
observer are two distinct entities, that the identity of observer exists inde
pendently from the optical device that is a physical piece of technical equip
ment. For what constitutes the camera obscura is precisely its multiple
identity, its
m i x e d status as an epistemological figure within a discursive
order a n d an object within an arrangement of cultural practices.5 T h e camera
obscura is what Gilles Deleuze w o u l d call an assemblage, something that is
1955)
pp. 574-575. H e g e l
s notion of
the inverted w o r l d (verkebrte W elt) is crucial for
subsequent repudiations of the ca m e r a obscura m o d e l
see P henom enology o f M ind, trans.
J. B. Baillie ( N e w York, 1967)
pp. 203-207. See also Sarah Kofman, Camera obscura de
Videologie (Paris, 1973); Constance Penley, Janet Bergstrom et al., Critical Approaches,
Camera Obscura no. 1 (Fall 1976)
pp. 3 - 1 0
a n d W. J. T. Mitchell, Iconology
Im age, Text,
Ideology (Chicago, 1986), pp. 160-208.
4.
For details o n various m o d e l s during this period, see, for example, Gioseffi
C an
aletto, pp. 13-22.
5.
T h e distinctions with w h i c h the materialist method, discriminative f ro m the outset,

starts are distinctions within this highly m i x e d object, a n d it cannot present this object as
A Lyric Poet in the Era
m i x e d or uncritical enough.Walter Benjamin, Charles B audelaire
o f High Capitalism, trans. Harry Z o h n (London, 1973)
p. 103.
31
Camera obscuras. M id-eighteenth century.
simultaneously a nd inseparably a machinic assemblage and an assemblage

of enunciation,an object about whi ch something is said and at the s a m e time
an object that is used.6 It is a site at which a discursive formation intersects with
material practices. T h e camera obscura, then, cannot b e reduced either to a
technological or a discursive objectitwas a c o m p le x social a m a l g a m in which
its existence as a textual figure w a s never separable from its machinic uses.
W h a t this implies is that the camera obscura must b e extricated from the
evolutionary logic of a technological determinism, central to influential his
torical surveys, w hi ch position it as a precursor or an inaugural event in a
genealogy leading to the birth of photography.7 T o cite Deleuze again,
Machines are social before being technical.

8 Obviously photography had
6.
Gilles D eleuze a n d Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism a n d Schizo
phrenia, trans. Brian M a s s u m i (Minneapolis, 1987) p. 504.
7.
Overwhelmingly, the starting point of histories of photography is the c am e ra
obscura as a photographic c a m e r a in embryo. T h e birth of photography is then
explained
as the fortuitous encounter of this optical device with n e w discoveries in photochemistry.
See, for example, H e l m u t Gernsheim,i4 Concise H istory o f Photography ( N e w York, 1965),
pp. 9-15; B e a u m o n t Newhall, The H istory o f Photography ( N e w York, 1964), pp. 11-13;
Josef Maria Eder, History of Photography, trans. Edward Epstein ( N e w York, 1945) pp. 3652
a n d Heinrich Schwarz, A rt a n d Photography
Forerunners a n d Influences (Chicago,
1985), pp. 97-117.
8.
Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, trans. Sean H a n d (Minneapolis, 1988), p. 13.
32
technical a n d material underpinnings, and the structural principles of the two

devices are clearly not unrelated. I will argue, however, that the camera
obscura a n d the photographic camera, as assemblages, practices, an d social
objects, belong to t w o fundamentally different organizations of representa
tion and the observer, as well as of the observer
s relation to the visible. B y
the beginning of the nineteenth century the camera obscura is n o longer syn
o n y m o u s with the production of truth and with an observer positioned to see
truthfully. T h e regularity of such statements ends abruptlythe assemblage
constituted by the camera breaks d o w n and the photographic camera
b e c o m e s an essentially dissimilar object, lodged amidst a radically different
network of statements a nd practices.
Art historians, predictably, tend to b e interested in art objects, and most
of t h e m have thus considered the camera obscura for h o w it m a y have deter
m i n e d the formal structure of paintings or prints. M a n y accounts of the camera
obscura, particularly those dealing with the eighteenth century, tend to c o n
sider it exclusively in terms of its use by artists for copying, an d as art aid in
the makin g of paintings. There is often a presumption that artists w e r e making
d o with an inadequate substitute for what they really wanted, and which
w o u l d soo n a p p e a r t h a t is, a photographic camera.9 Such an emphasis
imposes a set of twentieth-century assumptions, in particular a productivist
logic, onto a device w h o s e primary function w a s not to generate pictures.
Copying with the camera o b s c u r a t h a t is, the tracing and m a k in g pe rmanent
of its i m a g e w a s only o n e of its m a n y uses, and even by the mid-eighteenth
century w a s de-emphasized in a n u m b e r of important accounts. T h e article o n
camera obscurain the Encyclopedie, for example, lists its uses in this order
9.
Arthur K. W h e e l o c k proposes that the
verisimilitudeof the ca m e r a obscura sat
isfied the naturalistic urges of seventeenth-century D u t c h painters w h o fou n d perspective
too mechanical and abstract.

For Dutch artists, intent o n exploring the world about them,
the c a me r a obscura offered a u nique m e a n s for judging w h a t a truly natural painting should
look like.uConstanti)n H u y g e n s a n d Early Attitudes T o w a r d s the C a m e r a O b s c u r a , H istory
o f Photography 1 no. .2 (April 1977) pp. 93-101. As well as proposing the highly q ue s
tionable notion of a
truly naturalpainting, W h e e l o c k assumes that the device allowed a
neutral, unproblematic presentation of visual
realityH e outlines a process of stylistic
change, apparently following Gombrich, in which the use of the camera obscura interacted
with traditional practices a n d sc h e m a s to yield m o r e lifelike images. See P erfective, Optics,
a n d D elft Artists, pp. 165-184. Svetlana Alpers, The A rt o f D escribing (Chicago, 1983), pp.
32 -3 3 also asserts that the c a m e r a obscura implied a m o r e truthful image.
33
It throws great light o n the nature of visionit provides a very diverting spec
tacle, in that it presents images perfectly resembling their objectsit repre
sents the colors and m o v e m e n t s of objects better than any other sort of
representation is able to do.O n l y belatedly does itnote that
b y m e a n s of this
instrument s o m e o n e w h o does not k n o w h o w to d r a w is able nevertheless to
d r a w with extreme accuracy.
10 Noninstrumental descriptions of the camera

obscura are pervasive, emphasizing it as a self-sufficient demonstration of its
o w n activity an d b y analogy of h u m a n vision. For those w h o understood its
optical underpinnings it offered the spectacle of representation operating
completely transparently, a nd for those ignorant of its principles it afforded
the pleasures of illusion. Just as perspective contained within it the disruptive
possibilities of anamorphoses, however, so the veracity of the camera was
haunted b y its proximity to techniques of conjuration an d illusion. T h e magic
lantern that developed alongside the camera obscura had the capacity to
appropriate the setup of the latter a nd subvert its operation by infusing its inte
rior with reflected a n d projected images using artificial light.11 However, this
counter-deployment of the camera obscura never occupied an effective dis
cursive or social position f rom w h ich to challenge the dominant m o d e l I have
b ee n outlining here.
10.
E ncyclopedic o u dictionnaire des sciences, des arts et des metiers, vol. 3 (Paris, 1753 )
pp. 62-64. Earlier in the century J o h n Harris does not m en t io n its use b y artists or the p o s
sibility of recording the projected images. Instead h e emphasizes its status as a popular
entertainment a n d a didactic illustration of the principles of vision. See his Lexicon Techn icum
o r a U niversal English D ictionary o f Arts a n d Sciences (London, 1704 )pp. 2 6 4-
273. William Molyneux is also silent about any artistic use of the device but closely asso
ciates it with the m agic lantern a n d p eep-shows in his D ioptrica nova
A Treatise o f diop-
tricks in tw o pa rts (London, 1692)

pp. 36-41. For a typical h a n d b o o k o n artists
use of the
ca me r a obscura see Charles-Antoine Jombert, M ethodepour apprendre le dessein (Paris,
1755)
pp. 137-156.
11.
T h e w o r k of the Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) a n d his legendary
magic-lantern technology is a crucial counter-use of classical optical systems. See his Ars
m agna lucis et um brae ( R o m e , 1646) pp. 173-184. In place of the transparent access of
observer to exterior, Kircher devised techniques for flooding the inside of the c a m e r a with
a visionary brilliance, using various artificial light sources, mirrors, projected images, a n d
so me t im e s translucent g e m s in place of a lens to simulate divine illumination. In contrast
to the Counter-Reformation b ac k gr o u n d of Kircher
s practices, it
s possible to m a k e a very
general association of the c a m e r a obscura with the inwardness of a m o d e r n i z e d a n d Prot
estant subjectivity.
34
At the s a m e time o n e mu s t b e wa ry of conflating the meanings a nd effects

of the camera obscura with techniques of linear perspective. Obviously the
two are related, but it m u st b e stressed that the camera obscura defines the
position of an interiorized observer to an exterior world, not just to a twodimensional representation, as is the case with perspective. Thus the camera
obscura is s y n o n y m o u s with a m u c h broader kind of subject-effect; it is about
far m o r e than the relation of an observer to a certain procedure of picture
making. M a n y contemporary accounts of the camera obscura single out as its
most impressive feature its representation of m ovement. Observers fre
quently spoke with astonishment of the flickering images within the camera
of pedestrians in motion or branches m o v i n g in the w i n d as being m o r e life
like than the original objects.12 Thus the phenomenological differences
between the experience of a pespectival construction and the projection of
the camera obscura are not even comparable. W h a t is crucial about the c a m
era obscura is its relation of the observer to the undemarcated, undifferen
tiated expanse of the world outside, and h o w its apparatus m a k e s an orderly
cut or delimitation of that field allowing it to be viewed, without sacrificing
the vitality of its being. But the m o v e m e n t an d temporality so evident in the
camera obscura w e r e always prior to the act of representationm o v e m e n t and
time could b e seen a nd experienced, but never represented.13
Another key misconception about the camera obscura is that it is s o m e
h o w intrinsically a
Northernm o d e l of visuality.14 Svetlana Alpers, in partic
ular, has developed this position in her insistence that the essential
12.
See, for example, Robert Smith, Com pleat System o f Opticks (Cambridge, 1738), p.
384, a n d J o h n Harris, Lexicon Technicum , p. 40.
13.
Classical science in the seventeenth a n d eighteenth centuries extracted
individual
realities f r o m the c o m p l e x c o n t i n u u m w h i c h nourished t h e m a n d gave t h e m shape, m a d e
t h e m manageable, eve n intelligible, but always transformed t h e m in essence. Cut off fr o m
those precarious aspects of p h e n o m e n a that can only b e called their
becoming,that is,
their aleatory and transformative adventure in tim e including their often extreme sensi
tivity to secondary, tertiary, stochastic, or merely invisible processes, and cut off as well
f ro m their effective capacities to affect or determine in their turn effects at the heart of these
s a m e processes~the science of nature has excluded time a n d rendered itself incapable of
thinking change or novelty in and for itself.Sanford Kwinter, Im m anence a n d E vent
(forthcoming).
14.
M u c h speculation about the history of the c a m e r a obscura assumes its origins are
Mediterranean~that it w a s accidentally
discoveredw h e n bright sunlight w o u l d enter
through a small aperture in shuttered windows.
35
characteristics of seventeenth-century Dutch painting are inseparable from

the experience in the North of the camera obscura.15 Missing, however, from
her discussion is a sense of h o w the metaphor of the camera obscura as a fig
ure for h u m a n vision pervaded all of Europe during the seventeenth century.
She refers to her
Northern descriptive m o d e as the
Keplerian m o d e , based
o n Kepler
s important statements about the camera obscura and the retinal
image. But Kepler ( whose optical studies w e r e d o n e in the eclectic a nd hardly
Northern visual culture of the Prague court of Rudolf II) w a s merely o n e of
a n u m b e r of major seventeenth-century thinkers in w h o s e w o r k the camera
obscura holds a central position, including Leibniz, Descartes, Newton, and
Locke.16 O v e r and above the question of the meanings of Dutch art, it is imp or
tant to acknowledge the transnational character of intellectual and scientific
life in Eur op e during this period, and m o r e specifically the fundamental sim
ilarities linking accounts of the camera obscura, whether by rationalists or
empiricists, from diverse parts of Europe.17
Although she addresses a traditional art historical pr ob l em (the style of
Northern versus Italian painting), in the course of her argument Alpers ma k e s
s o m e broad speculations about the historical role of the camera obscura.
While her argument cannot be fully s u mm ar i ze d here, she outlines a
descriptiveand empirical m o d e of seeing, coincident with the experience of the
15. Svetlana Alpers, The A rt o f D escribing

D utch A rt in the Seventeenth Century (Chi
cago, 1983), pp. 27-33.
16.
Alpers
s omission of Descartes
s account of vision a n d the ca m e r a obscura in La
dioptrique (1637) is notable, given that Descartes lived in Holland for over twenty years,
fro m 1628 to 1649, a n d that his optical theory w a s so closely related to Kepler
s. T h e si m
ilarity of a Keplerian a n d a Cartesian observer tends to u n d e r m i n e the notion of distinct
regional epistemes. O n Descartes a n d Holland see, for example, C. Louise Thijssen,
Le
cartesianisme aux Pays-Bas

in E. J. Dijksterhuis, e d Descartes et le cartesianisme hollan-
dais
E tudes et docum ents (Paris, 1950)
pp. 183-260. Gerard S i m o n insists that Descartes
s
La dioptrique only confirmed a n d m a d e m o r e preciseall the important features of
Kepler
s optics, including the theory of the retinal image, in
A propos de la theorie de la
perception visuelle chez Kepler et Descartes,in Proceedings o fX II Ith In tern atio n a l Con
gress o f the H istory o f Science, vol. 6 (Moscow, 1974), pp. 237-245.
17.
In a related problem, E r win Panofsky noted the different uses of perspective in the
North and the South, but he leaves n o doubt that what these uses have in c o m m o n as system
a n d technique is far m o r e important than regional idiosyncracies. See
Die Perspective als
Symbolische F o r m
in Vortrage der B ibliothek W arburg (1924-25), pp. 258-330.

(English trans. b y Christopher S. W o o d forthcoming f r o m Z o n e Books, N e w York.)
36
camera obscura, as a permanent

artistic optionin Western art.
It is an option
or pictorial m o d e that has b e e n taken u p at different times for different rea
sons and it remains unclear to what extent it should be considered to c o n
stitute, in a n d of itself, a historical development.
18 She asserts that
the
ultimate origins of photography d o not lie in the fifteenth-century invention
of perspective, but rather in the alternative m o d e of the North. Seen this way,
o n e might say that the photographic image, the Dutch art of describing, an d
...Impressionist painting are all examples of this constant artistic option in
the art of the West.
19 M y aim, o n the contrary, is to suggest that what separates

photography f rom both perspective and the camera obscura is far m o r e sig
nificant than what they have in c o m m o n .
While m y discussion of the camera obscura is founded o n notions of dis
continuity a nd difference, Alpers, like m a n y others, poses notions of both con

tinuity in her lineage of the origins of photography and identity in her idea
of an a priori observer w h o has perpetual access to these free-floating and
transhistorical options of seeing.20 If these options are
constant, the
observer in question b e c o m e s r e m o v e d from the specific material and his
torical conditions of vision. Such an argument, in its reclothing of familiar sty
listic polarities, runs the risk of b e c o m i n g a kind of neo-Wolfflinism.
Standard accounts of the camera obscura routinely give s o m e special
mention of the Neapolitan savant Giovanni Battista della Porta, often identified
as o n e of its inventors.21 Such details w e will never k n o w for sure, but w e d o
have his description of a camera obscura in the widely read M a g i a Naturalis
of 1558, in w hi ch h e explains the use of a concave speculum to insure that the
projected image will not b e inverted. In the second edition of 1589, della Porta
details h o w a concave lens can b e placed in the aperture of the camera to pro
duce a m u c h m o r e finely resolved image. But della Porta
s significance c o n
cerns the intellectual threshold that he straddles, a nd h o w his camera obscura
18.
19.
Svetlana Alpers, The A rt o f Describing, p. 244, n37.

Alpers, The Art o f Describing, p. 2 4 4
n37.
20.
For an important discussion of identity and difference in historical explanation, see
Fredric Jameson,
M a r x i s m a n d Historicism
in The Ideologies o f Theory
Essays 1971
1986vol. 2 (Minneapolis, 1988), pp. 148-177.

21.
See Mario Gliozzi,

L
invenzione della ca m e r a oscura
Archivio d i Storia D ella
Scienza xiv (April-June 1932), pp. 221-229.
37
inaugurates an organization of kn ow ledge a n d seeing that will u nd er m i n e the

Renaissance science that m os t of his w o r k exemplifies.22
T h e natural magic of della Porta w a s a conception of the world in its fun
damental unity a n d a m e a n s of observing this unityuW e are persuaded that
the k n o wl e dg e of secret things depends u p o n the contemplation a nd the view
of the w h o l e world, namel y the motion, style a n d fashion thereof.
23 Else
w h e r e della Porta insists that
o n e must watch the p h e n o m e n a with the eyes
of a lynx so that, w h e n observation is complete, o n e can begin to manipulate
them.
24 T h e observer here is ultimately seeking insight into a universal lan
guage of symbols and analogies that might b e e m p l o y e d in the directing a nd
harnessing of the forces of nature. But according to Michel Foucault, della
Porta envisioned a world in w hich all things w e r e adjacent to each other,
linked together in a chain
In the vast syntax of the world, the different beings adjust t h e m
selves to o n e another, the plant communicates with the animal, the
earth with the sea, m a n with everything around h i m . . .T h e rela
tion of emulation enables things to imitate o n e another from o n e
e n d of the universe to the other... by duplicating itself in a mirror
the world abolishes the distance proper to itin this w a y it over
c o m e s the place allotted to each thing. But which of these images
coursing through space are the original images? W h i c h is the real
ity a n d whic h is the projection?25
This interlacing of nature and its representation, this indistinction between
reality and its projection will b e abolished by the camera obscura, and instead
it will institute an optical regime that will a priori separate and distinguish
image from object.26 In fact della Porta
s account of the camera obscura w a s
22.
Della Porta is identified as a

p r e - m o d e r n in Robert Lenoble, H istoire de Videe de
nature (Paris, 1969)

p. 27.
23.
24.
Giovanni Battista della Porta, N atural M agick (London, 1658), p. 15.

Cited in Eugenio Garin, Ita lia n H um anism
Philosophy a n d Civic Life in the Renais
sance, trans. Peter M u n z ( N e w York, 1965)
p. 190.
25.
Michel Foucault, The O rder o f Things, pp. 18-19.
26.
W e should note della Porta

s indifference to the real or illusory status of what the
c am e ra obscura m a k e s visible
Nothing can b e m o r e pleasant for great m e n a n d Scholars,

a n d ingenious persons to b e h o l d
That in a dark C h a m b e r b y white sheets objected, o n e
m a y see as clearly a n d perspicuously, as if they w e r e before his eyes, Huntings, Banquets,
38
a key element in Kepler

s theoretical formulation of the retinal image.27 Ernst
Cassirer places della Porta within the Renaissance tradition of magic, in wh ich
to contemplate an object
m e a n s to b e c o m e o n e with it. But this unity is only possible if the
subject an d the object, the k n o w e r and the k nown, are of the s a m e
nature they mu st be m e m b e r s and parts of o n e a nd the s a m e vital
complex. Every sensory perception is an act of fusion and
reunification.28
For della Porta
s natural magic, the use of the camera obscura w a s simply o n e
of a n u m b e r of m et h o d s that allowed an observer to b e c o m e m o r e fully co n
centrated o n a particular objectithad n o exclusive priority as the site or m o d e
of observation. But to readers of della Porta several decades later, the camera
obscura s e e m e d to promise an unrivaled a nd privileged m e a n s of observation
that was attained finally at the cost of shattering the Renaissance adjacency of
k n o w e r a nd known.
Beginning in the late 1500s the figure of the camera obscura begins to
assume a preeminent importance in delimiting a nd defining the relations
between observer a n d world. Within several decades the camera obscura is
n o longer o n e of m a n y instruments or visual options but instead the c o m
pulsory site from w h i c h vision can b e conceived or represented. A b o v e all it
indicates the appearance of a n e w m o d e l of subjectivity, the h e g e m o n y of a
n e w subject-effect. First of all the camera obscura performs an operation of
Armies of Enemies, Plays a n d all things else that o n e desireth. Let there b e over against that
Chamber, w h e r e y o u desire to represent these things, s o m e spacious Plain, w h e r e the sun
can freely shine
u p o n that y o u shall set trees in Order, also W o o d s , lyiountains, Rivers a n d
Animals that are really so, or m a d e b y Art, o f W o o d , or s o m e other matter... those that are
in the C h a m b e r shall see Trees, Animals, Hunters, Faces, a n d all the rest so plainly, that they
cannot tell w h e t h e r they b e true or delusions
S w o r d s d r a w n will glister in at the hole.
Giovanni Battista della Porta, N a tural M agick, pp. 364-365.
27.
For the influence of della Porta o n Kepler, see David C. Lindberg, Theories o f Vision
fro m Al-Kindi to Kepler (Chicago, 1976), pp. 182-206.
28.
Ernst Cassirer, The In d ivid u a l a n d the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, trans.
Mario D o m a n d i (Philadelphia, 1972)
p. 148. For m o r e o n della Porta, see Miller H. Rienstra, G iovanni B attista della Porta a n d Renaissance Science (Ph.D. diss.University of
Michigan, 1963).
39
Camera obscura. 1646.
individuationthat is, it necessarily defines an observer as isolated, enclosed,

and a u t o n o m o u s within its dark confines. It impels a kind of askesis, or with
drawal from the world, in order to regulate a nd purify o n e
s relation to the
manifold contents of the n o w
exteriorworld. Thus the camera obscura is
inseparable from a certain metaphysic of interiorityit is a figure for both the
observer w h o is nominally a free sovereign individual and a privatized subject
confined in a quasi-domestic space, cut off from a public exterior world.29
(Jacques Lacan has noted that Bishop Berkeley and others wrote about visual
representations as if they w e r e private property.)30 At the s a m e time, another
related and equally decisive function of the camera was to sunder the act of
seeing from the physical b o d y of the observer, to decorporealize vision. T h e
m o nadic viewpoint of the individual is authenticated and legitimized by the
camera obscura, but the observer
s physical and sensory experience is sup
planted by the relations be tween a mechanical apparatus a nd a pre-given
29.
G e o r g Lukacs describes this type of artificially isolated individual in H istory a n d
Class Consciousness, pp. 135138. See also the excellent discussion of inwardness a n d sex
ual privatization in the seventeenth century in Francis Barker, The Trem ulous Private B ody
Essays o n Subjection (London, 1984), pp. 9-69.
30.
Jacques Lacan, The F our F undam ental Concepts o f Psycho-Analysis, trans. Alan Sher
idan ( N e w York, 1978)
p. 81.
40
world of objective truth. Nietzsche summarizes this kind of thought

T h e sen
ses deceive, reason corrects the errorsconsequently, o n e concluded, reason
is the road to the constantthe least sensual ideas m ust b e closest to the
true
world.
It is f ro m the senses that mos t misfortunes c o m e t h e y are deceiv
ers, deluders, destroyers.
31
A m o n g the well-known texts in whi ch w e find the image of the camera
obscura a nd of its interiorized a n d disembodied subject are N e w t o n
s Opticks
(1704) a nd Locke
s Essay o n H u m a n Understanding (1690). W h a t they jointly
demonstrate is h o w the camera obscura w a s a m o d e l simultaneously for the
observation of empirical p h e n o m e n a a n d for reflective introspection and
self-observation. T h e site of N e w t o n
s inductive procedures throughout his
text is the camera obscura it is the g r o un d o n w hi c h his kn o wledge is m a d e
possible. Near the beginning of the Opticks he recounts
In a very dark Chamber, at a r ou nd hole, about o n e third Part of an
Inch, broad, m a d e in the shut of a window, I placed a glass prism,
w h e r e b y the B e a m of the S u n
s Light, whic h c a m e in at that Hole,
might be refracted upwards toward the opposite wall of the c h a m
ber, and there form a coloured image of the Sun.32
T h e physical activity that N e w t o n describes with the first person p r o n o u n
refers not to the operation of his o w n vision but rather to his deployment of
a transparent, refractive m e a n s of representation. N e w t o n is less the observer
than he is the organizer, the stager of an apparatus from w h o s e actual func
tioning he is physically distinct. Although the apparatus in question is not
strictly a camera obscura (a prism is substituted for a plane lens or pinhole),
its structure is fundamentally the s a m e the representation of an exterior p h e
n o m e n o n occurs within the rectilinear confines of a darkened r o o m , chamber, or, in Locke
s words, an
e m p t y cabinet.
33 T h e two-dimensional plane o n
which the image of an exterior presents itself subsists only in its specific rela
31.
32.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The W ill to Power, p. 317.

Sir Isaac Newton, Opticks, o ra Treatise o fth e Reflections, Refractions, Inflections a n d
Colours o f Light, 4th ed. (1730 rpt. N e w York, 1952)
p. 26.
33.
J o h n Locke, A n Essay C oncerning H um an U nderstanding, e d Alexander Cam pb e ll
Fraser ( N e w York, 1959), I
ii
15. O n s o m e of the epistemological implications of N e w t o n
s
work, see Stephen Toulmin,
T h e Inwardness of Mental Life,Critical Inquiry ( A u t u m n
1979), pp. 1-16.
41
tion of distance to an aperture in the wall opposite it. But between these two
locations (a point a nd a plane) is an indeterminate extensive space in which
an observer is ambiguously situated. Unlike a perspectival construction,
which also p r e s u m e d to represent an objectively ordered representation, the
camera obscura did not dictate a restricted site or area from whi ch the image
presents its full coherence and consistency.34 O n o n e ha n d the observer is dis
junct from the pure operation of the device and is there as a disembodied wit
ness to a mechanical a n d transcendental re-presentation of the objectivity of
the world. O n the other hand, however, his or her presence in the camera
implies a spatial and temporal simultaneity of h u m a n subjectivity a nd objec
tive apparatus. Thus the spectator is a m o r e free-floating inhabitant of the
darkness, a marginal supplementary presence independent of the machinery
of representation. As Foucault demonstrated in his analysis of Velasquez^ Las
Meninas, it is a question of a subject incapable of self-representation as both

subject a nd object.35 T h e camera obscura a priori prevents the observer from
seeing his or her position as part of the representation. T h e b o d y then is a
pr o bl em the camera could never solve except by marginalizing it into a p h a n
t o m in order to establish a space of reason.36 In a sense, the camera obscura
is a precarious figurative resolution of what E d m u n d Husserl defined as the
major pliilosophical p r o b l e m of the seventeenth century
H o w a philoso
phizing w hi ch seeks its ultimate foundations in the subjective.. can claim an
objectively
trueand metaphysically transcendent validity.
37
Perhaps the most famous image of the camera obscura is in \.ockeysEssay
Concerning H u m a n Understanding (1690 )

External an d internal sensations are the only passages that I can
find of k n ow l ed ge to the understanding. These alone, as far as I can
34.
Hub er t D a m i s c h has stressed that late quattrocento perspectival constructions
allowed a viewer a limited field of mobility f ro m within w h i c h the consistency of the paint
ing w a s maintained, rather than f r o m the immobility of a fixed a n d single point. See his
V origine de la perspective (Paris, 1988). See also Jacques A um o n t ,
Le point d e v u e
Com
m unications 38, 1983, pp. 3-29.
35.
Foucault, The Order o f Things, pp. 3-16. See also Hube r t Dreyfus a n d Paul Rabinow,
M ichel F oucault
B eyond Structuralism a n d H erm eneutics (Chicago, 1982), p. 25.
36.
O n Galileo, Descartes, a n d
the occultation of the enunciating subject in discursive
activity,see Ti m o t h y J. Reiss, The D iscourse o f M odernism (Ithaca, 1982), pp. 38-4337.
E d m u n d Husserl, The Crisis o f E uropean Science a n d Transcendental Phenom en
ology, trans. David Carr (Evanston, 111., 1970), p. 81.
42
discover, are the w i n d o w s by w hi c h light is let into this dark room.

For, methinks, the understanding is not m u c h unlike a closet
wholly shut fro m light, with only s o m e little opening left... to let
in external visible resemblances, or s o m e idea of things without
w o u l d the pictures c o m i n g into such a dark r o o m but stay there
and lie so orderly as to b e found u p o n occasion itw o u l d very m u c h
resemble the understanding of a man.38
A n important feature of Locke
s text here is h o w the metaphor of the dark
r o o m effectively distances us fro m the apparatus he describes. As part of his
general project of introspection Locke proposes a m e a n s of visualizing spa
tially the operations of the intellect. H e m a k e s explicit what w a s implied in
Newton
s account of his activity in his dark c h a m b e r the eye of the observer
is completely separate from the apparatus that allows the entrance and for
mation of
picturesor
resemblances.H u m e also insisted o n a similar rela
tion of distance
T h e operations of the m i n d ... must b e apprehended in an
instant by a superior penetration, derived from nature and improved by habit
and reflection.
39
Elsewhere in Locke
s text another m e an in g is given to the idea of the
room, of what it literally m e a nt in seventeenth-century England to be in c a m
era, that is, within the chambers of a judge or person of title. Locke writes that
sensations are conveyed
from without to their audience in the brain the
mind
s presence room, as I m a y so call it.
40 In addition to structuring the act
of observation as the process by wh ic h something is observed by a subject,
Locke also gives a n e w juridical role to the observer within the camera
obscura. Thus h e modifies the receptive and neutral function of the apparatus
by specifying a m o r e self-legislative and authoritative functionthe camera
obscura allows the subject to guarantee a nd police the correspondence
38.
39.
Locke, A n Essay C oncerning H um an U nderstanding, II, xi, 17.

David H u m e , A n Inquiry C oncerning H um an U nderstanding (1748 N e w York,
1955), p. 16 (emphasis mine). A similar setup is noted in Descartes by Maurice MerleauPonty, w here space is a network of relations between objects such as would be seen by
a witness to m y vision or b y a ge o m e t e r looking over it a n d reconstructing it f r o m the out
side."
Eye a n d Mind,The Prim acy o f Perception, ed. J a m e s M. Edie (Evanston, 111., 1964 )
p. 178. Jacques Lacan discusses Cartesian thought in terms of the formula I see myself
seeing myself,in F o u r F u n d a m e n t a l Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, pp. 80-81.
40.
Locke, A h Essay C oncerning H um an U nderstanding, II

iii
l.
43
between exterior world and interior representation and to exclude anything

disorderly or unruly. Reflective introspection overlaps with a regime of selfdiscipline.
It is in this context that Richard Rorty asserts that Locke and Descartes
describe an observer fundamentally different from anything in G r e e k and
medieval thought. For Rorty, the achievement of these two thinkers w a s
the
conception of the h u m a n m i n d as an inner space in which both pains and clear
and distinct ideas passed in review before an Inner Eye. . . .T h e novelty was
the notion of a single inner space in w hich bodily and perceptual sensations
. .w e r e objects of quasi-observation.
41
In this sense Locke can be linked with Descartes. In the Second Medi
tation, Descartes asserts that

perception, or the action by which w e perceive,
is not a vision . . . but is solely an inspection by the mind.
42 H e goes o n to
challenge the notion that o n e k n o w s the world by m e a n s of eyesight
It is pos
sible that I d o not even have eyes with w hich to see anything.
43 For Descartes,
o ne k n o w s the world
uniquely by perception of the mind,and the secure
positioning of the self within an e m p t y interior space is a precondition for
k n ow in g the outer world. T h e space of the camera obscura, its enclosedness,
its darkness, its separation from an exterior, incarnate Descartes
s
I will n o w
shut m y eyes, I shall stop m y ears, I shall disregard m y senses.
44 T h e orderly
and calculable penetration of light rays through the single opening of the c a m
era corresponds to the flooding of the m i n d by the light of reason, not the
potentially dangerous dazzlement of the senses by the light of the sun.
There are two paintings by Ver m e e r in whic h the paradigm of the
Cartesian camera obscura is lucidly represented.45 Consider The Geographer
41 Richard Rorty, Philosophy a n d the M irror o f N ature (Princeton, 1979), pp. 49-50. For
an opposing view, see J o h n W. Yolton, Perceptual A cquaintance fro m Descartes to Reid
(Minneapolis, 1984), pp. 222-223.
42.
R e n e Descartes, The Philosophical W ritings o f Descartes, 2 vols., trans. J o h n Cottingham, Robert StoothofF, a n d D u g a l d M u r d o c h (Cambridge, 1984), vol. 2, p. 21.
43.
Descartes, Philosophical W ritings, vol. 2
p. 21.
44.
Descartes, Philosophical Writings, vol. 2
p. 24.
45.
M y discussion of V e r m e e r clearly does not engage any of the extensive art historical
speculation about his possible use of the ca m er a obscura in the m a k i n g of his pictures (see
references in footnote 1). D i d h e in fact use one, a n d if so, h o w did it affect the m a k e u p
of his paintings? While these are interesting questions for specialists, I a m not concerned
here with the answers o n e w a y or the other. S u c h investigations tend to reduce the prob-
44
Vermeer. T h e Astronomer. 1668.
46
and The Astronomer, both painted around 1668. Each image depicts a solitary
male figure absorbed in learned pursuits within the rectangular confines of
a s h a do wy interior, an interior punctured apparently by only a single window.
T h e astronomer studies a celestial globe, m a p p e d out with the constellations
the geographer has before h i m a nautical map. Each has his eyes averted from
the aperture that opens onto the outside. T h e exterior world is k n o w n not by
direct sensory examination but through a mental survey of its
dear a nd distinctrepresentation within the room. T h e s o m b e r isolation of these m e d i
tative scholars within their walled interiors is not in the least an obstacle to
apprehending the world outside, for the division between interiorized sub
ject and exterior world is a pre-given condition of k nowledge about the latter.
T h e paintings then are a c o n s u m m a t e demonstration of the reconciling func
tion of the camera obscura its interior is the interface between Descartes
s
absolutely dissimilar res cogitans ^nd .res externa, between observer and
world.46 T h e camera, or room, is the site within which an orderly projection
of the world, of extended substance, is m a d e available for inspection by the
mind. T h e production of the camera is always a projection onto a two-dimen
sional s u r f a c e h e r e maps, globes, charts, a n d images. Each of the thinkers,
in a rapt stillness, ponders that crucial feature of the world, its extension, so
mysteriously unlike the unextended immediacy of their o w n thoughts yet ren
dered intelligible to m i n d by the clarity of these representations, by their magnitudinal relations. Rather than o p p o s e d by the objects of their study, the earth
and the heavens, the geographer a nd the astronomer engage in a c o m m o n
enterprise of observing aspects of a single indivisible exterior.47 Both of t h e m
l e m of the c a m e r a obscura to o n e of optical effects a n d utlimately painterly style. I contend

that the c a m e r a obscura m u s t b e understood in terms of h o w it defined the position a n d
possibilities of an observing subject; it w a s n o t simply a pictorial or stylistic option, o n e
choice a m o n g others for a neutral a n d ahistorical subject. E v e n ifV e r m e e r never touched
the mechanical apparatus of the c am e r a obscura a n d other factors explain his halation of
highlights a n d accentuated perspective, his paintings are nonetheless profoundly e m b e d
d e d in the larger epistemological m o d e l of the camera.
46.
T h e affinity b e t w e e n V e r m e e r a n d Cartesian thought is discussed in Michel Serres,
La Traduction (Paris, 1974), pp. 189-196.
47.
Descartes rejected the scholastic distinction b e t w e e n a sublunary or terrestrial
world a n d a qualitatively different celestial realm in his Principles o f Philosophy, first pub-
47
(and it m a y well b e the s a m e m a n in each painting) are figures for a primal

and sovereign inwardness, for the a u t o n o m o u s individual ego that has appro
priated to itself the capacity for intellectually mastering the infinite existence
of bodies in space.
Descartes
s description of the camera obscura in his La dioptrique
(1637) contains s o m e unusual features. Initially he m a k e s a conventional anal
ogy between the eye a nd the camera obscura
Suppose a c h a m b e r is shut u p apart from a single hole, and a glass
lens is placed in front of this hole with a white sheet stretched at
a certain distance behind it so the light c om i n g from objects out
side forms images o n the sheet. N o w it is said that the r o o m rep
resents the eye the hole the pupil the lens the crystalline
humour. . . ,48
But before proceeding further, Descartes advises his reader to conduct a d e m
onstration involving
taking the dead eye of a newly dead person (or, failing
that, the eye of an o x or s o m e other large animal)and using the extracted eye
as the lens in the pinhole of a camera obscura. Thus for Descartes the images
observed within the camera obscura are form e d b y m e a n s of a disembodied
cyclopean eye, detached from the observer, possibly not even a h u m a n eye.
Additionally, Descartes specifies that o n e
cut aw a y the three surrounding m e m b r a n e s at the back so as to
expose a large part of the h u m o u r without spilling any. N o light
must enter this r o o m except what c o m e s through this eye, all of
w h o s e parts y o u k n o w to b e entirely transparent. Having d o n e this,
ify ou look at the white sheet y ou will see there, not perhaps with
out pleasure and wonder, a picture representing in natural per
spective all the objects outside.49
lished in Holland in 1644.
Similarly, the earth a n d the heavens are c o m p o s e d of o n e a n d
the s a m e matter
a n d there cannot b e a plurality of worlds.The Philosophical W ritings o f
Descartes, vol. 1
p. 232. Cf. Arthur K. Wheelock, Vermeer ( N e w York, 1988), Abrams, p. 108.
48.
Descartes, The Philosophical W ritings o f Descartes, vol. 1, p. 166
Oeuvres philosophiques, vol. 1 pp. 686-687.
49.
Descartes, The Philosophical W ritings, vol. 1
p. 166.
48
B y this radical disjunction of eye from observer and its installation in this for
mal apparatus of objective representation, the dead, perhaps even bovine eye
undergoes a kind of apotheosis a nd rises to an incorporeal status.50 If at the
core of Descartes
s m e t h o d w a s the n e e d to escape the uncertainties of m e r e
h u m a n vision an d the confusions of the senses, the camera obscura is c o n
gruent with his quest to found h u m a n knowl e dg e o n a purely objective view
of the world. T h e aperture of the camera obscura corresponds to a single,
mathematically definable point, from which the world can be logically
de du ce d by a progressive accumulation and combination of signs. It is a
device e m b o d y i n g m a n
s position be t ween G o d and the world. F o u n d e d o n
laws of nature (optics) but extrapolated to a plane outside of nature, the c a m
era obscura provides a vantage point onto the world analogous to the eye of
God.51 It is an infallible metaphysical eye m o r e than it is a
mechanicaleye.52
Sensory evidence wa s rejected in favor of the representations of the m o n
ocular apparatus, w h o s e authenticity w a s b e y o n d doubt.53 Binocular disparity
is b o u n d u p in the physiological operation of h u m a n vision, and a monocular
device precludes having to theoretically reconcile the dissimilar, and thus
50.
See the chapter
L
oeil d e boeuf: Descartes et l'apres-coup id6ologique
in Sarah
Kofman, Camera obscura de Videologie, pp. 71-76.
51.
Classical science privileges a description as objective
to the extent that the observer
is excluded a n d the description is m a d e f r o m a point lying d e jure outside the world, that
is, f r o m the divine viewpoint to w h i c h the h u m a n soul, created as it w a s in G o d
s image,
h a d access at the beginning. T h u s classical science still aims at discovering the unique truth
about the world, the o n e language that will decipher the w h o l e of nature.Ilya Prigogine
a n d Isabelle Stengers, O rder O ut o f Chaos
M ans New D ialogue with N ature ( N e w York,
1984)
p. 52.
52.
O n Descartes
s fear of the distorting p o w e r of perspective, see Karsten Harries,
Descartes, Perspective, a n d the Angelic Eye,Yale French Studies no. 49 (1973), pp. 28-42. See
also Paul Ricoeur,
T h e Question of the Subject
T h e Challenge of Semiology,in his The
C onflict o f Interpretations, trans. D o n Ihde (Evanston, 111., 1974), pp. 236-266. Cartesian
thought, for Ricoeur,
is c o n t e m p o r a n e o u s with a vision of the w o rl d in w h i c h the w h o l e
p.
of objectivity is spread out like a spectacle o n w h i c h the cogito casts its sovereign gaze
236).
53.
T h e theological d im ension of monocularity is suggested in Daniel Defoe, The Con
solidator
or
M em oirs o f sundry transactionsfrom the w orld in the m oon (London, 1705 )
p. 5 7
A generation have risen up, w h o to solve the difficulties of supernatural systems,
imagine a mighty vast something w h o has n o fo r m but w h a t represents h i m to t h e m as o n e
Great Eye. This infinite Optik they imagine to b e Natura Naturans... the soul of m a n there
fore, in the opinion of these naturalists, is o n e vast Optik P o w e r ... F r o m h e n c e they resolve
all Beings to Eyes.
T C ^ .m Z JU \D C K E [JL ^ T . 29o.
Com parison o f eye a n d cam era obscura. h a n y eigm eenth century.
50
provisional, images presented to each eye. Descartes as s um ed that the pineal

gland exercised a crucial monocular p o w e r
There must necessarily b e s o m e
place w h e r e the t wo images c o m i n g through the eyes ... can c o m e together
in a single image or impression before reaching the soul, so that they d o not
present to it t wo objects instead of one.
54 At the s a m e time, Descartes

s
instructions about removing the ocular m e m b r a n e s from the b o d y of the eye
is an operation ensuring the primal transparency of the camera obscura, of
escaping from the latent opacity of the h u m a n eye.
But perhaps it is misleading to pose the vantage point of the camera as
fully analogous to a divine eye. It is important that the camera obscura be
understood within the context of a distinctly post-Copernican framework,
within a world from w hi ch an absolutely privileged point h ad vanished and
in which
visibility b e c a m e a contingent fact.
55 It is Leibniz, along with*Pascal,

for w h o m the loss of such a point is a central problem. At the core of Leibniz
s
thought w a s the goal of reconciling the validity of universal truths with the
inescapable fact of a world consisting of multiple points of view. T h e m o n a d
became, for Leibniz, an expression of a fragmented and decentered world, of
the absence of an omniscient point of view, of the fact that every position
implied a fundamental relativity that w as never a p ro bl em for Descartes. At the
s a m e time, however, Leibniz insisted that each m o n a d had the capacity to
reflect in itself the w h o l e universe from its o w n finite viewpoint. T h e c o n
ceptual structure of the camera obscura is a parallel reconciliation of a limited
(or monadic) viewpoint and, at the s a m e time, necessary truth.
54.
The Philosophical W ritings o f Descartes, vol. 1, p. 340. For Jean-Frangois Lyotard,
monocularity is o n e of the m a n y Western codes a n d procedures through w h i c h reality is
constituted according to organized constants. H e outlines a visual w orld that is subjected
to continual
correction
flattening
a n d elimination of irregularities in order for a uni
fied space to emerge. See Discours, Figure (Paris, 1971), esp. pp. 155-160.
55.
H a n s Bl u me nberg, The Legitimacy o f the M odem Age, trans. Robert M. Wallace ( C a m
bridge, Mass., 1983), p. 371.
T h e Copernican revolution is based o n the idea of an alliance
b e t w e e n G o d a n d m a n , an idea characteristic of Renaissance Neoplatonism. . . .T h e fact
that m a n has b e e n expelled f r o m the center of the universe in n o w a y i m p e de s faith in this
alliance. D e revolutionibus never speaks of this as a humiliation, a nd later Kepler never
stopped praising the decentering of the earth
its orbit w a s for h i m the best possible van
tage point for viewing the universe.Fernand Hallyn, The Poetic Structure o f the W orld
Copernicus a n d Kepler, trans. D o n a l d Leslie ( N e w York, 1990)
p. 282.
51
Leibniz, writing around 1703

seems generally to have accepted Locke
s
m o d e l of the camera obscura, but with the pivotal distinction that it is not a
passive, receiving device but is e n d o w e d with an inherent capacity for struc
turing the ideas it receives
T o increase this resemblance [between observer and dark room]
w e should have to postulate that there is a screen in this dark r o o m
to receive the species, and that it is not uniform but is diversified
by folds representing items of innate kn o w l e d g e and, what is
more, that this screen or m e m b r a n e , being under tension, has a
kind of elasticity or active force, a nd indeed that it acts (or reacts)
in ways w hich are adapted both to past folds and to n e w ones.56
For Leibniz the camera obscura as an optical system w as defined by its func
tional relation to a cone of vision, in w hich the point of the cone defined the
m o nadic point of view. As Michel Serres has demonstrated at length
T h e science of conic sections shows that there exists a single point
from whi ch an apparent disorder can be organized into a
harmony. . . .For a given plurality, for a given disorder there only
exists o n e point around w hich everything can b e placed in order
this point exists and it is unique. F r o m anywhere else disorder and
indetermination remain. F r o m then on, to k n o w a plurality of
things consists in discovering the point from which their disorder
can b e resolved, u n o intuito, into a unique law of order.57
T h e relation to a cone of rays is what distinguishes mona di c perception from
the divine point of view, wh ic h w o u l d be m o r e properly a cylinder of rays. For
Leibniz,
T h e difference be tween the appearance of a b o d y for us and for G o d
is the difference betwe en scenography a nd ichnography(that is, between
56.
G. W. Leibniz, New Essays o n H um an U nderstanding (1765), trans. Peter R e m n a n t
an d Jonathan Bennett (Cambridge, 1981), p. 144. Gilles Deleuze discusses the ca m e r a
obscura in relation to b a r o q u e architecture
T h e m o n a d is the a u t o n o m y of the interior,

an interior without exterior.In Lepli: L eibniz et le B aroque (Paris, 1988), p. 39.
57.
Michel Serres, Le Systeme de L eibniz et ses m odeles m athem atiques (Paris, 1968), vol.
1
p. 244.
52
perspective and a bird

s-eye view).58 O n e of the most vivid examples of this
scenographic perspective is in the Monadology..
Just as the s a m e city regarded from different sides offers quite dif
ferent aspects, a nd thus appears multiplied by the perspective, so
italso happens that the infinite multitude of simple substances cre
ates the appearance of as m a n y different universes. Yet they are but
perspectives of a single universe, varied according to the points of
view, whi ch differ in each m o n a d . 59
O n e could consider t wo essentially different approaches to the representa
tion of a city as mode ls of Leibniz
s distinction between scenography and ichn
ography. O n o n e hand, Jacopo d e Barbaris View of Venice from 1500
exemplifies a pre*Copernican, synoptic and totalizing apprehension of the
city as a unified entity.60 It is a view completely outside the epistemological and
technological conditions of the camera obscura. O n the other hand, the m i d
eighteenth century views of Venice by Canaletto, for example, disclose a field
occupied b y a mo n a d i c observer, within a city that is knowable only as the
accumulation of multiple and diverse points of view.61 T h e career of Canaletto
w as b o u n d u p in a discipline of the scenographic he wa s trained as a stage
designer, w a s preoccupied with the theatricality of the city, and m a d e use of
the camera obscura.62 Wh e t h e r it is a question of the stage, urban design, or
visual imagery, the intelligibility of a given site depends o n a precisely spec58.
Letter to des Bosses, Feb. 5
1712, quoted in Serres, Le Systeme de Leibniz, vol. 1
p.
153. Louis Marin discusses the relation be t w e e n ichnographic representation a n d royal
p o w e r in P ortrait o f the King, trans. Martha H o u l e (Minneapolis, 1988), pp. 169-179.
59.
G. W. Leibniz, M onadology a n d Other Philosophical Essays, trans. Paul Schrecker
(Indianapolis, 1965)
p. 157.
60.
For an important discussion of this im ag e seejuergen Schulz,
Jacopo d e
Barbaris
V i e w of Venice
M a p Making, City Views, a n d Moralized G e o g r a p h y Before the Year 1500
Art B ulletin 60 (1978)

pp. 425-474.
61.
T h e b a r o qu e city, o n the contrary, presents itself as an o p e n texture without ref

erence to a privileged signifier that gives it orientation a n d meaning.Severo Sarduy
rroco (Paris, 1975) pp. 63-64.
62.
For Canaletto
s use of the c a m e r a obscura, see Terisio Pignatti, II qu a d em o d i diseqni d el C analetto alle G allerie d i Venezia (Milan, 1958), pp. 2 0 - 2 2
A n d r e Corboz, Can
aletto
u n a Venezia im m aginaria, vol. 1 (Milan, 1985), pp. 1 43-154
a n d W. G. Constable
a n d J. G. Links, Canaletto, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1976)
pp. 161-163.
53
Jacopo d e' Barbari. V i e w of Venice (detail). 1500.
ified relation between a delimited point of view and a tableau.63 T h e camera

obscura, with its m onocular aperture, b e c a m e a m o r e perfect terminus for a
cone of vision, a m o r e perfect incarnation of a single point than the a w k w a r d
binocular b o d y of the h u m a n subject. T h e camera, in a sense, wa s a metaphor
for the most rational possibilities of a perceiver within the increasingly
dynamic disorder of the world.
63.
H e le n e Leclerc insists that b y the mid-seventeenth century, beginning with the
career of Bernini, a related concept of scenography traverses theatre, urban design, archi
tecture, a n d visual imagery, in
La Scene d
illusion et r h e g e m o n i e d u theatre a l
italienne
in H istoire des Spectacles, ed. G u y D u m u r (Paris, 1965), pp. 581-624.
54
A ntonio Canaletto. P iazza San M arco, looking eastfro m the northw est com er, c. 1755.
55
Although Bishop Berkeley

s w o r k o n vision does not discuss the camera
obscura, his m o d e l of perception coincides with that presupposed by the c a m
era. In The Theory ofVision Vindicated (1732), h e demonstrates his familiarity
with contemporary treatises o n perspective
W e m a y suppose a diaphanous plain erected near the eye, per
pendicular to the horizon, a nd divided into small equal squares. A
straight line from the eye to the utmost limit of the horizon, passing
through this diaphanous plain, as projected or represented in the
perpendicular plain, w o u l d rise. T h e eye sees all the parts and
objects in the horizontal plain through certain corresponding
squares of the perpendicular diaphanous phrase.... It is true this
diaphanous plain, a nd the images supposed to b e projected
thereon, are altogether of a tangible nature But then there are pic
tures relative to those images a nd those pictures have an order
a m o n g themselves.64
Even though the architectural enclosure of the camera obscura is absent, the
observer here is still o n e w h o observes a projection onto a field exterior to
himself, a nd Berkeley explicitly describes the ordered surface of this field as
a grid p n w hi ch the universal grammar,
the language of the Author of nature,
could b e known. But whether it is Berkeley s divine signs of G o d arrayed o n
a diaphanous plane, Locke
s sensations
imprintedo n a white page, or Leibniz
s elastic screen, the eighteenth-century observer confronts a unified space
of order, unmodified b y his or her o w n sensory and physiological apparatus,
o n which the contents of the world can be studied and compared, k n o w n in
terms of a multitude of relationships. In Rorty s words,
It is as if the tabula
rasa w e r e perpetually under the gaze of the unblinking Eye of the M i n d ...
it b e c o m e s obvious that the imprinting is of less interest than the observation
of the imprint~~all the k no w i n g gets done, so to speak, by the Eye which
observes the imprinted tablet, rather than by the tablet itself.
65
For Heidegger, Descartes
s w o r k inaugurates
the age of the world pic
ture,but the picture to whic h Heidegger refers does not imply a n e w priority
64.
G e o r g e Berkeley, The Theory ofV ision Vindicated, in The Works o f George Berkeley
Bishop o f Cloyne, ed. A. A. Luce a n d T. E.Jessop (London, 1948-1957), vol. 1, pp. 270-271.
65.
Rorty, Philosophy a n d the M irror o f Nature, pp. 143-144.
56
given to the sense of vision. Rather,

what belongs to the essence of the picture
is standing-together, system a unity that develops out of the projection of
the objectivity of whatever is.
66 This is the s a m e unity of the camera obscura,

a field of projection corresponding to the space of Descartes
s mathesis univ-
ersalis, in w h ic h all objects of thought,

irrespective of subject matter,can be
ordered an d c o m p a r e d
O u r project being, not to inspect the isolated natures
of things, but to c o m p a r e t h e m with each other so that s o m e m a y b e k n o w n
o n the basis of others.
67
T h e unity of this g r o u n d o n wh ich everything m a y b e arranged in c o m
m o n finds o n e of its fullest expressions in the pages of the Encyclopedie.
According to Michel Foucault, the great project of this thought is an exhaustive
ordering of the world characterized by
discovery of simple elements and
their progressive combination and at their center they form a table o n which
k nowledge is displayed contemporary with itself. T h e center of kn ow ledge in
s read
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is the t a b l ed Ernst Cassir*er
ing of the Enlightenment, though unfashionable now, m o r e than echoes cer
tain parts of Foucault
s construction of
classical thought. While m u c h AngloAmerican intellectual history tends to pose an atomization of cognition in this
period, Cassirer sees a Leibnizian underpinning to eighteenth-century
thought
With the advent of the eighteenth-century the absolutism of the
unity principle s e e ms to lose its grip and to accept s o m e limitations
or concessions. But these modifications d o not touch the core of
the thought itself. For the function of unification continues to b e
recognized as the basic role of reason. Rational order and control
of the data of experience are not possible without strict unification.
To
k n o w a manifold of experience is to place its c o m p o n e n t parts
in such a relationship to o n e another that, starting from a given
point, w e can run through t h e m according to a constant and g e n
66.
Martin Heidegger,
T h e A g e of the W o r l d Picture,in The Q uestion C oncerning Tech
nology a n d Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt ( N e w York, 1977), pp. 115-54.
67.
Descartes,
Rules for the Direction of the Mind," in Philosophical W ritings, pp. 19,21.
68.
Michel Foucault, The Order o f Things ( N e w York, 1970), pp. 74-75. O n Leibniz a n d
the table, see Gilles Deleuze, L epli
p. 38.
57
eral rule... the u n k n o w n a nd the k n o w n participate in a

common
nature.
69
Cassirer might well have agreed with Foucault that observation in the sev
enteenth an d eighteenth centuries is
a perceptible knowledge.
70 But it is
hardly a k n o wl ed ge that is organized exclusively around visuality. Although
the d o m i n a n c e of the camera obscura paradigm does in fact imply a privilege
given to vision, it is a vision that is a priori in the service of a nonsensory faculty
of understanding that alone gives a true conception of the world. It w o u l d be
completely misleading to pose the camera obscura as an early stage in an
ongoing autonomization a nd specialization of vision that continues into the
nineteenth an d twentieth centuries. Vision can be privileged at different his
torical m o m e n t s in ways that simply are not continuous with o n e another. Sit
uating subjectivity within a monolithic Western tradition of scopic or specular
p o w e r effaces a nd s ub su m e s the singular and incommensurable procedures
and regimes through wh ic h an observer has b e e n constituted.71
For example, Berkeley
s theory of perception is based o n the essential
dissimilarity of the senses of vision and touch, but this insistence o n the het
erogeneity of the senses is remote from nineteenth-century notions of the
a u t o n o m y of vision a nd the separation of the senses.72 Berkeley is hardly alone
69.
Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy o f the E nlightenm ent, trans. Fritz Koelln a n d J a m e s P.
Pettegrove (Princeton, 1951), p. 23. A n alternative continental reading of this aspect of eighteenth-century thought is M a x H o r k h e i m e r a n d T h e o d o r Adorno, D ialectic o f Enlighten
m ent, trans. J o h n C u m m i n g ( N e w York, 1979). For them, the quantitative
unityof
Enlightenment thought w a s continuous with a n d a precondition for the technocratic d o m
ination of the twentieth century.
In advance, the Enlightenment recognized as being an d
occurrence only w h a t can b e a p p r e h e n d e d in unity
its ideal is the system f r o m w h i c h all
an d everything follows. Its rationalist a n d empiricist versions d o not part c o m p a n y o n that
point. Ev e n t hough the individual schools m a y interpret the axioms differently, the struc
ture of scientific unity has always b e e n the s a m e . . .. T h e multiplicity of forms is reduced
to position a n d arrangement, history to fact, things to matter(p. 7).
70.
Foucault, The O rder o f Things, p. 132. O n the p r o b l e m of perception in Condillac
a n d Diderot, see S u za n ne Gearhart, Open B oundary o f Fiction a n d H istory
A Critical
Approach to the French E nlightenm ent (Princeton, 1984), pp. 161-199.
71.
See Martin Jay,
Scopic R e g im e s of Modernity,in Vision a n d Visuality, ed. Hal Foster
(Seattle, 1988), pp. 3-27.
72.
Anglo-American criticism often tends to posit a continuous d e v e l o pm e nt of eigh
teenth-century thought into nineteenth-century empiricism a n d associationism. A typical
account is Maurice M a n d e l b a u m , History, M an a n d Reason
A Study in N ineteenth Century
Thought (Baltimore, 1971especially pp. 147-162. After insisting o n a continuity b e t w e e n
58
in the eighteenth century in his concern with achieving a fundamental har

monization of the senses, in w h i ch a key m o d e l for visual perception is the
sense of touch. T h e M o l y n e u x problem, which so preoccupied the thought of
the eighteenth century, poses the case of a perceiver w h o is ignorant of o n e
of the languages of the senses, namely sight. T h e best k n o w n formulation of
the p r o bl em is Locke
s:
Suppose a m a n born blind, and n o w adult, and taught by his touch
to distinguish betw ee n a cube and a sphere of the s a m e metal, and
nighly of the s a m e bigness, so as to tell, w h e n he felt o n e and the
other, wh i c h is the cube, whic h the sphere. Suppose then the cube
and sphere placed o n a table, a nd the blind m a n b e m a d e to see
quaere, whether by his sight before he touched them, he could n o w

distinguish an d tell whi ch is the globe, whi ch the cube?73
But regardless of h o w the p r o b l e m w a s ultimately answered, whether the

claim w a s nativist or empiricist, the testimony of the senses constituted for the
eighteenth century a c o m m o n surface of order.74 T h e pr ob le m quite simply
w as h o w the passage from o n e order of sense perception to another took
the thought of Locke, Condillac, a n d Hartley a n d nineteenth-century associationism, M a n d e l b a u m concedes,

Thus, in its origins, associationism w a s not w h a t J a m e s Mill a n d Alex
ander Bain later sought to m a k e of it, a full-blown psychological system, serving to classify
a n d relate all aspects of mental lifeit was, rather, a principle used to connect a general
epistemological position with m o r e specific issues of intellectual a n d practical concern.
A m o n g these issues, questions concerning the foundations of morality a n d the relations of
morality to religion h a d an especially important place(p. 156). However, w h a t Mandelb a u m terms
a general epistemological positionis precisely the relative unity of Enlight
e n m e n t k n o w l e d g e onto w h i c h h e imposes the separations a n d categories of the thought
of his o w n time. Religion, morality a n d epistemology did not exist as discrete a n d separate
domains.
73.
J o h n Locke, A n Essay C oncerning H um an U nderstanding, II
ix, 8.
74.
For example, see T h o m a s Reid, Essays o n the Powers o f the H um an M ind [1785]
(Edinburgh, 1819)
vol. 2
pp. 1 15- 11 6
If any thing m o r e w e r e necessary to b e said o n a

point so evident, w e might observe, that ifthe faculty of seeing w e r e in the eye, that of hear
ing in the ear, a n d so of the other senses, the necessary conseq u en c e of this w o u l d be, that
the thinking principle, w h i c h I call myself, is not o n e but many. But this is contrary to the
irresistable conviction of every man. W h e n I say, I see, I hear, I feel, I r e m e m b e r , this implies
that it is o n e a n d the s a m e self that performs all these operations.
59
place.75 O r for Condillac, in his f a m e d discussion of the senses c o m i n g to life

o n e by o n e in his statue, the p r o b l e m wa s h o w the senses could
reconvene,
that is, c o m e together in the perceiver.76
But for those w h o s e answers to Mo l y n e u x were, in o n e w a y or another,
n e g a t i v e a blind m a n suddenly restored with sight w o u l d not immediately
recognize the objects before h i m a n d these included Locke, Berkeley,
Diderot, Condillac, a nd others, they share little with the physiologists an d psy
chologists of the nineteenth century w h o w e r e also, with greater scientific
authority, to answer the question negatively. B y insisting that knowledge, and
specifically k n o wl ed g e of space a nd depth, is built u p out of an orderly accu
mulation an d cross-referencing of perceptions o n a plane independent of the
viewer, eighteenth-century thought could k n o w nothing of the ideas of pure
visibility to arise in the nineteenth century. Nothing could b e m o r e r e m o v e d
from Berkeley
s theory of h o w distance is perceived than the science of the
stereoscope. This quintessentially nineteenth-century device, with w h i ch tan
gibility (or relief) is constructed solely through an organization of optical
cues (and the amalgamation of the observer into a c o m p o n e n t of the appa
ratus), eradicates the very field o n which eighteenth-century knowledge
arranged itself.
F r o m Descartes to Berkeley to Diderot, vision is conceived in terms of
analogieslto the senses of touch.77 Diderot
s w o r k will be misunderstood ifw e
d o not see at the outset h o w deeply ambivalent he w a s toward vision, a nd h o w
he resisted treating any p h e n o m e n o n in terms of a single sense.78 His Letters
o n the Blind (1749), in its account of Nicholas Saunderson, a blind m a t h e

matician, asserts the possibility of a tactile geometry, an d that touch as well as
sight carries with itthe capacity for apprehending universally valid truths. T h e
75.
See Cassirer, The Philosophy o f the E nlightenm ent, p. 108. For recent discussions of
the problem, see M. J. Morgan, M olynewc's Q uestion
Vision, Touch a n d the Philosohy o f
Perception (Cambridge, 1977 )
a n d Francine Markovits,
M6rian, Diderot et l
aveugle,in
J.-B. Merian, Sur leproblem e de M olyneux (Paris, 1984), pp. 193-282.
76.
Etienne d e Condillac,
Traitdes sensations(1754), in Oeuvres philosophiques de
Condillac, vol. 1, ed. G e o r g e s Le R o y (Paris, 1947-1951).
77.
See Michel Serres, H erm es o u la com m unication (Paris, 1968), pp. 124-125; a n d
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Prim acy o f Perception, ed. J a m e s M. Edie (Evanston, 1111964),
pp. 169-172.
78.
O n Diderot
s attitude toward the senses, see Elisabeth d e Fontenay, D iderot
Reason
a n d Resonance, trans. Jeffrey M e h l m a n ( N e w York, 1982), pp. 157-169.
60
essay is not so m u c h a depreciation of the sense of vision as it is a refutation

of its exclusivity. Diderot details Saundersons devices for calculation and
demonstration, rectangular w o o d e n boards with built-in grids m a r k e d out by
raised pins, by connecting the pins with silk threads Saundersons fingers
could trace out a nd read an infinity of figures a nd their relations, all calculable
by their location o n the demarcated grid. H e r e the Cartesian table appears in
another form, but its underlying status is the same. T h e certainty of kno wl ed ge
did not d e p e n d solely o n the eye but o n a m o r e general relation of a unified
h u m a n sensorium to a delimited space of order o n w hich positions could be
k n o w n a n d compared.79 In a sighted person the senses are dissimilar, but
through what Diderot calls
reciprocal assistancethey provide kn owledge
about the world.
Yet despite this discourse o n the senses and sensation, w e are still within
the s a m e epistemological field occupied by the camera obscura a nd its-over
riding of the immediate subjective evidence of the body. Even in Diderot, a
so-called materialist, the senses are conceived m o r e as adjuncts of a rational
m i n d and less as physiological organs. Each sense operates according to an
immutable semantic logic that transcends its m e r e physical m o d e of func
tioning. Thus the significance of the image discussed in Diderot
s Letters o n
the Blind', a blindfolded m a n in an outdoor space steps forward, tentatively

holding a stick in each hand, extended to feel the objects and area before him.
But paradoxically this is not an image of a m a n literally blindrather it is an
abstract diagram of a fully sighted observer, in which vision operates like the
sense of touch. Just as the eyes are not finally what see, however, so the carnal
organs of touch are also disengaged from contact with an exterior world. O f
this blind an d prosthesis-equipped figure that illustrated Descartes
s La diop-
trique Diderot remarks,

Neither Descartes nor those w h o have followed h i m
have b e e n able to give a clearer conception of vision.
80 This anti-optical
79.
O n the persistence of Cartesianism in Enlightenment thought, see A r a m Vartanian,
Diderot a n d Descartes
A Study of Scientific Naturalism in the Enlightenment (Princeton
1953).
80.
Diderot asserts that the person m o s t capable of theorizing o n vision a n d the senses
would be
a philosopher w h o h a d profoundly meditated o n the subject in the dark, or to
adopt the language of the poets, o n e w h o h a d put out his eyes in order to b e better
acquainted with vision.Lettres sur les aveugles, in Oeuvresphilosophiques, p. 87.
Illustration fro m 1724 edition o f D escartess La dioptrique.
62
notion of sight pervaded the w o r k of other thinkers during both the seven
teenth and eighteenth centuriesfor Berkeley there is n o such thing as visual
perception of depth, and Condillacs statue effectively masters space with the
help of m o v e m e n t and touch. T h e notion of vision as touch is adequate to a
field of k no wl ed ge w h o s e contents are organized as stable positions within
an extensive terrain. But in the nineteenth century such a notion b e c a m e
incompatible with a field organized around exchange and flux, in whic h a
k nowledge b o u n d u p in touch w o u l d have b e e n irreconcilable with the cen
trality of mobile signs and commodities w h o s e identity is exclusively optical.
T h e stereoscope, as I will show, b e c a m e a crucial indication of the remapping
and subsumption of the tactile within the optical.
T h e paintings of J.-B. Chardin are lodged within these s a m e questions
of kn owledge and perception. His still lifes, especially, are a last great pres
entation of the classical object in all its plenitude, before it is sundered irrev
ocably into exchangeable and u n g r o u n d e d signifiers or into the painterly
traces of an a u t o n o m o u s vision. T h e slow-burning g lo w of Chardins late
work, an effulgence inseparable from use values, is a light soon to be eclipsed
in the nineteenth century, either by the synthetic aura of the c o m m o d i t y or by
the radiance of an artwork w h o s e very survival d e m a n d e d a denial of its m e r e
objectivity. In his still-lifes, with their shallow, stage-like ledges populated with
forms, to k n o w something w a s not to behold the optical singularity of an
object but to apprehend its fuller p h e n o m e n a l identity simultaneously with
its position o n an ordered field. T h e aesthetic imperative by which Chardin
systematizes the simple forms of everyday use and of sensory experience is
close to Diderot
s insistence o n representing nature in its variability and flux,
while at the s a m e time deriving from that shifting knowledge universally valid
ideas.81
Take, for example, Chardin s Basket of Wild Strawberries from around
1761. His superb cone of stacked strawberries is a sign of h o w rational k n o w l
edge of geometrical form can coincide with a perceptual intuition of the m u l
tiplicity and perishability of life. For Chardin, sensory knowledge a nd rational
knowledge are inseparable. His w o r k is both the product of empirical knowl81.
See Diderot, Le Reve de D A lembert, in Oeuvres philosophiques, pp. 299-313.
63
J.-B. Chardin. Basket of Wild Strawberries. 1761.
edge about the contingent specificity of forms, their position within
world
of social meanings, and at the s a m e time an ideal structure founded o n a

deductive rational clarity. But the immediacy of sense experience is trans
posed to a scenic space within wh ic h the relation of o n e object to another has
less to d o with sheer optical appearances than with k nowledge of isomorph
isms an d positions o n a unified terrain. It is in the context of the Cartesian
table that w e should read Chardin
s enumerative clarity, his groupings of
objects into sets and subsets. These formal analogies are not about a surface
design, but rather a pe rmanent space across wh ic h are distributed
the nonquantitative identities a n d differences that separated and united things.
82
82.
Foucault, The O rder o f Things, p. 218.
64
Chardin
s painting is also part of the eighteenth-century preoccupation
with ensuring transparency over opacity. Newtonian and Cartesian physics,
notwithstanding the large divide between them, both sought to confirm the
unity of a single h o m o g e n e o u s field in spite of the diversity of m e d i a a nd pos
sibilities of refraction within it. Dioptrics (science of refraction) w a s of greater
interest to the eighteenth century than catoptrics (reflection), a nd this predeliction is m os t obviously evident in N e w t o n
s Opticks.85 It w a s crucial that
the distorting p o w e r of a m e d i u m , whether a lens, air, or liquid, b e neutral
ized, and this could b e d o n e if the properties of that m e d i u m w e r e mastered
intellectually a nd thus rendered effectively transparent through the exercise
a glass filled
of reason. In Chardin^ B o y Blowing Bubbles, from around 1739
with dull soapy liquid stands at o n e side of a shallow ledge, while a youth with
a straw transforms that formless liquid opacity into the transparent sphere of
a soap bubble situated symmetrically over the rectilinear ledge. This depicted
act of effortless mastery, in whic h vision and touch w o r k cooperatively (and
this occurs in m a n y of his images), is paradigmatic of Chardins o w n activity
as an artist. His apprehension of the coidentity of idea and matter and their
finely set positions within a unified field discloses a thought for whi c h haptic
and optic are not a u t o n o m o u s terms but together constitute an indivisible
m o d e of knowledge.
T hus the flickering heaviness of the atmosphere in Chardin
s mature
w o r k is a m e d i u m in wh ic h vision performs like the sense of touch, passing
through a space of wh ich n o fraction is empty.84 Far from being an airless N e w
tonian realm, the world of Chardin
s art is adjacent to a Cartesian science of
a corpuscular, matter-filled reality in wh ic h there is n o void, n o action at a dis
tance. A n d ifthe apocryphal stories of Chardin painting with his fingers are to
b e put to use, it should not b e in the service of privileging timeless
painterly
83.
O n the modernity of dioptrics, see Molyneux, D ioptrica nova, pp. 251-252.
N o one
denies the ancients the k n o w l e d g e of Catoptricks . yet certainly Optick-Glasses are a
m o d e r n invention
84.
See Diderot, Oeuvres esthetiques, ed. Paul Verni^re (Paris, 1968), p. 484. See also
Joseph Addison, The Spectator, ed. D o n a l d F. B o n d (Oxford, 1965), no. 411, Ju n e 2 1,1712
O u r sight . . m a y b e considered as a m o r e delicate a n d diffusive Kind of Touch, that

spreads its self over an infinite Multitude of Bodies.
J.-B. Chardin. B o y Bl o wi n g Bubbles. 1739
66
values but rather to underscore the primacy of a vision, belonging to a specific

historical m o m e n t , in w h i c h tactility wa s fully e m b e d d e d . 85
Chardin is at a vast r e m o v e from an artist like Cezanne. If Chardin is
understandable in the context of the M o l y n e u x p r o b le m and the coordination
of sensory languages, Cezanne implies not just the possibility of achieving the
state of a blind m a n suddenly restored to sight, but m o r e importantly of retain
ing this
innocencepermanently. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centu
ries this kind of
primordialvision simply could not be thought, even as a
hypothetical possibility. In all the speculation surrounding the 1728 case of
the Chesleden boy, n o o n e w a s ever to suggest that a blind person restored
to sight w o u l d initially see a luminous an d s o m e h o w self-sufficient revelation
of colored patches.86 Instead, that inaugural m o m e n t of vision wa s a void that
could not b e spoken of or represented, because itw a s em p t y of discourse and
thus of meaning. Vision for the newly sighted person took shape w h e n words,
uses, a nd locations could b e assigned to objects. If Cezanne, Ruskin, Monet,
or any other artist of the nineteenth century is able to conceive of an
innocence of the eye,it is only because of a major reconfiguration of the observer
earlier in that century.
85.
See the discussion of Chardin
s technique in N o r m a n Bryson, W ord a n d Im age
French P ainting o f the A ncien Regim e (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 118-119. O n the relation
between Rembrandt
s touch a n d Cartesian optics, see Svetlana Alpers, R em brandfs Enter
prise
The Studio a n d the M arket (Chicago, 1988), pp. 22-24. M y reading of a cooperative,
reciprocal relation b e t w e e n vision a n d touch in Chardin as a m o d e l of sensory attentive
ness can b e related to Michael Fried
s notion of absorption articulated in his g r o u n d
breaking Absorption a n d Theatricality P ainting a n d B eholder in the Age o f D iderot
(Berkeley, 1980).
86.
In 1728 the surgeon Cheselden p e r f o rm e d a successful cataract operation o n a four
teen-year-old b o y blind f r o m birth. See Diderot, Lettres su r les aveugles, p. 319; a n d Ber k e
ley, Theory o fV isio n Vindicated, sec. 71. See also Jeffrey M e h l m a n , Cataract
A Study in
D iderot (Middletown, Conn., 1979).
3 Subjective Vision and the Separation of the Senses
To admit untruth as a condition

of life~this does indeed imply a ter
rible negation of the customary
valuations.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
Being composed of a plurality of

irreducible forces the body is a m u l
tiplicity, its unity is that of a m u l
tiple phenomenon,
m
unity
of
domination.
Gilles Deleuze
O n e of the opening paragraphs of Go e t h e

s Farbenlehre (1810) begins
with the following account
Let a r o o m b e m a d e as dark as possiblelet there b e a circular o p e n
ing in the w i n d o w shutter about three inches in diameter, which
m a y b e closed or not at pleasure. T h e sun being suffered to shine
through this o n a white surface, let the spectator from s o m e little
distance fix his eyes o n this bright circle thus admitted.1
1
J o h a n n Wolfgang v o n Goethe, Theory o f Colours, trans. Charles Eastlake (1840
Cam
bridge, Mass., 1970), pp. 16-17.
68
Subjective Vision a n d the Separation o f the Senses
Goethe, following a long established practice, has m a d e ^ camera obscura the

site of his optical studies. Again, m u c h as it h ad in N e w t o n s Opticks, the dark
r o o m see ms to establish categorical relations between interior and exterior,
between light source a n d aperture, a nd b etween observer and object. As
Goethe continues his recitation, however, h e abruptly and stunningly aban
dons the order of the camera obscura
T h e hole being then closed, let h i m look towards the darkest part
of the r o o m a circular image will n o w b e seen to float before him.
T h e middle of the circle will appear bright, colourless, or s o m e
what yellow, but the border will appear red. After a time this red,
increasing towards the centre, covers the w h o l e circle, and at last
the bright central point. N o sooner, however, is the w h o l e circle
red than the edge begins to b e blue, a nd the blue gradually
encroaches inwards o n the red. W h e n the w h o l e is blue the.edge
b e c o m e s dark an d colourless. T h e darker edge again slowly
encroaches o n the blue till the wh o l e circle appears colourless... ?
G o e t h e s instruction to seal the hole,
M a n schliesse darauf die Offnung
announces a disordering and negation of the camera obscura as both an opt

ical system and epistemological figure. T h e closing off of the opening dis
solves the distinction be tween inner and outer space o n which the very
functioning of the camera (as apparatus and paradigm) depended. But it is
n o w not simply a question of an observer repositioned in a sealed interior to
view its particular contentsthe optical experience described here by Goethe
presents a notion of vision that the classical m o d e l wa s incapable of
encompassing.
T h e colored circles that s e e m to float, undulate, and undergo a sequence
of chromatic transformations have n o correlative either within or without the
physiologicalcolors
dark r o o m as Goethe explains at length, they are
belonging entirely to the b o d y of the observer a nd are
the necessary c on
ditions of vision.
Let the observer look steadfastly o n a small coloured object and let
it be taken away after a time while his eyes remain u n m o v e d the
2.
Goethe, Theory o f Colours, p. 17. Emphasis added.
69
spectrum of another colour will then b e visible o n the white plane

... it arises from an image which n o w belongs to the eye.5
T h e corporeal subjectivity of the observer, which w as a priori excluded from
the concept of the camera obscura, suddenly b e c o m e s the site o n whi ch an
observer is possible. T h e h u m a n body, in all its contingency and specificity,
generates
the spectrum of another colour,and thus b e c o m e s the active pro
ducer of optical experience.
T h e ramifications of G o e t h e
s color theory are manifold a nd have little
to d o with the empirical
truthof his assertions or the
scientificcharacter
of his experiments.4 Contained within his unsystematized accumulation of
statements and findings is a key delineation of subjective vision, a post-Kantian
notion that is both a product a nd constituent of modernity. W h a t is important
about G o e t h e
s account of subjective vision is the inseparability of t wo models
usually presented as distinct a nd irreconcilablea physiological observer w h o
will b e described in increasing detail by the empirical sciences in the nine
teenth century, a n d an observer posited by various
romanticismsan d early
m o d e r n i s m s as the active, a u t o n o m o u s producer of his or her o w n visual
experience.
Clearly Kant
s
Copernican revolution(Drehung) of the spectator, pro
posed in the preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason
(1787), is a definitive sign of a n e w organization and positioning of the subject.
For Kant, continuing the use of optical figures, it is
a change in point of view,
such that
our representation of things, as they are given, does not conform
to these things as they are in themselves, but that these objects as appearances,
3.
Goethe, Theory o f Colours, p. 21. See Ernst Cassirer, Rousseau, Kant, a n d Goethe,
trans. J a m e s G u t m a n n (Princeton, 1945), pp. 8 1 - 8 2
In his color theory G o e t h e a i m e d
to
include nothing but the w o r l d of the eye, w h i c h contains only f o r m a n d color.
4.
O n Goethe
s optics see, especially, Dennis L. Sepper, Goethe contra N ew ton
Polem
ics a n d the p ro jectfo r a new science o f color (Cambridge, 1988). See also Eric G. Forbes,
Goethe
s Vision of Science,in C om m on D enom inators in A rt a n d Science, ed. Martin
Pollock, pp. 9-15; Rudolf Magnus, Goethe as a Scientist, trans. Heinz N o r d e n ( N e w York,
1949), pp. 125-199; Neil M. Ribe,
Goethe
s Critique of N e w t o n
A Reconsideration,M Stud
ies in the H istory a n d Philosophy o f Science 16 no. 4 ( D e c e m b e r 1985)
pp. 315-335; a n d
G e o r g e A. Wells,
Goethe
s Qualitative Optics,MJo u rn a l o f the History o f Ideas 32 (1971 )
pp. 617-626.
70
conform to our m o d e of representation.

5 William Blake put it m o r e simply
As the eye, such the object.

6 Michel Foucault emphasizes that vision in the
classical era w a s precisely the opposite of Kant
s subject-centered epistemol
ogy, that itw a s then a form of immediate knowing, ua perceptible knowledge.
For e x a m p l e
Natural history [in the 18th century] is nothing m o r e than the n o m
ination of the visible. H e n c e its apparent simplicity, and that air of
naivete it has f rom a distance, so simple does it appear a nd so
obviously im p o s e d by things themselves.7
In the aftermath of Kant s w o r k there is an irreversible clouding over of
the transparency of the subject-as-observer. Vision, rather than a privileged
form of knowing, b e c o m e s itselfan object of k n o w l e d g e
of observation. F r o m
the beginning of the nineteenth century a science of vision will tend to m e a n
increasingly an interrogation of the physiological m a k e u p of the h u m a n sub
ject, rather than the mechanics of light and optical transmission. It is a m o m e n t
w h e n the visible escapes from the timeless order of the camera obscura a nd
b e c o m e s lodged in another apparatus, within the unstable physiology and
temporality of the h u m a n body.
W h e n Goethe
s experiments repeatedly call for either a darkened r o o m
or, perhaps m o r e significantly, the closed eye, h e is not simply privileging an
experience of being severed from contact with an external world. O n o n e
ha n d he is indicating his conviction that color is always the product of an
admixture of light and s h a d o w
Colour itself is a degree of darkness hence
Kircher is perfectly right in calling it l u men opaticum.
8 O n the other h a n d
he is also posing conditions in wh ic h the inescapable physiological c o m p o
nents of vision can b e artificially isolated and m a d e observable. For Goethe,
and for Schopenhauer soon after, vision is always an irreducible c o m p l e x of
5.
I m m a n u e l Kant, Critique o f P ure Reason, trans. N o r m a n K e m p Smith ( N e w York,
1965), pp. 24-25.

6.
William Blake,
Annotations to Reynolds[c. 1808], in Complete W ritings, ed. G e o f
frey Keynes (Oxford, 1972)
p. 456.
7.
Michel Foucault, The Order o f Things ( N e w York, 1970)
p. 132.
8.
Goethe, Theory o f Colours, p. 31.
71
elements belonging to the observer

s b o d y an d of data from an exterior world.
Thus the kind of separation b et ween interior representation an d exterior real
ity implicit in the camera obscura b e c o m e s in G o e th e
s w o r k a single surface
of affect o n wh ic h interior a n d exterior have few of their former meanings and
positions. Color, as the primary object of vision, is n o w atopic, cut off from any
spatial referent.
Goethe insistently cites experiences in whi ch the subjective contents of
vision are dissociated from an objective world, in which the b o d y itself pro
duces p h e n o m e n a that have n o external correlate. Notions of correspon
dence an d of reflection o n wh ic h classical optics and theories of k n owledge
w e r e based, although retained elsewhere by Goethe, have lost their centrality
and necessity in this text. Perhaps most important is his designation of opacity
as a crucial a n d productive c o m p o n e n t of vision. If discourse o n visuality in
the seventeenth a n d eighteenth centuries repressed and concealed whatever
threatened the transparence of an optical system, Goethe signals a reversal,
and instead poses the opacity of the observer as a necessary condition for the
appearance of p h e n o m e n a . 9 Perception occurs within the realm of what
Goethe called das Trube the turbid, cloudy, or gloomy. Pure light and pure
transparence are n o w b e y o n d the limits of h u m a n visibility.10
Goethe
s appeal to subjective observation is part of a shift constituting
what Foucault calls

the threshold of our modernity.W h e n the camera
obscura w a s the dominant m o d e l of observation, it w as
a form of represen
tation wh i ch m a d e k no wl e d g e in general possible.At the beginning of the
nineteenth century, however,
the site of analysis is n o longer representation but m a n in his finitude. It w a s found that k nowledge has anatomo-physiological
conditions, that it is fo rm e d gradually within the structures of the
body, that it m a y have a privileged place within it, but that its forms
cannot b e dissociated from its peculiar functioningin short, that
9.
T h e thematic of repression is central toJean-Frangois Lyotard
s discussion of Renais
sance representation in Discours, Figure, esp. pp. 163-189.
10.
This point is m a d e in Eliane Escoubas,
L
oeil (du) teinturier
Critique 3 7
no. 418
(March 1982)
pp. 231-242.
there is a nature of h u m a n know le dg e that determines its forms

and that at the s a m e time can b e manifest to it in its o w n empirical
contents.11
Within Foucault
s framework, G o e t h e
s affirmation of the subjective a n d the
physiological in perception parallels the contemporary w o r k of Maine de
Biran. During the first decade of the century, the latter outlined a science of
the
sens intimein an attempt to understand m o r e accurately the nature of
inward experience. In an extraordinary b o d y of w o r k that challenged the
assumptions of sensationalism a n d British empiricism, Maine de Biran
asserted the a u t o n o m y a nd primacy of interior experience (as Bergson and
Whitehead w e r e to d o m u c h later), an d postulated a fundamental difference
between internal an d external impressions. W h a t is crucial about Biran
sw o r k
in the early 1800s is the e m e r g e n c e of a restless, active b o d y w h o s e anxious
motilite (i.e., willed effort against felt resistance) w a s a precondition of

subjectivity.
In seeking to grasp the density and the immediacy of the sens intime,
Maine de Biran blurs a nd often dissolves the identity of the very inwardness
that he sought to affirm. H e e m p l o y e d the term coenesthese to describe
one
s
immediate awareness of the presence of the b o d y in perceptionand
the
simultaneity of a composite of impressions inhering in different parts of the
organism.
12Visual perception, for example, is inseparable from the muscular

m o v e m e n t s of the eye an d the physical effort involved in focusing o n an object
or in simply holding o n e
s eyelids open. For Maine d e Biran, the eye, like the
rest of the body, b e c o m e s a stubborn physical fact, perpetually requiring the
active exertion of force a n d activity. In a reversal of the classical m o d e l of the
apparatus as a neutral device of pure transmission, both the viewer
s sensory
organs a n d their activity n o w are inextricably m i x e d with whatever object they
behold. Seven years before Goe th e published the Farbenlehre, Maine de
11.
12.
Michel Foucault, The Order o f Things ( N e w York, 1970)

p. 319.
M a i n e d e Biran, C onsiderations su r les principes d u n e division des fa its psychologiques et physiologiques, in Oeuvres des M aine de B iran, Vol. 13 ed. P. Tisserand (Paris,
1949), p. 180. A n important study of M a i n e d e Biran is Michel Henry, Philosophie etphenom enologie d u corps
essai su r Vontologie biranienne (Paris, 1965). Also see Aldous H u x
ley's meditations o n the w o r k of M a i n e d e Biran, in Themes a n d Variations (London, 1950),
pp. 1-152.
73
Biran discussed h o w our perception of color w a s determined by the b o d y

s
tendency to fatigue (by physiological modulation over time) a nd that the very
process of b e c o m i n g tired w a s in fact perception.
W h e n the eye fixes itself o n a single color, for a certain length of
time, in its m a n n e r of b e c o m i n g fatigued there follows a m i x e d
form of this color a nd several others, and over time the original
color will n o longer b e contained in this n e w mixture.13
For both of them, the absolute values accorded to color by Newtonian theory
are displaced by an insistence o n color
s transient unfolding within the h u m a n
subject.
Maine d e Biran is a m o n g the first of m a n y in the nineteenth century to
unravel the assumptions of Condillac a nd others about the composition of
perception. Condillac
s notion of sensation as a simple unit, a building block
out of w hich clear perceptions w e r e assembled, is n o longer adequate to the
n e w multilayered a nd temporally dispersed perception that Maine de Biran
details, m a ki ng impossible
a soul reduced to pure receptivity.For both
Goethe and Maine d e Biran, subjective observation is not the inspection of an
inner space or a theater of representations. Instead, observation is increas
ingly exteriorizedthe viewing b o d y and its objects begin to constitute a single
field o n whic h inside an d outside are confounded. Perhaps most importantly,
both observer a n d observed are subject to the s a m e m o d e s of empirical study.
For Georges Canguilhem, the reorganization of h u m a n k no wledge at the
beginning of the nineteenth century signals an e n d to the idea of a qualita
tively different h u m a n order, a nd he cites the major discovery by Maine de
Biran that since
the soul is necessarily incarnated, there is n o psychology
without biology.
14 It w a s the potentiality of this b o d y that w o u l d b e increas
ingly subjected to forms of investigation, regulation, a nd discipline through
out the nineteenth century.
T h e inseparability of psychology and biology dominates the thought of
another important nineteenth-century researcher o n vision. In 1815 the
13.
M a i n e d e Biran, In flu en ce de Vhabitude su r la fa c u lte d ep enser [1803], ed. P. Tisserand (Paris, 1953), pp. 56-60.
14.
G e o rg e s Canguilhem,
Qu
est-ce q u e la psychologie
Etudes d'histoire et de p h i
losophic des sciences (Paris, 1968)
pp. 374-375.
74
y o u n g Arthur Schopenhauer sent Goethe a copy of his manuscript Uber das
Sehen u n d die Farben .15 T h e text was, in part, an h o m a g e to the older writer
s
battle with Newton, but itw e n t m u c h further than Go e t h e
s theory in its insis
tence o n the wholly subjective nature of vision. Schopenhauer a b a nd on e d
G oe t h e
s classification of colors into the physiological, the physical, and the
chemical, eliminating the latter two categories and asserting that color could
only b e considered by an exclusively physiological theory. For Schopenhauer,
color wa s s y n o n y m o u s with the reactions and activity of the retinaGoethe, he
believed, h ad erred in his attempt to formulate an objective truth about color,
independent of the h u m a n body.
T h e differences betw ee n Goethe and Schopenhauer should not, h o w
ever, be overemphasized. In their c o m m o n preoccupation with color, and in
the emphasis they give to physiological p h e n o m e n a for its explanation, they
indicate a major reversal of influential eighteenth-century views o n the topic,
including Kant
s devaluation of color in the Critique of Judgement.16 Both,
too, are implicated in a m o r e general G e r m a n reaction against Newtonian
optics in the early nineteenth century.17 T h e priority previously accorded to
Lockean primary qualities over secondary qualities b e c o m e s inverted. For
Locke, secondary qualities w e r e what generated various sensations, and he
insisted that they bore n o resemblance to any real objects. But for S ch o p e n
hauer a nd for the G oethe of the Theory of Colours, these secondary qualities
constitute our primary image of an external reality. K n o w l e d g e of a p h e n o m
enal world begins with the excited condition of the retina and develops
according to the constitution of this organ. T h e positing of external objects,
as well as concepts of shape, extension, and solidity c o m e only after this
founding experience. For Locke and other of his contemporaries, primary
15.
Arthur Schopenhauer, Sam tliche Werke, ed. Paul Deussen (Munich, 1911), vol. 3
pp. 1-93- A valuable assessment of this text is P. F. H. Lauxtermann,
Five Decisive Years
Schopenhauer
s Epistemology as Reflected in his The or y of Color,Studies in the History
a n d Philosophy o f Science vol. 18 no. 3 1987, pp. 271-291. See also W i l h e l m Ostwald,
Goethe, Schopenhauer u n d die Farbenlehre (Leipzig, 1931).
16.
Foucault describes vision in the eighteenth century as
a visibility freed f ro m all
other sensory burdens a n d restricted, moreover, to black a n d white. The Order o f Things,
p. 133.
17.
O n S ch o p e n h a u e r a n d the resistance to N e wtonian optics, see Maurice Elie, "Intro
duction," in Arthur Schopenhauer, Textes sur la vue et sur les couleurs, trans. Maurice Elie
(Paris, 1986), pp. 9-26.
75
qualities always bear a relation of correspondence, if not resemblance, to

exterior objects, a nd c on form to classical models of the observer, such as the
camera obscura. In Schopenhauer this notion of correspondence between
subject a nd object disappearsh e studies color only with reference to sen
sations belonging to the b o d y of the observer. H e m a k e s explicit the irrelev
ance of distinctions bet w ee n interior a nd exterior
Still less can there enter into consciousness a distinction, which
generally does not take place, between object and representation
...what is immediate can only be the sensationand this is c o n
fined to the sphere beneath our skin. This can be explained from
the fact that outside us is exclusively a spatial determination, but
space itself is ... a function of our brain.18
Unlike Locke and Condillac, Schopenhauer rejected any m o d e l of the
observer as passive receiver of sensation, and instead posed a subject w h o was
both the site and producer of sensation. For Schopenhauer, following Goethe,
the fact that color manifests itself w h e n the observer
s eyes are closed is cen
tral. H e repeatedly demonstrated h o w
what occurs within the brain,within
the subject, is wrongly ap prehended as occurring outside the brain in the
world. His overturning of the camera obscura m o d e l received additional co n
firmation from early nineteenth-century research that precisely located the
blind spot as the exact point of entrance of the optic nerve o n the retina.
Unlike the illuminating aperture of the camera obscura, the point separating
the eye and brain of Schopenhauer
s observer wa s irrevocably dark and
opaque.19
S chopenhauer
s importance here lies in the very modernity of the
observer he describes, and at the s a m e time in the ambiguity of that observer.
Certainly Schopenhauer provides a crucial anticipatory statement of m o d e r n
ist aesthetics and art theory in his articulation of an a u t o n om ou s artistic per
ception. This m o r e familiar dimension of his w o r k outlines the grounds for
a detached observer with
visionarycapabilities, characterized by a subjec
tivism that n o longer can be called Kantian. Yet it is crucial to affirm Scho
18.
Arthur Schopenhauer, The W orld As W ill a n d R epresentation , trans. E. F. J. Payne
( N e w York, 1966)
vol. 2
p. 22.
19.
Schopenhauer, The W orld As W ill a n d R epresentation ,vol. 2
p. 491.
76
penhauer
s immediate adjacency to a scientific discourse about the h u m a n
subject against wh ic h later proponents of an a u t o n o m o u s artistic vision sup
posedly rebelled. T h e arch anti-metaphysician Ernst Mach, in 1885 in fact
credited both Goet he a n d Schopenhauer with founding a m o d e r n physiology
of the senses.20 In the following pages I want to suggest h o w Schopenhauer
s
c o m pl ex interlacing of a scientific an d an aesthetic discourse about vision is
essential to an understanding of modernity and the observer, an d h o w it chal
lenges any simplistic opposition of nineteenth-century art and science as dis
crete a nd separate domains.
Although Schopenhauer termed his o w n philosophy
idealistand con
ventional accounts have routinely identified h i m as a
subjective idealist,
such labels misconstrue the heterogeneous texture of his thought. Never has
an idealist b e e n so i m m e r s e d in the details of corporeality or alluded to such
a large range of texts about h u m a n physiology, repeatedly situating his most
central ideas in relation to the specific anatomy of the brain, the nervous sys
tem, an d the spinal cord.21 So often has Schopenhauer
s aesthetics b e e n
detached or presented independently, that its fundamental affiliation with the
supplements to The World As Will a n d Representation is forgotten. But his aes
thetic subject, an observer freed from the d e m a n d s of the will, of the body,
capable of
pure perception,and of b e c o m i n g
the clear eye of the world
is not separate from his preoccupation with the science of physiology.22 T h e
m o r e Schopenhauer involved himself in the n e w collective know le dg e of
fragmented b o d y c o m p o s e d of separate organic systems, subject to the opac
ity of the sensory organs a nd dominated by involuntary reflex activity, the
m o r e intensely h e sought to establish a visuality that escaped the d e m a n d s of
that body.
Although f o r m e d b y Kant
s aesthetics and epistemology in fundamental
ways, Schopenhauer undertakes what h e calls his
correctionof Kant to
20.
Ernst Mach, C ontributions to the Analysis o f the Sensations, trans. C. M. Williams (La
Salle, 1111890), p. 1.
21.
Relatively little has b e e n written o n this dimension of Schopenhauer. See, for e x a m
ple, Maurice M a n d e l b a u m ,
T h e Physiological Orientation of S c h o p e n h a u e r
s Epistemol
o g y , i n Schopenhauer
His Philosophical Achievem ent, ed. Michael F o x (Sussex, 1980), pp.
5 0 - 6 7 a n d J oa c hi m Gerlach,
tiber neurologische Erkenntniskritik
Schopenhauer-Jahr-
buch, 53 (1972)
pp. 393-401.
22.
Schopenhauer, The W orld As W ill a n d Representation ,vol. 2
pp. 367-371.
77
reverse Kant
s privileging of abstract thinking over perceptual knowledge,
and to insist o n the physiological m a k e u p of the subject as the site o n wh ich
the formation of representations occurs.23 Schopenhauers answer to the K a n
tian p ro b l e m of Vorstellung removes us completely from the classical terms
of the camera obscura
W h a t is representation? A very complicated physio
logical occurence in an animals brain, w h o s e result is the consciousness of

a picture or image at that very spot.
24 W h a t Kant called the synthetic unity of
apperception, Schopenhauer unhesitatingly identifies as the c e re b ru m of the
h u m a n brain. Schopenhauer here is but o n e instance in the first half of the
nineteenth century of what has b e e n called
the physiological reinterpretation of the Kantian critique of reason.
25
A philosophy like the Kantian, that
ignores entirely [the physiological] point of view, is one-sided a nd therefore
inadequate. It leaves an i m m e n s e gulf between our philosophical and phys
iological knowledge, with w hi c h w e can never b e satisfied.
26
For T h e o d o r Adorno, Schopenhauer
s distance from Kant is d u e in part
to his recognition that the transcendental subject is m e r e illusion,
a phan
t o m , a n d the only unity Schopenhauer can finally accord to the subject is bio
logical.27 Implicit in A d o r n o
s remarks, however, is that once the p h e n o m e n a l
self is reduced to simply o n e empirical object a m o n g others, the a u t o n o m y
and authenticity of its representations are also put in question. W h a t haunts
Schopenhauers postulation of a n o u m e n a l realm of
entirely objective perceptionis his simultaneous delineation of the observer as physiological
apparatus adequate for the consumption of a preexisting world of
pictures
and
images.If at the core of all Schopenhauer
s w o r k is his aversion to the
instinctual life of the body, to the ceaseless a nd m o n o t o n o u s repetition of its
pulses and desires, his utopia of aesthetic perception was also a retreat from
23.
Schopenhauer, The W orld As W ill a n d R epresentation ,vol. 2
p. 273.
24.
Schopenhauer, The W orld As W ill a n d Representation, vol. 2 p. 191. Emphasis in
original.
25.
Herbert Schnadelbach, Philosophy in G erm any 18311933, trans. Eric Matthews
(Cambridge, 1984), p. 105. See also David E. Leary,
T h e Philosophical D e v e l o p m e n t of Psy
chology in G e r m a n y 1780-1850/' Jo u rn a l o f the H istory o f the B ehavioral Sciences 14
no. 2 (April 1978), pp. 113-121.
26.
Schopenhauer, The W orld As W ill a n d Representation, vol. 2
p. 273.
27.
T h e o d o r Adorno, M inim a M oralia trans. E. F. Jephcott (London, 1974), pp.
153-154.
78
the anguish of a mode rn iz ed world that w as m aking the b o d y into an appa

ratus of predictable reflex activity, outlined b y the scientists w h o s e w o r k so
fascinated him. A n d Nietzsches critique of Schopenhauer
s aesthetics insists
that his
pure perceptionw as fundamentally an escape from the sexual
body.28
In fact, Schopenhauer arrived at his definitive conflation of the subjec
tive and the physiological during the long interval separating the first and sec
o n d editions of The World as Will a n d Representation, between 1819 to 1844,
a period in Euro pe w h e n the idea of both the optical apparatus a nd the h u m a n
b o d y underwent profound transformation. Schopenhauer
s expansion of his
text parallels the explosion of physiological research and publishing, and the
second edition records his extraordinary assimilation of large amounts of sci
entific material. For example, the figure of Xavier Bichat w a s of great im p or
tance to Schopenhauer.29 Bichats Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la
mort (1800) is termed

o n e of the most profoundly conceived work s in the
w ho l e of French literature,and, Schopenhauer adds,
his reflections and
m i n e mutually support each other, since his are the physiological c o m m e n
tary o n mine, a nd m i n e are the philosophical c o m m e n t a r y o n hisa nd w e shall
best b e understood by being read together side by side.
30 Although b y the
1840s Bichat
s w o r k w a s generally considered scientifically obsolete a nd part
of an increasingly discredited vitalism, he nonetheless provided S c h o p e n
hauer with a crucial physical m o d e l of the h u m a n subject. Bichat
s physio
logical conclusions g r e w primarily out of his study of death, in w hi c h he
identified death as a fragmented process, consisting of the extinction of dif
ferent organs a nd processes the death of locomotion, of respiration, of sense
perceptions, of the brain. If death was thus a multiple, dispersed event, then
so w a s organic life. According to Georges Canguilhem,
T h e genius of Bichat
w as to decentralize the notion of life, to incarnate it in the parts of organ28.
Nietzsche, G enealogy o f M orals, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York, 1968), pp.
104-105.
29.
O n Bichat see Elizabeth Haigh, X avier B ichat a n d the M edical Theory o f the Eigh
teenth Century, (London, 1984) esp. pp. 87117a n d Michel Foucault, The Birth o f the
Clinic, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith ( N e w York, 1973), pp. 125-146. See also Paul Janet,
Schopenhauer et la physiologie frangaiseCabanis et Bichat,Revue des D e u x M o n d e s 39

( Ma y 1880)
pp. 35-59.
30.
Schopenhauer, The World As Will and Representation, vol. 2p. 261.
79
isms.
31 With Bichat begins the progressive parcelization and division of the

b o d y into separate a n d specific systems and functions that w o u l d occur in the
first half of the nineteenth century. O n e of these functions was, of course, the
sense of sight.
T h e subjective vision affirmed by G oethe and Schopenhauer that
e n d o w e d the observer with a n e w perceptual a u t o n o m y also coincided with
the m ak in g of the observer into a subject of n e w k nowledge and n e w tech
niques of power. T h e terrain o n w h ic h these two interrelated observers
e m e r g e d in the nineteenth century w a s the science of physiology. F r o m 1820
into the 1840s physiology w a s very unlike the specialized science it later
b e c a m e it ha d then n o formal institutional identity and c a m e into being as the
accumulated w o r k of disconnected individuals from diverse branches of
learning.32 In c o m m o n w a s the excitement and w o n d e r m e n t about the body,
w hich n o w appeared like a n e w continent to b e explored, ma pp ed , and m a s
tered, with n e w recesses a n d me ch a ni sm s n o w uncovered for the first time.
But the real importance of physiology has less to d o with any empirical dis
coveries than that it b e c a m e the arena for n e w types of epistemological reflec
tion that d e p e n d e d o n k n o wl ed ge about the eye and processes of visionit
signals h o w the b o d y w a s b e c o m i n g the site of both p o w e r and truth. Phys
iology at this m o m e n t of the nineteenth century is o n e of those sciences that
m a r k the rupture that Foucault poses be tween the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, in w hi ch m a n emerges as a being in w h o m the transcendent is
m a p p e d onto the empirical.33 It w a s the discovery that kno w le dg e w as co n
ditioned by the physical an d anatomical functioning of the body, a nd perhaps
m ost importantly, of the eyes. Yet physiology, as a science of life, equally sig
nals the appearance of n e w m e th o ds of power.
W h e n the diagram of p o w e r
abandons the m o d e l of sovereignty in favor of a disciplinary model, w h e n it
31
G e o rg e s Canguilhem,
Bichat et Bernard,Etudes d b istoire et dephilosophie des sci
ences (Paris, 1983), p. 161. See Jean-Paul Sartre
s characterization of nineteenth-century
empiricism in The Fam ily Id io t
Gustave Flaubert 18211857 vol. 1
trans. Carol C o s m a n
(Chicago, 1981), pp. 4 7 2 - 4 7 5
T h e principles of empiricist ideology conceal an analytic

intelligence an active m e t h o d organized to reduce a w h o l e to its parts.
32.
O n h o w n e w concepts of physiology w e r e metaphorically transferred to the social
sciences in the nineteenth century, see Paul Rabinow, French M odem
N orm s a n d Forms
o f the Social E nvironm ent (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), pp. 25-26.
33.
Michel Foucault, The O rder o f Things ( N e w York, 1971)
pp. 318-320.
80
D raw ing by N icolas-H enri Jacob in Traite complet d e l

anatomie d e
r h o m m e by M arc-Jean Bourgery. 1839.
81
b e c o m e s the
bio-poweror
bio-politicsof populations, controlling and
administering life, it is indeed life that emerges as the n e w object of p o w e r ^
T h e collective achievement of European physiology in the first half of
the nineteenth century w a s a comprehensive survey of a previously half
k n o w n territory, an exhaustive inventory of the body. It w as a kn ow ledge that
also w o u l d b e the basis for the formation of an individual adequate to the pro
ductive requirements of e c on o m i c modernity and for emerging technologies
of control an d subjection. B y the 1840s there had b ee n both (1) the gradual
transferral of the holistic study of subjective experience or mental life to an
empirical and quantitative plane, and
the division and fragmentation of the
physical subject into increasingly specific organic and mechanical systems.

Bichat contributed to this decentralization by locating functions like m e m o r y
and intelligence in the brain a nd situating the emotions in various internal
organs. T h e w o r k of Franz Joseph Gall (whose lectures Schopenhauer eagerly
attended as a student) a nd J ohann Gaspar Spurzheim located the m i n d and
emotions exclusively in the brain. Spurzheim, for example, identified the sites
of thirty-five brain functions. This kind of mental m a p p i n g differed from ear
lier efforts in that the localization was d o n e by m e a n s of objective external
induction an d experiment, a nd n o longer through subjective introspection.35
B y thq. early 1820s the w o r k of Sir Charles Bell a nd Frangois Magendie had
articulated the morphological a nd functional distinction between sensory and
motor nerves.36Johannes Muller, in 1826
improved o n Bell and Magendie by
determining that sensory nerves are of five types, further specializing the per
ceiving subject.37 Also in the mid-1820s, Pierre Flourens a nn o u n c e d the dis
covery of the functions of the different parts of the h u m a n brain, in particular
the distinction b et ween the cerebellum, the m o t or center, a nd the cerebrum,
34.
Gilles Deleuze, F oucault, p. 92. Emphasis added.
35.
See Jean-Pierre Changeux, N euronal M an: The B iology o fM ind, trans. Dr. Lawrence
Garey ( N e w York, 1985), p. 14. For further background, see Robert Young, M ind, Brain,
a n d A daptation in the N ineteenth Century (Oxford, 1970), pp. 54-101.

36.
See O s w e i Temkin,
T h e Philosophical B a c k g r o u n d of M a g e n d i e s Physiology," B ul
letin o f the H istory o f M edicine 20 (1946)
pp. 10-27.
37.
Johannes Muller, Z u r Vergleichenden Physiologie des Gesichtssinnes des Menschen
u n d der Thiere (Leipzig, 1826), pp. 6-9.
82
a perception center.38 All this research built u p a certain

truthof the b o d y
that provided a g r o u n d for Schopenhauers discourse o n the subject.39
It was, in particular, Flourens
s localization of moto r activity a nd per
ceptive activity, that is, a separation of sight and hearing from muscular m o v e
ment, that provided Schopenhauer with a m o d e l for isolating aesthetic
perception f rom the systems responsible simply for the subsistence of the
body. In
c o m m o n , ordinary man, that manufactured article of nature, w hich
she daily produces in thousands,vision wa s hardly differentiated from these
lowerfunctions. But in artists and

m e n of genius,the sense of sight w a s
the highest ranked because of its
indifference with regard to the will
or in
other w o r d s its anatomical separation from the systems regulating m e r e
instinctual life. Flourens provided a physiological diagram that allowed a spatialization of this hierarchy of functions. It is not difficult to see Sc ho p e n
hauer^ affiliation with later dualist theories of perception, for example in the
w o r k of Konr a d Fiedler (free artistic and unfree nonartistic perception), Alois
Riegl (haptic and optic perception), and T h e o d o r Lipps (positive and negative
e m p a t h y ) a l l of w hich w e r e then severed from the immediacy of the b o d y
and w e r e pos ed as dualist systems of transcendental m o d e s of perception.40
Schopenhauer received additional confirmation from research o n
reflex action, specifically from the w o r k of the British physician Marshall Hall,
w h o in the early 1830s demonstrated h o w the spinal cord is responsible for
a n u m b e r of bodily activities independently of the brain. Hall m a d e a cate
gorical distinction be tween voluntary
cerebralactivity of the nervous system
38.
Pierre Flourens, Rechercbes experim entales sur lesproprietes et lesfo n ctio n s d u sys
tem e nerveux dans les a n im a n x vertebres (Paris, 1824) pp. 48-92.
39.
It should b e r e m e m b e r e d that the struggles in the early nineteenth century b e t w e e n
localizationistsa n d
anti-localizationiststook o n political significance. Proponents of
cerebral localization
w e r e seen as regicidal, hostile to the status quo, against the death
penalty, for lowering property qualifications for the right to vote, denying the immortality
of the s o u l ... anticlerical, atheist, even republican
the cerebral Unitarians are legitimist.
Henri H a c a e n a n d G. Lanteri-Laura, E volutions des connaissances et des doctrines su r les
localisations cerebrales (Paris, 1977), p. 45.
40.
W i l h e l m Worringer, for example, cites S c h o p en h au e r in relation to the dualist aes
thetics of T h e o d o r Lipps, in A bstraction a n d Em pathy [1908], trans. Michael Bullock ( N e w
York, 1948), p. 137. T h e likely link b e t w e e n S c h o p e n h a u e r
s w o r k a n d Riegl
s
Kunstwollenis briefly suggested b y Otto Pacht in
Art Historians a n d Art Critics
Alois Riegl,
B urlington M agazine ( M a y 1963) pp. 188-193.
83
and involuntary
excito-motoractivity in a w a y that s e e m e d to corroborate
Schopenhauer s o w n distinction between m e r e stimulus or irritability and a
notion of sensibility (derived from Kant).41 Yet both of these higher a nd lower
capacities w e r e localities within the s a m e biological organism. In the follow
ing passage Schopenhauer m a p s out, with startling explicitness, the e m b e d
dedness of aesthetic perception in the empirical edifice of the b o d y
N o w in the ascending series of animals, the nervous and muscular
systems separate ever m o r e distinctly from each other, till in the
vertebrates, a nd m ost completely in man, the nervous system is
divided into an organic a nd a cerebral nervous system. This cer
ebral nervous system, again, is developed to the extremely c o m
plicated apparatus of the cere br um and cerebellum, the spinal
cord, cerebral an d spinal nerves, sensory a nd m otor nerve fasci
cles. O f these only the cerebrum, together with the sensory nerves
attached to it, a n d the posterior spinal nerve fascicles are intended
to take up the motives from the external world. All the other parts,
o n the other hand, are intended only to transmit the motives to the
muscles in w hich the will directly manifests itself. Bearing the
above separation in mind, w e see the motive separated to the s a m e
extent m o r e a nd m o r e distinctly in consciousness from the act of
will it calls forth, as is the representation from the will. N o w in this

way
objectivity of consciousness is constantly increasing, since
in it the representations exhibit themselves m o r e and m o r e dis

tinctly a nd purely. . . .This is the point w h e r e the present consid
eration, starting f rom physiological foundations, is connected with
the subject of our third book, the metaphysics of the beautiful.42
Within a single paragraph, w e are swept from sensory nerve fascicles to
the beautifulor m o r e broadly, from the sheer reflex functioning of the b o d y
to the will-less perception of
the pure eye of genius.T h e concept of art m a y
41.
For Hall,
T h e cerebral system is volition, perception,while emotions a n d passions
w e r e located in w h a t h e called
true spinal marrow, (or system).M M em oirs o n the Nervous
System (London, 1837)
pp. 70-71. See also E d w i n Clarke a n d L. S. Jacyna, N ineteenth Cen
tury O rigins o f N euroscientific Concepts (Berkeley, 1987), pp. 127-129.
42.
Schopenhauer, The W orld As W ill a n d Representation, vol. 2, pp. 290-291.
86
in the 1860s) must b e seen against the profound changes that took place in
theories of the nature of light. T h e shift from emission and corpuscular the
ories to undulatory or wave-motion explanations have a major significance for
nineteenth-century culture as a whole.47 T h e w a v e theory of light m a d e o bso
lete the notion of a rectilinear propagation of light rays o n w hi ch classical
optics and, in part, the science of perspective w as based. All the m o d e s of rep
resentation derived from Renaissance a nd later models of perspective n o
longer ha d the legitimation of a science of optics. T h e verisimilitude associ
ated with perspectival construction obviously persisted into the nineteenth
century, but it w a s severed from the scientific base that had once authorized
it and it could n o longer have the s a m e meanings it ha d w h e n either Aristo
telian or Newtonian optics held sway. D o m i n a n t theories of vision, whether
of Alberti, Kepler, N e w t o n (Huygens is the obvious exception), all described
in their o w n fashion h o w a b e a m of isolated light rays traversed an optical sys
tem, with each ray taking the shortest possible route to reach its destination.48
T h e camera obscura is inextricably w e d d e d to this point-to-point epistemo
logical setup. At the s a m e time it must b e stressed h o w deeply theological was
the notion that light w a s radiant ( c o m p o s e d of rays) and emanative.
T h e w o r k of Augustin Jean Fresnel has c o m e to stand for the paradigm
shift.49 B y 1821 Fresnel h ad concluded that the vibrations of wh i ch light co n
sisted w e r e entirely transverse, w hi ch led h i m and subsequent researchers to
build mechanical models of an ether that transmitted transverse waves rather
than longitudinal rays or waves. Fresnels w o r k participates in the destruction
See Jed Z. Buchwald, The Rise o f the Wave Theory ofLight

O ptical Theory a n d Exper
im ent in the Early N ineteenth C entury (Chicago, 1989). See also P. M. H a r m a n , Energy
Force, a n d M atter The C onceptual D evelopm ent o f Nineteenth-C entury Physics ( C a m
bridge, 1982), pp. 1 9 -2 6
T h o m a s S. Kuhn, The Structure o f Scientific R evolutions, 2 n d ed.
47.
(Chicago, 1970)
pp. 73-74.
48.
For important ba c k g r o u n d a n d bibliographical data see David C. Lindberg, Theories
o f Vision fro m Al-Kindi to Kepler (Chicago, 1976), a n d Gerard Simon, Le regard, Vetre et
Vapparence dans Voptique de V antiquite (Paris, 1988).
49.
See E d w a r d Frankel,
Corpuscular Optics a n d the W a v e The o ry of Light
T h e Science
an d Politics of a Revolution in Physics,Social Studies o f Science 6 (1976)
pp. 1 41-184
G. N. Cantor, Optics After N ew ton (Manchester, 1983)
esp. pp. 150-159; a n d R. H. Silliman,
Fresnel a n d the E m e r g e n c e of Physics as a Discipline,H istorical Studies in the Physical

Sciences 4 (1974) pp. 137-162.
88
of classical mechanics, clearing the g r o un d for the eventual d o m i n a n c e of

m o d e r n physics. W h a t h ad b e e n a discrete d o m a i n of optics in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries n o w m e r g e d with the study of other physical p h e
no mena, i.e., electricity a nd magnetism. A b o v e all, it is a m o m e n t w h e n light
loses its ontological privilegea nd in the course of the nineteenth century,
from Faraday to Maxwell, the independent identity of light b e c a m e increas
ingly problematic. G o e t h e s color theory, with its proposal of a qualitative dif
ference between light a nd color, h ad hinted at such developments. M o r e
importantly here, however, as light began to b e conceived as an electromag
netic p h e n o m e n o n it had less a nd less to d o with the realm of the visible and
with the description of h u m a n vision. So it is at this m o m e n t in the early nine
teenth century that physical optics (the study of light and the forms of its p rop
agation) merg es with physics, a nd physiological optics (the study of the eye
and its sensory capacities) suddenly c a m e to dominate the study of vision.
A n important landmark in the field of physiological optics and in the for
mation of a n e w observer wa s the publication of Johannes Muller's Handbtdch
der Physiologie desMenschen, beginning in 1833.50A massive s u m m a r y of cur

rent physiological discourse, Mullers w o r k presented a notion of the
observer radically alien from that of the eighteenth century. Schopenhauer
k n e w its contents well and itw a s a decisive influence o n Mullers younger col
league Helmholtz. In thousands of sprawling pages Muller unfolded an image
of the b o d y as a multifarious factory-like enterprise, comprised of diversified
processes a nd activities, run by measurable amounts of energy a nd labor.
Ironically, this w as o n e of the last influential texts to argue the case of vitalism,
yet it also contained the very empirical information that w a s to finally extin
guish vitalism as an acceptable idea. In his exhaustive analysis of the b o d y into
an array of physical and mechanical systems, Muller reduced the p h e n o m e
n o n of life to a s^t of physiochemical processes that w e r e observable and m anipulable in the laboratory. T h e idea of an organism b e c o m e s equivalent to an
50.
For publication a n d translation history see E d w i n G. Boring, A H istory o f Experi
m ental Psychology, 2 n d ed. ( N e w York, 1957), p. 46. O n Muller see Gottfried Koller, Das
Leben desB iologen Johannes M uller (Stuttgart, 1958). Muller is called the m o s t outstand
ing, versatile, a n d respected medical scientist of the first half of the nineteenth centuryin
Clarke andjayna, N ineteenth C entury O rigins o f N euroscientific Concepts, p. 25.
89
amalgamation of adjacent apparatuses. T h e distinction that Bichat had tried to

maintain betw e en the organic an d the inorganic collapses under the sheer
weight of Miiller
s inventory of the mechanical capacities of the body. T h e
w o r k w a s quickly to b e c o m e the basis for the dominant w o r k in mid-nineteenth-century psychology an d physiology. It w a s to be particularly important
for his pupil Helmholtz in the latter
s description of the functioning of the
h u m a n organism as fundamentally the manifestation of a certain quantity of
p o w e r required to perform work.51
T h e mos t influential part of Miiller
s w o r k w a s his study of the physiology
of the senses, and his treatment of the sense of sight w as by far the longest in
this section of the work.52 Although preceded by the w o r k of Bell and Magendie, Muller m a d e the most widely k n o w n statement of the subdivision a nd
specialization of the h u m a n sensory apparatus. His fame c a m e to rest o n his
theorization of that specializationthe doctrine of specific nerve energies {spe-
zifische Sinnesenergieri) introduced in the Physiologie. Itw a s a theory in m a n y

ways as important in the nineteenth century as the Mo ly ne u x p r o b le m w a s in
the eighteenth century. It w a s the acknowledged foundation of Helmholtz
s
Optics, wh i ch dominated the second half of the 1800s in science, philosophy,

and psychology itw a s widely propounded, debated, and d e n o u n c e d even into
the early twentieth century.53 In short, this w a s o n e of the most influential ways
in which an observer w a s figured in the nineteenth century, a w a y in which
a certain
truthabout sight an d cognition w a s depicted.
T h e theory w a s based o n the discovery that the nerves of the different
senses w e r e physiologically distinct, that is, capable of o n e determinant kind
51.
O n e should note the pedagogical lineage
Muller w a s a teacher of Helmholtz w h o
w a s a teacher of Ivan S e c h e n o v w h o w a s a teacher of Ivan Pavlov.
52.
Muller h a d already written t w o influential b o o k s o n vision. See his Z ur vergleichenden Physiologie des Gesichtsinnes desM enschen u n d Thiere (Leipzig, 1826), a n d Uber
diephantastischen G esichterscheinungen (Coblenz, 1826).
53.
For an important critique of the theory, see Henri Bergson, M atter a n d M emory,
trans. N. M. Paul a n d W . S. Palmer ( N e w York, 1988), pp. 50-54. O ther assessments include
Emile Meyerson, Identity a n d Reality, trans. Kate L o e w e n b e r g ( N e w York, 1962 )
pp. 2922 93
a n d Moritz Schlick,
Notes a n d C o m m e n t a r y , B oston Studies in the Philosophy o f Sci
ence 37 (1974) p. 165. See also William R W o o d w a r d , H e r m a n n Lotze
s Critique of Jo
hannes Mullers Doctrine of Specific Sense/5M edical History vol. 19, no. 2 (April 1975), pp.
147-157.
90
of sensation only, a nd not of those proper to the other organs of sense.54 It

asserted quite s i m p l y ~ a n d this is what marks its epistemological scandal
that a uniform cause (for example, electricity) generates utterly different sen
sations from o n e kind of nerve to another. Electricity applied to the optic
nerve produces the experience of light, applied to the skin the sensation of
touch. Conversely, Muller s h o w e d that a variety of different causes will pro
duce the s a m e sensation in a given sensory nerve. In other words, h e is
describing a fundamentally arbitrary relation between stimulus a nd sensation.
It is an account of a b o d y with an innate capacity, o n e might even say a tran
scendental faculty, to misperceiveof an eye that renders differences
equivalent.
His most exhaustive demonstration here is with the sense of sight, and
he arrives at the astonishing conclusion that the observer's experience of light
has n o necessary connection with any actual light.55 In fact, his chapter o n
vision is subtitled
Physical Conditions Necessary for the Production of L u m i
nous Images,a phrase that w o u l d have b e e n unimaginable before the nine
teenth century. H e then proceeds to enumerate the agencies capable of
producing the sensation of light
1. B y the undulations or emanations w h ich from their action
o n the eye are called light, although they m a y have m a n y other
actions than thisfor instance, they effect chemical changes, and are
the m e a n s of maintaining the organic processes in plants.
2. B y mechanical influencesas concussion or a blow.
3. B y electricity.
54.
His ope n in g premises are the following

1. T h e s a m e internal cause excites in the different senses different sen
sations a n d in each sense the sensations peculiar to it.
2. T h e s a m e external cause also gives rise to different sensations in each
sense according to the special e n d o w m e n t s of the nerve.
3. T h e peculiar sensation of each nerve can b e excited by several dis
tinct causes, internal a n d external.
Elem ents o f Physiology, vol. 2

p. 1061.
55.
Sir Charles Eastlake, in the notes to his 1840 translation of G o e t h e
s Theory o f Col
ours, cites Muller as demonstrating
the inherent capacity of the organ of vision to p r o d u ce
light a n d colours(p. 373).
91
4. B y chemical agents, such as narcotics, digitalis, &c. which,

being absorbed into the blood, give rise to the appearance of lumi
nous sparks, &c. before the eyes independently of any external
cause.
5. B y the stimulus of the blood in a state of congestion. (1064)
Further o n Muller reiterates these possibilities
T h e sensations of light and
color are pr oduced wherever aliquot parts of the retina are excited by any
internal stimulus such as the blood, or by an external stimulus such as m e
chanical pressure, electricity, &c.T h e
&c.s eems added almost begrudgingly
as Muller concedes that radiant light, too, can produce
luminous images.
Again the camera obscura m o d e l is m a d e irrelevant. T h e experience of
light b e c o m e s severed from any stable point of reference or from any source
or origin around w h i ch a world could b e constituted and apprehended. Sight
here has b e e n specialized and separated certainly, but it n o longer resembles
any classical models. T h e theory of specific nerve energies presents the out
lines of a visual modernity in which the
referential illusionis unsparingly
laid bare. T h e very absence of referentiality is the g r ou nd o n whi ch n e w
instrumental techniques will construct for an observer a n e w
realworld. It
is a question, in the early 1830s, of a perceiver w h o s e very empirical nature
renders identities unstable a n d mobile, and for w h o m sensations are inter
changeable. In effect, vision is redefined as a capacity for being affected by
sensations that have n o necessary link to a referent, thus imperiling any coher
ent system of meaning. Mullers theory w a s potentially so nihilistic that it is n o
w o n d e r Helmholtz, H e r m a n n Lotze, and others, w h o accepted its empirical
premises, w e r e impelled to invent theories of cognition and signification that
concealed its un co mp r o m i s i n g cultural implications. Helmholtz put forward
his celebrated notion of
unconscious inferenceand Lotze his theory of
local signs.Both wanted an epistemology based o n subjective vision, but

o n e that guaranteed dependable k n ow ledge without the threat of arbitrari
ness.56 W h a t w a s at stake a nd s e e m e d so threatening w a s not just a n e w form
56.
Helmholtz attempted to establish regular but n o n m i m e t i c relations b e t w e e n sen
sations a n d external objects a n d events. See his H andbook o f Physiological Optics, vol. 2
N e w York, Dover, 1962, pp. 10-35. But later, H el m ho l tz s
psychologismw a s to b e c o m e
the target of neo-Kantians w h o sought to reestablish a g r o u n d for a priori knowledge.
92
of epistemological skepticism about the unreliability of the senses, but a pos

itive reorganization of perception a nd its objects. T h e issue wa s not just h o w
does o n e k n o w what is real, but that n e w forms of the real w e r e being fab
ricated, and a n e w truth about the capacities of a h u m a n subject wa s being
articulated in these terms.
Mullers theory eradicated distinctions b etween internal a nd external
sensation, w hich w e r e implicitly preserved in the w o r k of Goethe and Scho
penhauer as notions of
inner lightor
inner vision.Now, however, interiority is drained of any m e a n i ng that it had for a classical observer, or for the
m o d e l of the camera obscura, and all sensory experience occurs o n a single
i m m a n e n t plane. T h e subject outlined in his Physiologie is h o m o l o g o u s with
the contemporary p h e n o m e n o n of photography an essential property of both
is the action of physical and chemical agents o n a sensitized surface. But in his
supposedly empirical description of the h u m a n sensory apparatus, Muller
presents not a unitary subject but a composite structure o n which a w ide range
of techniques and forces could produce or simulate manifold experiences
that are all equally
reality
Thus the idea of subjective vision here has less to

d o with a post-Kantian subject w h o is
the organizer of the spectacle in which
he appears
than itdoes with a process of subjectivization in which the subject
is simultaneously the object of knowledge and the object of procedures of
control and normalization.
W h e n Muller distinguishes the h u m a n eye from the c o m p o u n d eyes of
crustacea and insects, he seems to be citing our optical equipment as a kind
of Kantian faculty that organizes sensory experience in a necessary and
unchanging way. But his work, in spite of his praise of Kant, implies something
quite different. Far from being apodictic or universal in nature, like the
spectadesof time and space, our physiological apparatus is again and again
s h o w n to be defective, inconsistent, prey to illusion, and, in a crucial manner,
susceptible to external procedures of manipulation and stimulation that have
the essential capacity to produce experience for the subject. Ironically, the
notions of the reflex arc a nd reflex action, which in the seventeenth century
referred to vision and the optics of reflection, begin to b e c o m e the center
piece of an emerging technology of the subject, culminating in the w o r k of
Pavlov.
93
In his account of the relation between stimulus and sensation, Muller

suggests not an orderly and legislative functioning of the senses, but rather
their receptivity to calculated m a n a g e m e n t and derangement. Emil DuboisR e y m on d , the colleague of Helmholtz, seriously pursued the possibility of
electrically cross-connecting nerves, enabling the eye to see sounds and the
ear to hear colors, well before R i m b a u d s celebration of sensory dislocation.
It should be emphasized that Mullers research, and that of the psychophys
icists w h o follow h i m in the nineteenth century, is inseparable from the tech
nical a nd conceptual resources m a d e available by contemporary w o r k in
electricity a nd chemistry. S o m e of the empirical evidence presented by Muller
had b e e n available since antiquity or w a s in the do m a i n of c o m m o n - s e n s e
knowledge.57 W h a t is new, however, is the extraordinary privilege given to a
c o m p l e x of electrophysical techniques. W h a t constitutes
sensationis dra
matically e x p a n d e d and transformed, and it has little in c o m m o n with h o w
sensation w a s discussed in the eighteenth century. T h e adjacency of Mullers
doctrine of specific nerve energies to the technology of nineteenth-century
modernity is m a d e particularly clear by Helmholtz
Nerves have be e n often and not unsuitably c o m p a r e d to telegraph
wires. Such a wire conducts one kind of electric current a nd n o
other it m a y be stronger, it m a y be weaker, it m a y m o v e in either
direction it has n o other qualitative differences. Nevertheless,
according to the different kinds of apparatus with wh ich w e pro
vide its terminations, w e can send telegraphic dispatches, ring
bells, explode mines, d e c o m p o s e water, m o v e magnets, magnetize
iron, develop light, a nd so on. So with the nerves. T h e condition of
excitement w hi ch can b e produced in them, and is conducted by
them, is ... everywhere the same.58
57.
Within a very different intellectual context, T h o m a s H o b b e s presented s o m e of the
s a m e basic evidence as Muller's
A n d as pressing, rubbing, or striking the eye, m a k e s us

fancy a light
a n d pressing the ear, produceth a din
so d o the bodies also w e see, or hear,
p ro duce the s a m e b y their strong, though unobserved action.Leviathan [1651]. ed.
Michael Oakeshott (Oxford, 1957)
p. 8.
58.
H e r m a n n v o n Helmholtz, O n the Sensations o f Tone, trans. Alexander Ellis, 2 n d
English ed. (1863; N e w York, 1954)
pp. 148-149 (emphasis added). O n other nineteenth-
94
Far from the specialization of the senses, Helmholtz is explicit about the
body
s indifference to the sources of its experience a nd of its capacity for m u l
tiple connections with other agencies a nd machines. T h e perceiver here
b e c o m e s a neutral conduit, o n e kind of relay a m o n g others allowing o p t i m u m
conditions of circulation a nd exchangeability, whether it b e of commodities,
energy, capital, images, or information.
Thus a neat h o m o l o g y between Muller^ separation of the senses and the
division of labor in the nineteenth century is not fully supportable. Even for
Marx, the historical separation a nd increasing specification of the senses were,
o n the contrary, conditions for a modernity in wh ic h a fullness of h u m a n pro
ductive p ow er s w o u l d b e realized.59 T h e p ro b l e m for M a r x under capitalism
w a s not the separation of the senses but rather their estrangement by property
relationsvision, for example, ha d b e e n reduced to the sheer
sense of hav-
ing:
In what m a y b e seen as a kind of reformulation of Miiller
s theory of spe
cific nerve energies, Marx, in 1844, foresees an emancipated social world in
w hich the differentiation a nd a u t o n o m y of the senses will b e even m o r e
heightened
T o the eye an object c o m e s to b e other than it is to the ear, a nd
the object of the eye is another object than the object of the ear. T h e specific
character of each essential p o w e r is precisely itsspecific essence, a nd therefore
also the specific m o d e of its objectification.
60 This is M a r x sounding like a

modernist, postulating a utopia of disinterested perception, a world devoid
of exchange values in wh ic h vision can revel in its o w n pure operation. It w a s
also in the 1840s that Jo h n Ruskin began to articulate his o w n notion of a spe
cialized, heightened vision, a nd like M a r x h e implies that the separation an d
specialization of the senses is not the s a m e as the fragmentation of h u m a n
labor. B y the 1850s Ruskin, in a celebrated passage, is able to define the capac
ities of a n e w kind of observer
century analogies b e t w e e n nerves a n d telegraphy, see Dolf Sternberger, P anoram a o f the

N ineteenth Century, pp. 34-37.
59.
See Karl Marx, E conom ic a n d Philosophic M anuscripts o f 1844
trans. Martin Mil
ligan ( N e w York, 1968), pp. 139-141
T h e forming of the five senses is a labor of the entire

history of the w o rl d d o w n to the present.See the related discussion in Fredric Jameson,
P olitical U nconscious (Ithaca, 1981) pp. 62-64.
Marx, E conom ic a n d Philosophic M anuscripts o f 1844 p. 140. Emphasis in original.
95
T h e w h o l e technical p o w e r of painting depends o n our recovery

of what m a y b e called the innocence of the eye
that is to say, of a
sort of childish perception of these flat stains of colour, merely as
such, without consciousness of what they signify, as a blind m a n
w o u l d see t h e m if suddenly gifted with sight.61
Clearly Ruskin is affirming a kind of primal opticality that w as not even a pos
sibility a m i d the eighteenth-century responses to the Mo l y n e u x problem. But
itis m o r e important to see that Ruskin and Muller are both modernizing vision
in the s a m e way, that a m a p p i n g out of an
innocentvision is c o m m o n to both.
Ruskin
s o w n starting point in describing the specific character of vision is
actually m u c h the s a m e as that of Helmholtz. C o m p a r e Ruskin in The Elements
of Drawing,
Everything that y o u can see in the world around y ou presents
itself to your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colours var
iously shaded,with Helmholtz,
Everything our eye sees it sees as an aggre
gate of coloured surfaces in the visual fieldthat is its form of visual
intuition.
62 Decades before related utterances by Maurice Denis, Alois Riegl,

and others, Helmholtz used this premise for constructing a normalized and
quantifiable m o d e l of h u m a n vision. Yet Ruskin w a s equally able to e m p l o y
it in suggesting the possibility of a purified subjective vision, of an immediate
and unfiltered access to the evidence of this privileged sense. But ifthe vision
of Ruskin, Cezanne, Monet, and others has anything in c o m m o n , it w o u l d b e
61.
J o h n Ruskin, The W orks o f John Ruskin, vol. 15
p. 27. For an important discussion
of Ruskin^
innocent eye,see Phillipejunod, Transparence et opacite
Essai su r lesfo n d em ents theoriques de Vart m o d em e (Lausanne, 1975), pp. 159-170. See also Paul d e Man,
Literary History a n d Literary Modernity,in B lindness a n d Insight

Essays in the Rhetoric
o f Contem porary Criticism ( N e w York, 1971), pp. 1 42-165 Modernity exists in the fo r m
of a desire to w i p e out whatever c a m e earlier, in the h o p e of reaching at last a point that
could b e called a true present, a point of origin that m a rk s a n e w departure. This c o m b i n e d
interplay of deliberate forgetting with an action that is also a n e w origin reaches the full
p o w e r of the idea of modernity. . . . T h e h u m a n figures that epitomize modernity are
defined b y experiences such as childhood or convalescence, a freshness of perception that
results f r o m a slate w i p e d clear, f r o m the absence of a past that has not yet h a d time to tar
nish the i m m e d i a c y of perception (although w h a t is thus freshly discovered prefigures the
e n d of this very freshness).
62.
J o h n Ruskin, The W orks o f John R uskin, ed. E. T. C o o k a n d Alexander W e d d e r b u r n
(London, 1903-12), vol. 15
p. 2 7
H e r m a n n v o n Helmholtz,
T h e Facts in Perception, Pop
u lar Scientific Lectures (London, 1885) p. 86.
96
misleading to call it
innocence.Rather it is a question of a vision achieved
at great cost that claimed for the eye a vantage point uncluttered by the weight
of historical codes and conventions of seeing, a position from wh ic h vision
can function without the imperative of com po si ng its contents into a reified
realworld.63 It w a s a question of an eye that sought to avoid the repetitive

ness of the formulaic an d conventional, even as the effort time an d again to
see afresh a nd a n e w entailed its o w n pattern of repetition and conventions.
A n d thus the
pure perception,the sheer optical attentiveness of m o d e r n i s m
increasingly h a d to exclude or s u b m e r g e that whi ch w o u l d obstruct its func
tioninglanguage, historical m e m o r y , and sexuality.
But Muller and other researchers h ad already demonstrated a form of
pureperception, by reducing the eye to its most elemental capacities, by

testing the limits of its receptivity, and b y liberating sensation from signifi
cation. If Ruskin, and other important figures in later visual modernism,
sought an
infantineobliviousness to signification, the empirical sciences of
the 1830s a nd 1840s ha d b e g u n to describe a comparable neutrality of the
observer that w a s a precondition for the external mastery an d annexing of the
body
s capacities, for the perfection of technologies of attention, in which
sequences of stimuli or images can produce the s a m e effect repeatedly as if
for the first time. T h e achievement then of that kind of optical neutrality, the
reduction of the observer to a supposedly rudimentary state, w a s both an aim
of artistic experimentation of the second half of the nineteenth century a n d
a condition for the formation of an observer w h o w o u l d be competent to c on
s u m e the vast n e w amounts of visual imagery a nd information increasingly
circulated during this s a m e period. It w a s the remaking of the visual field not
into a tabula rasa o n w h ic h orderly representations could b e arrayed, but into
a surface of inscription o n wh i c h a promiscuous range of effects could b e pro
duced. T h e visual culture of modernity w o u l d coincide with such techniques
of the observer.
63.
See T. J. Clark, The P ainting o f M odem Life, p. 17.
In Cezanne, w e could say, painting
took the ideology of the v i s u a l t h e notion of seeing as a separate activity with its o w n truth,
its o w n particular access to the thing-in-itself~to its limits a n d breaking point.
4 Techniques of the Observer
O u r eye finds it m o r e comfortable to

respond to a given stimulus by repro
ducing once m o r e a n image that it
has produced m a n y times before,
instead of registering what isdifferent
a n d n e w in a n impression.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
T h e retinal afterimage is perhaps the most important optical p h e n o m
e n o n discussed b y G oethe in his chapter o n physiological colors in the Theory
of Colours. T h o u g h preceded b y others in the late eighteenth century, his

treatment of the topic w a s by far the most thorough u p to that m o m e n t . 1 S u b
jective visual p h e n o m e n a such as afterimages had b e e n recorded since
antiquity but only as events outside the d o m a i n of optics and they w e r e rel
egated to the category of the
spectralor m e r e appearance. But in the early
nineteenth century, particularly with Goethe, such experiences attain the
status of optical
truth.T h e y are n o longer deceptions that obscure a
true
perception rather they begin to constitute an irreducible c o m p o n e n t of
h u m a n vision. For Goet h e and the physiologists w h o followed h i m there w as
1.
G o e t h e identifies s o m e of these earlier researchers, including Robert W. D a r w i n
(1766-1848), the father of Charles, a n d the French naturalist Buffon (1707-1788). See The
ory o f Colours, trans. Charles Eastlake (Cambridge, Mass., 1970) p. 1-2. See also Boring,
A H istory o f E xperim ental Psychology ( N e w York, 1950) pp. 102-104.
98
Techniques o f the Observer
n o such thing as optical illusionwhatever the healthy corporal eye experi

enced w a s in fact optical truth.
T h e implications of the n e w
objectivityaccorded to subjective p h e
n o m e n a are several. First, as discussed in the previous chapter, the privileging
of the afterimage allowed o n e to conceive of sensory perception as cut from
any necessary link with an external referent. T h e af t er imagethe presence of
sensation in the absence of a stimulus a nd its subsequent modulations
posed a theoretical and empirical demonstration of a u t o n o m o u s vision, of an
optical experience that w a s p ro duced by and within the subject. Second, a nd
equally important, is the introduction of temporality as an inescapable c o m
ponent of observation. Most of the p h e n o m e n a described b y Goethe in the
Theory of Colours involve an unfolding over time

T h e edge begins to b e blue
. .the blue gradually encroaches inward . . .the image then b e c o m e s grad
ually fainter.
2 T h e virtual instantaneity of optical transmission (whether

intromission or extromission) w a s an unquestioned foundation of classical
optics and theories of perception from Aristotle to Locke. A n d the simultaneity
of the camera obscura image with its exterior object w a s never questioned.3
But as observation is increasingly tied to the b o d y in the early nineteenth cen
tury, temporality a nd vision b e c o m e inseparable. T h e shifting processes of
one
s o w n subjectivity experienced in time b e c a m e sy n o n y m o u s with the act
of seeing, dissolving the Cartesian ideal of an observer completely focused o n
an object.
But the p r o b l e m of the afterimage and the temporality of subjective
vision is lodged within larger epistemological issues in the nineteenth cen
tury. O n o n e h a n d the attention given to the afterimage by Goethe and others
parallels contemporary philosophical discourses that describe perception
and cognition as essentially temporal processes dependent u p o n a dynamic
amalgamation of past and present. Schelling, for example, describes a vision
founded o n just such a temporal overlapping
2.
Goethe, Theory o f Colours, pp. 16-17. Nineteenth century science suggested
the
idea of a reality w h i c h endures inwardly, w h i c h is duration itself.Henri Bergson, Creative
E volution, trans. Arthur Mitchell ( N e w York, 1944), p. 395.
3.
O n the instantaneity of perception see, for example, David C. Lindberg, Theories o f
Vision fro m Al-Kindi to Kepler (Chicago, 1976) pp. 93-94.
99
W e d o not live in visionour kno wl ed ge is piecework, that is, it

m ust be prod uc ed piece by piece in a fragmentary way, with divi
sions and gradations___In the external world everyone sees m o r e
or less the s a m e thing, and yet not everyone can express it. In order
to complete itself, each thing runs through certain m o m e n t s a
series of processesfollowing one another, in which the later always

involves the earlier, brings each thing to maturity.4
Earlier, in the preface to his Phenomenology (1807)
Hegel m a k e s a sweeping
repudiation of Lockean perception and situates perception within an unfold
ing that is temporal an d historical. While attacking the apparent certainty of
sense perception, Hegel implicitly refutes the m o d e l of the camera obscura.
It must b e pointed out that truth is not like stamped coin issued ready from
the mint, and so can b e taken u p and used.
5Although referring to the Lockean
notion of ideas
imprintingthemselves o n passive minds, Hegel
s remark has
a precocious applicability to photography, which, like coinage, offered
another mechanically and mass-produced form of exchangeable
truth.
Hegel
s dynamic, dialectical account of perception, in which appearance
negates itself to b e c o m e something other, finds an echo in G o e t h e
s discus
sion of afterimages
T h e eye cannot for a m o m e n t remain in a particular state deter
m i n e d by the object it looks upon. O n the contrary, it is forced to
a sort of opposition, which, in contrasting extreme with extreme,
intermediate degree with intermediate degree, at the s a m e time
combines these opposite impressions, and thus ever tends to be
whole, whether the impressions are successive or simultaneous
and confined to o n e image.6
4.
F. W.J. Schelling, The Ages o f the Wor/^/[ 1815], trans. Fredrick d e Wolfe B o l m a n ( N e w
York, 1942), pp. 88-89. Emphasis added.
5.
G. W. F. Hegel, The P henom enology o f M ind, trans. J. B. Baillie ( N e w York, 1967 )
p. 98.
6.
Goethe, Theory o f Colours, p. 13.
100
Goethe and Hegel, each in his o w n way, pose observation as the play and inter
action of forces a nd relations, rather than as the orderly contiguity of discrete
stable sensations conceived by Locke or Condillac.7
Other writers of the time also delineated perception as a continuous
process, a flux of temporally dispersed contents. T h e physicist Andre-Marie
A m p e r e in his epistemological writings used the term concretion to describe
h o w any perception always blends with a preceding or r e m e m b e r e d percep
tion. T h e w o r d s melange ^ndfusion occur frequently in his attack o n classical
notions of
pureisolated sensations. Perception, as he wrote to his friend
Maine de Biran, wa s fundamentally,
u n e suite de differences successives.
8
T h e dynamics of the afterimage are also implied in the w o r k of Johann Fried
rich Herbart, w h o undertook o n e of the earliest attempts to quantify the m o v e
m e n t of cognitive experience. Although his ostensible aim w as to demonstrate
and preserve Kant
s notion of the unity of the mind, Herbarts formulation of
mathematical laws governing mental experience in fact m a k e h i m
a spiritual
father of stimulus-response psychology.
9 IfKant gave a positive account of the
mind
s capacity for synthesizing and ordering experience, Herbart (Kant
s
successor at Konigsberg) detailed h o w the subject wards off and prevents
internal incoherence a nd disorganization. Consciousness, for Herbart, begins
as a stream of potentially chaotic input from without. Ideas of things and
events in the world w e r e never copies of external reality but rather the out
c o m e of an interactional process within the subject in which ideas (Vorstel-
lungen) underwent operations of fusion, fading, inhibition, and blending

7.
It should b e noted, however, that Hegel, in an 1807 letter to Schelling, criticized
Goethe
s color theory for being
restricted completely to the empirical.Briefe von u n d
a n Hegel, vol. 1 ed. Karl Hegel (Leipzig, 1884), p. 94. Cited in Karl Lowith, From H egel to
Nietzsche The R evolution in N ineteenth-C entury Thought, trans. David E. G r e e n ( N e w
York, 1964), p. 13.

8.
Andre-Marie A m p e r e ,
Lettre a M a in e d e Biran" [1809], in Philosophie des D eux
Amperes, ed. J. Barthelemy-Saint-Hilaire (Paris, 1866), p. 236.

9.
Benjamin B. Wolman,
Th e Historical Role of Johann Friedrich Herbart,in Histor
ical Roots o f Contemporary Psychology, ed. B enjamin B. W o l m a n ( N e w York, 1968), p. 33.
See also David E. Leary,
T h e Historical Foundations of Herbarts Mathematization of Psy-
chology^Journal of the History o f the Behavioral Sciences 16 (1980), pp. 150-163. For Herbart
s influence o n later art theory a n d aesthetics see Michael Podro, The M anifold in
PerceptionTheories o f A rt fro m K ant to H ildebrand (Oxford, 1972)and Arturo Quintavalle,

T h e Philosophical Context of Riegl
s
Stilfragen
in On the M ethodology o f Archi

tectural History, ed. Demetri Porphyrios (London, 1981), pp. 17-20.
101
(Verschmelzungen) with other previous or simultaneously occurring ideas or
presentations.T h e m i n d does not reflect truth but rather extracts it fro m an

ongoing process involving the collision and merging of ideas.
Let a series a, b, c, d, b e given by perception then, from the first
m o v e m e n t of the perception and during its continuance, a is
exposed to an arrest from other concepts already in consciousness.
In the meantime, a, already partially sunken in consciousness,
b e c a m e m o r e and m o r e obscured w h e n b c a m e to it. This b at first
unobscured, blended with the sinking a\ then followed c, whic h
itself unobscured, fused with b, whi ch w a s b e c o m i n g obscured.
Similarly followed d to b e c o m e fused with ab, and c, in different
degrees. F r o m this arises a law for each of these concepts.... It is
very important to determine by calculation the degree of strength
wh ic h a concept mus t attain in order to b e able to stand beside t wo
or m o r e stronger ones exactly o n the threshold of consciousness.10
All the processes of blending and opposition that Goethe described p h e n o m
enally in terms of the afterimage are for Herbart statable in differential equa
tions a nd theorems. H e specifically discusses color perception to describe the
mental m e ch a n i s m s of opposition and inhibition.11 O n c e the operations of
cognition b e c o m e fundamentally measurable in terms of duration an d inten
sity, it is thereby rendered both predictable and controllable. Although H e r
bart wa s philosophically o p p o s e d to empirical experimentation or any
physiological research, his convoluted attempts to mathematize perception
w e r e important for the later quantitative sensory w o r k of Muller, Gustav Fechner, Ernst Weber, and Wilhe lm Wundt.12 H e w a s o n e of the first to recognize
the potential crisis of m e a n i n g a nd representation implied by an a u t o n o m o u s
subjectivity, and to propose a framework for its regimentation. Herbart clearly
wa s attempting a quantification of cognition, but it nonetheless prepared the
g round for attempts to measure the magnitude of sensations, and such m e a
10.
J o h a n n Friedrich Herbart, A Textbook in Psychology
A n A ttem pt to F ound the Sci
ence o f Psychology o n Experience, Metaphysics a n d M athematics, trans. Margaret K. Smith
( N e w York, 1891)
pp. 21-22.
11.
See Herbart, Psychologie als Wissenschaft, vol. 1 (Konigsberg, 1824)
pp. 222-224.
12.
For Herbart
s influence o n Muller, see the latter
s Elem ents o f Physiology, vol. 2, pp.
1380-1385.
102
surements required sensory experience that w a s durational. T h e afterimage

was to b e c o m e a crucial m e a n s b y whi ch observation could b e quantified, by
which the intensity a n d duration of retinal stimulation could b e measured.
Also it is important to r e m e m b e r that Herbart
s w o r k w a s not simply
abstract epistemological speculation but w a s directly tied to his pedagogical
theories, w h i c h w e r e influential in G e r m a n y a nd elsewhere in Euro pe during
the mid-nineteenth century.13 Herbart believed that his attempts to quantify
psychological processes held the possibility for controlling a nd determining
the sequential input of ideas into y o u n g minds, a nd in particular had the
potential of instilling disciplinary and moral ideas. O be dience an d attentive
ness w e r e central goals of Herbart
s pedagogy. Just as n e w forms of factory
production d e m a n d e d m o r e precise kn o wl ed ge of a w o r k e r
s attention span,
so the m a n a g e m e n t of the classroom, another disciplinary institution,
d e m a n d e d similar information.14 In both cases the subject in question w a s
measurable an d regulated in time.
B y the 1820s the quantitative study of afterimages w a s occurring in a
w ide range of scientific research throughout Europe. Wo rk i ng in Germany,
the Czech Jan Purkinje continued G o e t h e
s w o r k o n the persistence a n d m o d
ulation of afterimagesh o w long they lasted, what changes they w e n t through,
and under what conditions.15 His empirical research an d Herbart
s mathe
matical m e t h o d s w e r e to c o m e together in the next generation of psycholo
gists a nd psychophysicists, w h e n the threshold between the physiological a nd
the mental b e c a m e o n e of the primary objects of scientific practice. Instead
of recording afterimages in terms of the lived time of the b o d y as G oethe had
generally done, Purkinje w a s the first to study t h e m as part of a comprehensive
13.
For Herbart
s theories of education, see Harold B. Dunkel, H erbart andH erbartism
A n E ducational Ghost Story (Chicago, 1970) esp. pp. 63-96.

14.
See Nikolas Rose,
T h e Psychological C o m p l e x Mental M e a s u r e m e n t a n d Social
Administration,Ideology a n d Consciousness 5 (Spring 1979), pp. 5 - 7 0 a n d Didier
Deleule a n d Frangois Guery, Le co rp sp ro d u ctif (Paris
1973), pp. 72-89.
15
Purkinje wrote in Latin, w h i c h w a s translated b y others into Czech. For relevant
English translations, see
Visual P h e n o m e n a [1823], trans. H. R J o h n , in William S. Sahakian
H istory o f Psychology
A Source B ook in System atic Psychology (Itasca, 111., 1968), pp.
101-108; a n d
Contributions to a Physiology ofVision,trans. Charles Wheatstone,
o f the R oyal In stitutio n 1 (1830), pp. 101-117, reprinted in Brewster a n d W heatstone o n
Vision, ed. Nicholas W a d e (London, 1983), pp. 248-262.
Ja n P urkinje. Afterimages. 1823.
104
quantification of the irritability of the eye.16 H e provided the first formal clas
sification of different types of afterimages, a nd his drawings of t h e m are a strik
ing indication of the paradoxical objectivity of the p h e n o m e n a of subjective
vision. W e r e w e able to see the original drawings in color, w e w o u l d have a
m o r e vivid sense of their unprecedented overlapping of the visionary an d the
empirical, of
the reala n d the abstract.
Although working with relatively imprecise instruments, Purkinje timed
h o w long it took the eye to b e c o m e fatigued, h o w long dilation and contrac
tion of the pupil took, a nd m ea s u r e d the strength of eye movements. For Pur
kinje the physical surface of the eye itself b e c a m e a field of statistical
informationh e demarcated the retina in terms of h o w color changes hu e
depending o n w h e r e it strikes the eye, describing the extent of the area of vis
ibility, quantified the distinction between direct a n d indirect vision, a n d also
gave a highly precise account of the blind spot.17 T h e discourse of dioptrics,
of the transparency of refractive systems in the seventeenth an d eighteenth
centuries, has given w a y to a m a p p i n g of the eye as a productive territory with
varying zones of efficiency a n d aptitude.
Beginning in the mid-1820s, the experimental study of afterimages led
to the invention of a n u m b e r of related optical devices an d techniques. Ini
tially they w e r e for purposes of scientific observation but w e r e quickly con
verted into forms of popular entertainment. Linking t h e m all wa s the notion
that perception wa s not instantaneous, a nd the notion of a disjunction
between eye a n d object. Research o n afterimages ha d suggested that s o m e
form of blending or fusion occurred w h e n sensations w e r e perceived in quick
16.
G o e t h e provides a telling account of the subjectivity of the afterimage in w h i c h the
physiology of the attentive m a l e eye a n d its functioning are inseparable f r o m m e m o r y a n d
desire
I h a d entered an inn towards evening, and, as a well favoured girl, with a brilliantly
fair complexion, black hair, a n d a scarlet bodice, c a m e into the ro om, I looked attentively
at her as she stood before m e at s o m e distance in half shadow. As she presently afterwards
turned away, I s a w o n the white wall, w h i c h w a s n o w before m e , a black face s urrounded
with a bright light, while the dress of the perfectly distinct figure appeared of a beautiful
sea green.Theory o f Colours, p. 22.
17.
It should b e noted that Purkinje, in 1823w a s the first scientist to formulate a clas
sification system for fingerprints, another technique of producing a n d regulating h u m a n
subjects. See Vlasilav Krutz,
Purkinje, Jan Evangelista,D ictionary o f Scientific Biography
vol. 11 ( N e w York, 1975)
pp. 213-217.
105
Thaunmtropes. c. 1825.
succession, an d thus the duration involved in seeing allowed its modification

and control.
O n e of the earliest w as the thaumatrope (literally,
wonder-turner
),
first popularized in L o n d o n by Dr. John Paris in 1825. It w a s a small circular
disc with a drawing o n either side a nd strings attached so that it could be
twirled with a spin of the hand. T h e drawing, for example, of a bird o n o n e
side and a cage o n the other would, w h e n spun, produce the appearance of
the bird in the cage. Another ha d a portrait of a bald-headed m a n o n o n e side,
a hairpiece o n the other. Paris described the relation between retinal after
images an d the operation of his device
A n object w a s seen b y the eye, in consequence of its image being
delineated o n the retina or optic nerve, whic h is situated o n the
106
back part of the eye a nd that it has b e e n ascertained, by experi

ment, that the impression w hi ch the m i n d thus receives, lasts for
about the eighth part of a second after the image is r e m o v e d ... the
T haumat ro pe depe nd s u p o n the s a m e optical principle the
impression m a d e o n the retina by the image, which is delineated
o n o n e side of the card, is not erased before that w hich is painted
o n the opposite side is presented to the eye and the consequence
is that y o u see both sides at once.18
Similar p h e n o m e n a ha d b e e n observed in earlier centuries merely b y spin
ning a coin a nd seeing both sides at the s a m e time, but this w a s the first time
the p h e n o m e n o n w a s given a scientific explanation a n d a device w a s pro
d uced to b e sold as a popular entertainment. T h e simplicity of this
philosophical toym a d e unequivocally clear both the fabricated and hallucinatory
nature of its image and the rupture b e tween perception a nd its object.
Also in 1825
Peter M a r k Roget, an English mathematician and the author
of the first thesaurus, published an account of his observations of railway train
wheels seen through the vertical bars of a fence. Roget pointed out the illu
sions that occurred under this c i r c u m s t a n c e t h e spokes of the wheels
s e e m e d to b e either motionless or to b e turning backward.
T h e deception
in the appearance of the spokes must arise from the circumstances of separate
parts only of each spoke being seen at the s a m e m o m e n t ... several portions
of o n e an d the s a m e line, seen through the intervals of the bars, form o n the
retina the images of so m a n y different radii.
19 Roget
s observations suggested
to h i m h o w the location of an observer in relation to an intervening screen
could exploit the durational properties of retinal afterimages to create various
effects of motion. T h e physicist Michael Faraday explored similar p h e n o m e n a ,
particularly the experience of rapidly turning wheels that appeared to b e m o v
ing slowly. In 1831
the year of his discovery of electromagnetic induction, he
produced his o w n device, later called the Faraday wheel, consisting of two
18.
See J o h n A. Paris
Philosophy in Sport M ade Science in Earnest
B eing a n Attem pt to
Illustrate the First Principles o f N atural Philosophy by the A id o f P opular Toys a n d Sports
(London, 1827)
vol. 3, pp. 13-15.
19.
Peter M a r k Roget,
Explanation of an optical deception in the appearance of the
spokes of 'aw h e e l seen through vertical apertures
Philosophical Transactions o f the Royal
Society115 (1825), p. 135.
107
Use o f phenakistiscope before a mirror.
spoked or slotted wheels m o u n t e d o n the s a m e axis. B y varying the relation

between the spokes of the t wo wheels relative to the eye of the viewer, the
apparent motion of the further wheel could b e modulated. Thus the experience.of temporality itself is m a d e susceptible to a range of external technical
manipulations.
During the late 1820s the Belgian scientistJoseph Plateau also conducted
a w ide range of experiments with afterimages, s o m e of wh ich cost h i m his eye
sight d u e to staring directly into the sun for extended periods. B y 1828 he had
w o r k e d with a N e w t o n color wheel, demonstrating that the duration and qual
ity of retinal afterimages varied with the intensity, color, time, and direction
of the stimulus. H e also m a d e a calculation of the average time that such sen
sations l a s t e d a b o u t a third of a second. W h a t is more, his research s e e m e d
to confirm the earlier speculations of Goethe a nd others that retinal after
images d o not simply dissipate uniformly, but g o through a n u m b e r of positive
and negative states before vanishing. H e m a d e o n e of the most influential for
mulations of the theory of
persistence of vision.
If several objects whi ch differ sequentially in terms of form and
position are presented o n e after the other to the eye in very brief
109
intervals and sufficiently close together, the impressions they pro

duce o n the retina will blend together without confusion and o n e
will believe that a single object is gradually changing form and
position.20
In the early 1830s Plateau constructed the phenakistiscope (literally, udeceptive view
), w hich incorporated his o w n research and that of Roget, Faraday,
and others. At its simplest it consisted of a single disc, divided into eight or
sixteen equal segments, each of which contained a small slitted opening and
a figure, representing o n e position in a sequence of movement. T h e side with
figures d r a w n o n itw a s faced toward a mirror while the viewer stayed i m m o
bile as the disc turned. W h e n an opening passed in front of the eye, it allowed
on e to see the figure o n the disc very briefly. T h e s a m e effect occurs with each
of the slits. Because of retinal persistence, a series of images results that
appear to b e in continuous motion before the eye. B y 1833
commercial m o d 20.
Joseph Plateau, Dissertation sur quelquesproprietes des impressions, thesis submit
ted at Li^ge, M a y 1829. Q uo te d in Georges Sadoul, Histoire generate d u cinema. Vol. 1
Vinvention d u cinema (Paris, 1948), p. 25.
110
els w e r e being sold in London. B y 1834 two similar devices appeared the
stroboscope, invented by the G e r m a n mathematician Stampfer, an d the 200trope or
whee l of lifeof William G. Horner. T h e latter w a s a turning cylinder
around whi ch several spectators could view simultaneously a simulated
action, often sequences of dancers, jugglers, boxers, or acrobats.
T h e details a nd background of these devices a nd inventors have b e e n
well d o c u m e n t e d elsewhere, but almost exclusively in the service of a history
of cinema.21 Film studies position t h e m as the initial forms in an evolutionary
technological development leading to the e m e r g en ce of a single dominant
form at the e n d of the century. Their fundamental characteristic is that they are
not yet cinema, thus nascent, imperfectly designed forms. Obviously there is
a connection b et we en cinema and these machines of the 1830s, but it is often
a dialectical relation of inversion an d opposition, in whi ch features of these
earlier devices w e r e negated or concealed. At the s a m e time there is a ten
dency to conflate all optical devices in the nineteenth century as equally i m
plicated in a vague collective drive to higher and higher standards of
verisimilitude. Such an approach often ignores the conceptual and historical
singularities of each device.
T h e empirical truth of the notion of
persistence of visionas an expla
nation for the illusion of motion is irrelevant here.22 W h a t is important are the
conditions and circumstances that allowed it to operate as an explanation and
the historical subject/observer that it presupposed. T h e idea of persistence of
21.
See, for example, w o r k s as diverse as the following
C. W. Ceram, Archaeology o f the
Cinem a ( N e w York, 1965); Michael Chanan, The D ream that Kicks
The Prehistory a n d Early
Years o f Cinem a in B ritain (London, 1980), esp. pp. 54-65; Jean-Louis Comolli,
Technique
et ideologic,M Cahiers d u cinem a no. 229 (May-June 1971), pp. 4 - 2 1
Jean Mitry, H istoire
d u cinem a, vol. 1 (Paris, 1967)
pp. 21 - 2 7
Geo r ge s Sadoul, H istoire generale d u cinem a,
vol. 1
pp. 15-43; Steve Neale, Cinem a a n d Technology
Im age, Sound, C olour ( B l o o m
ington, 1985), pp. 9 - 3 2
a n d Leo Sauvage, V affaire Lum iere
E nquete su r les origines d u
cinem a (Paris, 1985), pp. 29-48. For another genealogical model, see Gilles Deleuze, Cin
em a 1
The M ovem ent-Im age (Minneapolis, 1986), pp. 4-5.
22.
S o m e recent studies have discussed the
m y t h of persistence of vision. T h e y tell us,
not surprisingly, that recent neurophysiological research s h o w s nineteenth-century expla
nations of fusion or blending of images to b e an inadequate explanation for the perception
of illusory motion. See Joseph a n d Barbara Anderson,
Motion Perception in M otion Pic
tures," a n d Bill Nichols a n d Susan J. Lederman,
Flicker a n d Motion in Film,both in The
Cinem atic Apparatus, ed. Teresa d e Lauretis a n d Stephen Heath (London, 1980), pp. 7 6 95 a n d 96-105.
111
Zootrope. Mid-1830s.
vision is linked to two different sorts of studies. O n e is the kind of self-observation conducted first b y Goethe, then by Purkinje, Plateau, Fechner, a nd oth
ers, in w hi c h the changing conditions of the observer
s o w n retina w a s (or w a s
then believed to be) the object of investigation. T h e other source w a s the often
accidental observation of n e w forms of m o v em en t, in particular mechanized
wheels m o v i n g at high speeds. Purkinje a nd Roget both derived s o m e of their
ideas from noting the appearance of train wheels in motion or regularly
spaced forms seen from a fast-moving train.23 Faraday indicates that his exper
iments w e r e suggested b y a visit to a factory
Being at the magnificent lead
mills of Messrs. Maltby, two cog-wheels w e r e s h o w n m e m o v i n g with such
velocity that if the eye w e r e . . . standing in such a position that o n e wheel
23.
See Nietzsche, H u m a n , All Too H u m a n , trans. R J. Hollingdale (1878 Cambridge,
1986), p. 132
With the tremendous acceleration of life, m i n d and eye have b e c o m e accus
t om ed to seeing and judging partially or inaccurately, and everyone is like the traveller w h o
gets to k n o w a land and its people from a railway carriage.O n the cultural impact and
perceptual shockof railroad travel, see Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey
Trains a n d Travel in the 19th Century, trans. Anselm Hollo ( N e w York, 1979), esp. pp. 145-
112
appeared behind the other, there w a s immediately the distinct though shad
o w y resemblance of cogs m o v i n g slowly in o n e direction.
24 Like the study of
afterimages, n e w experiences of speed and machine m o v e m e n t disclosed an
increasing divergence bet we en appearances a nd their external causes.
T h e phenakistiscope substantiates Walter Benjamin
s claim that in the
nineteenth century
technology has subjected the h u m a n sensorium to a c o m
plex kind of training.At the s a m e time, it w o u l d b e a mistake to accord n e w
industrial techniques primacy in shaping or determining a n e w kind of
observer.25While the phenakistiscope w as of course a m o d e of popular enter
tainment, a leisure-time c o m m o d i t y purchasable by an expanding urban m i d
dle class, italso paralleled the format of the scientific devices used by Purkinje,
Plateau, a nd others for the empirical study of subjective vision. That is, a form
with wh i ch a n e w public c o n s u m e d images of an illusory
realityw a s iso
morphic to the apparatuses used to accumulate k no wledge about an observer.
In fact, the very physical position required of the observer by the phenakis
tiscope bespeaks a confounding of three m o d e s an individual b o d y that is at
once a spectator, a subject of empirical research and observation, an d an ele
m e n t of m achine production. This is w h e r e Foucault
s opposition between
spectacle an d surveillance b e c o m e s untenable his two distinct models here
collapse onto o n e another. T h e production of the observer in the nineteenth
century coincided with n e w procedures of discipline a n d regulation. In each
of the m o d e s mentioned above, it is a question of a b o d y aligned with and
operating an assemblage of turning a n d regularly m o v i n g wh ee le d parts. T h e
imperatives that generated a rational organization of time a nd m o v e m e n t in
production simultaneously pervaded diverse spheres of social activity. A ne e d
for kn ow ledge of the capacities of the eye and its regimentation dominated
m a n y of them.
Another p h e n o m e n o n that corroborates this change in the position of
the observer is the diorama, given its definitive form b y Louis J. M. Daguerre
in the early 1820s. Unlike the static p a n o r a m a painting that first appeared in
the 1790s, the diorama is based o n the incorporation of an immobile observer
24
Q u o t e d in Chanan, The D ream that Kicks, p. 61.
25.
Walter Benjamin, Charles B audelaire
A Lyric Poet in the Era o f H igh Capitalism,
trans. Harry Z o h n (London, 1973)
p. 126.
113
into a mechanical apparatus a nd a subjection to a predesigned temporal

unfolding of optical experience.26 T h e circular or semicircular p a n o r a m a
painting clearly broke with the localized point of view of perspective painting
or the camera obscura, allowing the spectator an ambulatory ubiquity. O n e
w as compelled at the least to turn o n e
s head (and eyes) to see the entire work.
T h e multimedia diorama r e m o v e d that a u t o n o m y from the observer, often sit
uating the audience o n a circular platform that w a s slowly moved, permitting
views of different scenes an d shifting light effects. Like the phenakistiscope or
the zootrope, the diorama w a s a machine of wheels in motion, o n e in whi c h
the observer w a s a component. For Marx, o n e of the great technical innova
tions of the nineteenth century w a s the w a y in which the b o d y w a s m a d e
adaptable to
the few m a i n fundamental forms of motion.
27 But if the m o d
ernization of the observer involved the adaptation of the eye to rationalized
forms of m o v em e nt , such a change coincided with a nd w a s possible only
because of an increasing abstraction of optical experience from a stable refer
ent. T hus o n e feature of modernization in the nineteenth century wa s the
uprootingof vision f rom the m o r e inflexible representational system of the

camera obscura.
Consider also the kaleidoscope, invented in 1815 by Sir David Brewster.
With all the luminous possibilities suggested b y Baudelaire a nd later Proust,
the Kaleidoscope s e e ms radically unlike the rigid and disciplinary structure
of the phenakistiscope, with its sequential repetition of regulated represen
tations. For Baudelaire the kaleidoscope coincided with modernity itselfto
become a
kaleidoscope gifted with consciousnesswas the goal of
the lover
of universal life.In his text it figured as a machine for the disintegration of
a unitary subjectivity a nd for the scattering of desire into n e w shifting and
26.
A n important study o n the relation between the panorama and the diorama is Eric
de Kuyper and Emile Poppe,
Voir et regarder
Communications 34 (1981), pp. 85-96.
Other works include Stephan Oettermann, Des P a n o r a m a (Munich, 1980 )Heinz Buddemeier, Panorama, Diorama, Photographie
Entstehung u n d Wirkung neuerMedien i m
19. Jabrhundert (Munich, 1970 )Helmut and Alison Gernsheim, L.J. M. Daguerre
The His
tory of the D i o r a m a a n d the Daguerreotype ( N e w York, 1968 )Dolf Sternberger, P a n
o r a m a of the 19th Century, trans. Joachim Neugroschel ( N e w York, 1977), pp. 7-16 184189; John Barnes, Precursors of the C i n e m a
Peepshows, P a n o r a m a s a n d Dior a m a s (St.
Ives, 1967 )and W. Neite,
Th e Cologne Diorama,History of Photography 3, no. 2 (April
1979), pp. 105-109.
27.
Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 p. 374.
114
T H E DIORAMA.
The L ondon D ioram a. 1823.
labile arrangements, by fragmenting any point of iconicity and disrupting

stasis.
But for M a r x and Engels, writing in the 1840s, the kaleidoscope had a
very different function. T h e multiplicity that so seduced Baudelaire wa s for
t h e m a sham, a trick literally d o n e with mirrors. Rather than producing s o m e
thing n e w the kaleidoscope simply repeated a single image. In their attack o n
Saint-Simon in The G e r m a n Ideologya
kaleidoscopic displayis
composed
entirely of reflections of itself.
28 According to M a r x a nd Engels, Saint-Simon

pretends to b e m o v i n g his reader from o n e idea to another, while actually
holding to the s a m e position throughout. W e d o n
t k n o w h o w m u c h M a r x or
Engels k n e w about the technical structure of the kaleidoscope but they allude
to a crucial feature of it in their dissection of Saint-Simon
s text. T h e kaleid
oscope presents its viewer with a symmetrical repetition, and the breakup of
M a r x an d Engels
s page into t wo columns of quotations explicitly d e m o n
strates Saint-Simon
s m a n e u v e r of
self-reflectionT h e structural underpin28.
Karl M a r x a n d Friedrich Engels, The G erm an Ideology, ed. R Pascal ( N e w York,
1963), pp. 109-111.
K aleidoscopes. M id -n in eteen th cen tu ry.
P o sitio n o f m irro rs in sid e kaleidoscop e.
116
nings of the kaleidoscope are bipolar and paradoxically the characteristic

effect of shimmering dissolution is produced by a simple binary reflective
setup (it consists of two plane mirrors extending the length of the tube,
inclined at an angle of sixty degrees, or any angle that is a sub-multiple of four
right angles). T h e rotation of this invariant symmetrical format is what g e n
erates the appearance of decomposition and proliferation.
For Sir David Brewster, the justification for making the kaleidoscope was
productivity and efficiency. H e s a w it as a mechanical m e a n s for the reforma
tion of art according to an industrial paradigm. Since symmetry was the basis of
beauty in nature and visual art, h e declared, the kaleidoscope was aptly suited
to produce art through
the inversion and multiplication of simple forms.
If w e reflect further o n the nature of the designs thus composed,
and o n the m e thods which must be em p l o y e d in their composi
tion, the Kaleidoscope will assume the character of the highest
class of machinery, which improves at the s a m e time that it
abridges the exertions of individuals. There are few machines,
indeed, whic h rise higher above the operations of h u m a n skill. It
will create in an hour, what a thousand artists could not invent in
the course of a year and while it works with such unex a m p l e d
rapidity, itworks also with a corresponding beauty and precision.29
Brewster
s proposal of infinite serial production seem s far r e m o v e d from
Baudelaire
s image of the dandy as
a kaleidoscope gifted with consciousness.But the abstraction necessary for Brewster
s industrial delirium is m a d e
possible by the s a m e forces of modernization that allowed Baudelaire to use
the kaleidoscope as a m o d e l for the kinetic experience of
the multiplicity of
life itself and the flickering grace of all its elements.
30
T h e most significant form of visual imagery in the nineteenth century,
with the exception of photographs, wa s the stereoscope.31 It is easily forgotten
29.
Sir David Brewster, The K aleidoscope
Its H istory, Theory, a n d C o nstructio n (1819;
rpt. London, 1858), pp. 134-136.
30.
Charles Baudelaire,
Le peintre d e la vie m o d e r n e , in O euvres C om pletes (Paris,
1961), p. 1161. In the s a m e v o l u m e see Baudelaire
s discussion of the stereoscope a n d the
phenakistiscope in his 1853 essay
Morale d u joujou
pp. 524-530.
31.
There are f e w serious cultural or historical studies of the stereoscope. S o m e helpful
117
118
n o w h o w pervasive w a s the experience of the stereoscope a nd h o w for

decades it defined a major m o d e of experiencing photographically p roduced
images. This too is a f o rm w h o s e history has thus far b e e n confounded with
that of another p h e n o m e n o n , in this case photography. Yet as I indicated in
m y introduction, its conceptual structure a nd the historical circumstances of
its invention are thoroughly independent of photography. Although distinct
from the optical devices that represented the illusion of m o v em e nt , the ster
eoscope is nonetheless part of the s a m e reorganization of the observer, the
s a m e relations of k no wl e d g e an d power, that those devices implied.
O f primary concern here is the period during which the technical and
theoretical principles of the stereoscope w e r e developed, rather than the
issue of its effects onc e it w a s distributed throughout a sociocultural field.
Onl y after 1850 did its w i d e commercial diffusion throughout North America
and Europ e occur.32 T h e origins of the stereoscope are intertwined with
research in the 1820s a nd 1830s o n subjective vision an d m o r e generally
within the field of nineteenth-century physiology already discussed. T h e t w o
figures mos t closely associated with its invention, Charles Wheatstone and Sir
David Brewster, h ad already written extensively o n optical illusions, color the
ory, afterimages and other visual p he n o m e n a . Wheatstone wa s in fact the
translator of Purkinje
s major 1823 dissertation o n afterimages and subjective
vision, published in English in 1830. A few years later Brewster s um m a r i z e d
available research o n optical devices and subjective vision.
T h e stereoscope is also inseparable fro m early nineteenth-century
debates about the perception of space, whic h w e r e to continue unresolved
indefinitely. W a s space an innate form or w a s itsomething recognized through
the learning of cues after birth? T h e Mo ly n e u x p r o b l e m had b ee n transposed
to a different century for very different solutions. But the question that trou
bled the nineteenth century ha d never really b e e n a central p r o b le m before.
wo r k s are
E d w a r d W. Earle, ed, P oints o f View
The Stereograph in A m erica
A C ultural
History (Rochester, 1979); A. T. Gill, Early Stereoscopes,The Photographic Jo u rn a l 109
(1969), pp. 545-599, 606-614, 641-651; a n d Rosalind Krauss,
Photography
s Discursive
Spaces
LandscapeAîew,,>A rt Jo u rn a l 42 (Winter 1982), pp. 311-319.
32.
B y 1856, t w o years after its founding, the L o n d o n Stereoscopic C o m p a n y alone h a d
sold over half a million viewers. See H e l m u t a n d Alison Gernsheim, The H istory o f Pho
tography (London, 1969) p. 191.
119
Binocular disparity, the self-evident fact that each eye sees a slightly different
image, h a d b e e n a familiar p h e n o m e n o n since antiquity. O nl y in the 1830s
does it b e c o m e crucial for scientists to define the seeing b o d y as essentially
binocular, to quantify precisely the angular differential of the optical axis of
each eye, a n d to specify the physiological basis for disparity. T h e question that
preoccupied researchers w a s thisgiven that an observer perceives with each
eye a different image, h o w are they experienced as single or unitary? Before
1800even w h e n the question w a s asked it w a s m o r e as a curiosity, never a
central problem. T w o alternative explanations h ad b e e n offered for centuries
o n e proposed that w e never s a w anything except with o n e eye at a time the
other w a s a projection theory articulated b y Kepler, and proposed as late as
the 1750s, w h i ch asserted that each eye projects an object to its actual loca
tion.33 But in the nineteenth century the unity of the visual field could not b e
so easily predicated.
B y the late 1820s physiologists w e r e seeking anatomical evidence in the
structure of the optical chiasma, the point behind the eyes w h e r e the nerve
fibers leading from the retina to the brain cross each other, carrying half of
the nerves f ro m each retina to each side of the brain.34 But such physiological
evidence w a s relatively inconclusive at that time. Wheatstone
s conclusions in
1833 c a m e out of the successful m e a s u r e m e n t of binocular parallax, or the
degree to w h i c h the angle of the axis of each eye differed w h e n focused o n
the s a m e point. T h e h u m a n organism, h e claimed, h ad the capacity under
most conditions to synthesize retinal disparity into a single unitary image.
While this s e em s obvious fro m our o w n standpoint, Wheatstone
s work
m a r k e d a major break fr om older explanations (or often disregard) of the bin
ocular body.
T h e fo r m of the stereoscope is linked to s o m e of Wheatstone
s initial
findingshis research concerned the visual experience of objects relatively
close to the eye.
W h e n an object is viewed at so great a distance that the optic axes
of both eyes are sensibly parallel w h e n directed towards it,the per33.
See, for example, William Porterfield, A Treatise o n the Eye, the M anner a n d Phe
nom ena o fV isio n (Edinburgh, 1759) p. 285.
34.
See R L. Gregory, Eye a n d B rain
The Psychology o f Seeing, 3rded. ( N e w York, 1979),
p. 45.
120
spective projections of it, seen by each eye separately, a nd the

appearance to the tw o eyes is precisely the s a m e as w h e n the object
is seen by o n e eye only.35
Instead Wheatstone w a s preoccupied with objects close e n o u g h to the
observer so that the optic axes had different angles.
W h e n the object is placed so near the eyes that to view it the optic
axes must converge ... a different perspective projection of it is
seen b y each eye, a nd these perspectives are m o r e dissimilar as the
convergence of the optic axes b e c o m e s greater.36
Thus physical proximity brings binocular vision into play as an operation of
reconciling disparity, of m ak in g t w o distinct views appear as one. This is what
links the stereoscope with other devices in the 1830s like the phenakistiscope.
Its
realismpresupposes perceptual experience to b e essentially an appre
hension of differences. T h e relation of the observer to the object is not on e
of identity but an experience of disjunct or divergent images. Helmholtz
s
influential epistemology w a s based o n such a
differential hypothesis.
37 Both
Wheatstone and Brewster indicated that the fusion of pictures viewed in a ster
eoscope took place over time a nd that their convergence might not actually
be secure. According to Brewster,
the relief is not obtained from the m e r e combination or super
position of the two dissimilar pictures. T h e superposition is
effected b y turning each eye u p o n the object, but the relief is given
b y the play of the optic axes in uniting, in rapid succession, similar
points of the t wo pictures. . . . T h o u g h the pictures apparently
coalesce, yet the relief is given by the subsequent play of the optic
35.
Charles Wheatstone,
Contributions to the physiology of vision Part the first. O n
s o m e remarkable, a n d hitherto unobserved, p h e n o m e n a of binocular vision,in Brewster
a n d W heatstone o n Vision, ed. Nicholas J. W a d e (London, 1983), p. 65.

36.
Wheatstone,
Contributions to a physiology of vision,p. 65.
37.
H e r m a n n v o n Helmholtz,
T h e Facts in Perception
Epistem ological W ritings, ed.
Moritz Schlick (Boston, 1977), p. 133:
O u r acquaintance with the visual field can b e
acquired b y observation of the images during the m o v e m e n t s of ou r eyes, provided only
that there exists, b e t w e e n otherwise qualitatively alike retinal sensations, s o m e or other
perceptible difference corresponding to the difference b e t w e e n distinct places o n the
retina.
122
axes varying themselves successively upon, and unifying, the sim

ilar points in each picture that correspond to different distances
fro m the observer.38
Brewster thus confirms there never really is a stereoscopic image, that it is a
conjuration, an effect of the observer
s experience of the differential b et ween
two other images.
In devising the stereoscope, Wheatstone a im e d to simulate the actual
presence of a physical object or scene, not to discover another w a y to exhibit
a print or drawing. Painting ha d b e e n an adequate form of representation, h e
asserts, but only for images of objects at a great distance. W h e n a landscape
is presented to a viewer,
ifthose circumstances wh ic h w o u l d disturb the illu
sion are excluded,w e could mistake the representation for reality. H e
declares that u p to this point in history it is impossible for an artist to give a
faithful representation of any near solid object.
W h e n the painting a n d the object are seen with both eyes, in the
case of the painting t wo similar objects are projected o n the retina,
in the case of the solid object the pictures are dissimilarthere is
therefore an essential difference be t we en the impressions o n the
organs of sensation in the two cases, a nd consequently b e tween
the perceptions f o r m e d in the m i n d the painting therefore cannot
b e c onfounded with the solid object.39
W h a t h e seeks, then, is a complete equivalence of stereoscopic image and
object. Not only will the invention of the stereoscope o v e r c o m e the deficien
cies ofpainting but also those of the diorama, wh i ch Wheatstone singles out.
T h e diorama, h e believed, w a s too b o u n d u p in the techniques of painting,
which d e p e n d e d for their illusory effects o n the depiction of distant subjects.
T h e stereoscope, o n the contrary, provided a form in w hi c h
vividnessof
effect increased with the apparent proximity of the object to the viewer, a nd
the impression of three-dimensional solidity b e c a m e greater as the optic axes
of each diverged. T hu s the desired effect of the stereoscope w a s not simply
38.
Sir David Brewster, The Stereoscope

Its History, Theory, a n d C onstruction (London,
1856)
p. 53 (emphasis in original).
39.
Charles Wheatstone,
Contributions to the Physiology of Vision,in Brewster a n d
W heatstone o n Vision, p. 66.
124
likeness, but immediate, apparent tangibility. But it is a tangibility that has

been transformed into a purely visual experience, of a kind that Diderot could
never have imagined. T h e
reciprocal assistancebetween sight and touch
Diderot specified in Letters o n tbe Blind is n o longer operative. Even as sophis
ticated a student of vision as Helmholtz could write, in the 1850s,
these stereoscopic photographs are so true to nature and so lifelike
in their portrayal of material things, that after viewing such a pic
ture and recognizing in it s o m e object like a house, for instance,
w e get the impression, w h e n w e actually d o see the object, that w e
have already seen it before and are m o r e or less familiar with it. In
cases of this kind, the actual view of the thing itself does not add
anything n e w or m o r e accurate to the previous apperception w e
got from the picture, so far at least as m e r e form relations are
concerned.40
N o other form of representation in the nineteenth century had so conflated

the real with the optical. W e will never really k n o w what the stereoscope
looked like to a nineteenth-century viewer or recover a stance from whic h it
could s e e m an equivalent for a
natural vision.There is even something
uncannyin Helmholtz
s conviction that a picture of a house could b e so real
that w e feel
w e have already seen it before.Since it is obviously impossible
to reproduce stereoscopic effects here o n a printed page, it is necessary to
analyze closely the nature of this illusion for which such claims w e r e made,
to look through the lenses of the device itself.
First it must b e emphasized that the
reality effectof the stereoscope
w as highly variable. S o m e stereoscopic images produce little or n o threedimensional effectfor instance, a view across an e m pty plaza of a building
facade, or a view of a distant landscape with few intervening elements. Also,
images that elsewhere are standard demonstrations of perspectival recession,
such as a road or a railroad track extending to a centrally located vanishing
point, produce little impression of depth. Pronounced stereoscopic effects
d e p e n d o n the presence of objects or obtrusive forms in the near or middle
gr o u n d that is, there m ust b e e n o u g h points in the image that require sig-
40.
Helmholtz, P h ysiolog ica l O ptics, vol. 3

p. 303.
125
nificant changes in the angle of convergence of the optical axes. Thus the most
intense experience of the stereoscopic image coincides with an object-filled
space, with a material plenitude that bespeaks a nineteenth-century bourgeois
horror of the void and there are endless quantities of stereo cards showing
interiors c r a m m e d with bric-a-brac, densely filled m u s e u m sculpture galler
ies, and congested city views.
But in such images the depth is essentially different from anything in
painting or photography. W e are given an insistent sense of
in front ofand
in back ofthat see ms to organize the image as a sequence of receding

planes. A n d in fact the fundamental organization of the stereoscopic image is
planar.41 W e perceive individual elements as flat, cutout forms arrayed either

nearer or further from us. But the experience of space between these objects
(planes) is not o n e of gradual and predictable recessionrather, there is a ver
tiginous uncertainty about the distance separating forms. C o m p a r e d to the
strange insubstantiality of objects and figures located in the middle ground,
the absolutely airless space surrounding t h e m has a disturbing palpability.
There are s o m e superficial similarities between the stereoscope a nd classical
stage design, w h ic h synthesizes flats and real extensive space into an illusory
scene. But theatrical space is still perspectival in that the m o v e m e n t of actors
o n a stage generally rationalizes the relation between points.
In the stereoscopic image there is a derangement of the conventional
functioning of optical cues. Certain planes or surfaces, even though c o m p o s e d
of indications of light or shade that normally designate volume, are perceived
as flatother planes that normally w o u l d b e read as two-dimensional, such as
a fence in a foreground, s e e m to occupy space aggressively. Thus stereoscopic
relief or depth has n o unifying logic or order. If perspective implied a h o m o
geneous and potentially metric space, the stereoscope discloses a f u n d a m e n
tally disunified a nd aggregate field of disjunct elements. O u r eyes never
traverse the image in a full apprehension of the three-dimensionality of the
entire field, but in terms of a localized experience of separate areas. W h e n w e
look head-on at a photograph or painting our eyes remain at a single angle of
convergence, thus e n d o w i n g the image surface with an optical unity. T h e
reading or scanning of a stereo image, however, is an accumulation of dif41.
See Krauss,
Photography
s Discursive Spaces,p. 313.
126
ferences in the degree of optical convergence, thereby producing a percep

tual effect of a patchwork of different intensities of reliefwithin a single image.
O u r eyes follow a c h o p p y and erratic path into its depth it is an assemblage
of local zones of three-dimensionality, zones i m b u e d with a hallucinatory clar
ity, but wh ich w h e n taken together never coalesce into a h o m o g e n e o u s field.
It is a world that simply does not commun ic a te with that w h ic h p roduced
baroque scenography or the city views of Canaletto and Bellotto. Part of the
fascination of these images is d u e to this i m m a n e n t disorder, to the fissures
that disrupt its coherence. T h e stereoscope could b e said to constitute what
Gilles Deleuze calls a
R i e m a n n space,after the G e r m a n mathematician
Ge o r g R i e m a n n (1826-1866).
Each vicinity in a R i e m a n n space is like a shred
of Euclidian space but the linkage between o n e vicinity a nd the next is not
defined___ R i e m a n n space at its most general thus presents itself as an a m o r
pho us collection of pieces that are juxtaposed but not attached to each other.
42
A range of nineteenth-century painting also manifests s o m e of these fea
tures of stereoscopic imagery. Courbet
s Ladies of the Village (1851), with its
much-noted discontinuity of groups and planes, suggests the aggregate space
of the stereoscope, as d o similar elements of The Meeting (Bonjour
M. Cour
bet) (1854). W o r k s b y Manet, such as The Execution ofMaocimillian (1867) and

View of the International Exhibition (1867)and certainly Seurat
s Sunday
Afternoon o n the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-86) also are built u p piece
meal out of local a nd disjunct areas of spatial coherence, of both m o d e l e d
depth a n d cutout flatness. N u m e r o u s other examples could b e mentioned,
perhaps going back as early as the landscapes of Wilhelm v o n Kobell, with
their unsettling hyperclarity a nd abrupt adjacency of foreground a nd distant
background. I a m certainly not proposing a causal relation of an y sort
between these tw o forms, and I w o u l d b e dismayed if I p r o m p t e d anyone to
determine if Courbet o w n e d a stereoscope. Instead I a m suggesting that both
the
realismof the stereoscope a nd the
experimentsof certain painters
w e r e equally b o u n d u p in a m u c h broader transformation of the observer that
allowed the e m e r g e n c e of this n e w optically constructed space. T h e stereo
scope a nd Ce zanne have far m o r e in c o m m o n than o n e might assume. Paint-
42.
Gilles Deleuze a n d Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 485.
127
ing, an d early m o d e r n i s m in particular, ha d n o special claims in the

renovation of vision in the nineteenth century.
T h e stereoscope as a m e a n s of representation wa s inherently obscene,
in the most literal sense. It shattered the scenic relationship be tw e en viewer
and object that w a s intrinsic to the fundamentally theatrical setup of the c a m
era obscura. T h e very functioning of the stereoscope depended, as indicated
above, o n the visual priority of the object closest to the viewer an d o n the
absence of any mediation b et we e n eye an d image.43 Itw a s a fulfillment of what
Walter Benjamin s a w as central in the visual culture of modernity
D a y b y day
the n e e d b e c o m e s greater to take possession of the o b j e c t f r o m the closest
proximity~in an image a nd the reproduction of an image.
44 It is n o coin
cidence that the stereoscope b e c a m e increasingly s y n o n y m o u s with erotic
and pornographic imagery in the course of the nineteenth century. T h e very
effects of tangibility that Wheatstone had sought from the beginning w e r e
quickly turned into a mass for m of ocular possession. S o m e have speculated
that the very close association of the stereoscope with pornography w a s in
part responsible for its social demise as a m o d e of visual consumption.
A r o u n d the turn of the century sales of the device supposedly dwindled
because it b e c a m e linked with
indecentsubject matter. Although the rea
sons for the collapse of the stereoscope lie elsewhere, as Iwill suggest shortly,
the simulation of tangible three-dimensionality hovers uneasily at the limits
of acceptable verisimilitude.45
Ifphotography preserved an ambivalent (and superficial) relation to the
codes of monocular space a nd geometrical perspective, the relation of the
stereoscope to these older forms w a s o n e of annihilation, not compromise.
Charles Wheatstone
s question in 1838 w a s
W h a t w o u l d b e the visual effect
of simultaneously presenting to each eye, instead of the object itself, its pro43.
See Florence de M^redieu,
D e l
obsc nit6 photographique
Traverses 29 (October
1983)pp. 86-94.
44.
Walter Benjamin,
A Small History of Photography,in O n e W a y Street, trans.
E d m u n d Jephcott and Kingsley Shorter (London, 1979), pp. 240-257.
45.
T h e ambivalence with which twentieth-century audiences have received 3-D movies
and holography suggests the enduring problematic nature of such techniques. Christian
Metz discusses the idea of an optimal point o n either side of which the impression of reality
tends to decrease, in his Film L a n g u a g e ( N e w York, 1974), pp. 3-15.
128
D iagram o f the operation o f the W heatstone stereoscope.
jection o n a plane surface as it appears to that eye?T h e stereoscopic spectator

sees neither the identity of a copy nor the coherence guaranteed by the frame
of a window. Rather, what appears is the technical reconstitution of an already
reproduced world fragmented into two nonidentical models, models that
precede any experience of their subsequent perception as unified or tangible.
It is a radical repositioning of the observer
s relation to visual representation.
T h e institutionalization of this decentered observer and the stereoscope
s dis
persed a nd multiplied sign severed from a point of external reference indi
cate a greater break with a classical observer than that which occurs later in
the century in the realm of painting. T h e stereoscope signals an eradication
of
the point of viewaround which, for several centuries, meanings ha d b e e n
assigned reciprocally to an observer and the object of his or her vision. There
is n o longer the possibility of perspective under such a technique of behold
ing. T h e relation of observer to image is n o longer to an object quantified in
relation to a position in space, but rather to t wo dissimilar images w h o s e posi
tion simulates the anatomical structure of the observer
s body.
T o fully appreciate the rupture signified by the stereoscope it is i m p or
tant to consider the original device, the so-called Wheatstone stereoscope. In
129
order to view images with this device, an observer placed his eyes directly in
front of two plane mirrors set ninety degrees to o n e another. T h e images to
be viewed w e r e held in slots o n either side of the observer, and thus w e r e
spatially completely separated from each other. Unlike the Brewster stereo
scope, invented in the late 1840s, or the familiar H o l m e s viewer, invented in
1861the Wheatstone m o d e l m a d e clear the atopic nature of the perceived
stereoscopic image, the disjunction b e tween experience and its cause. T h e
later models allowed the viewer to believe that h e or she wa s looking forward
at something
out there.But the Wheatstone m o d e l left the hallucinatory and
fabricated nature of the experience undisguised. It did not support what
Roland Barthes called
the referential illusion.

46 There simply wa s nothing
out there.T h e illusion of relief or depth w a s thus a subjective event and the
observer coupled with the apparatus wa s the agent of synthesis or fusion.
Like the phenakistiscope and other nonprojective optical devices, the
stereoscope also required the corporeal adjacency and immobility of the
observer. T h e y are part of a nineteenth-century modulation in the relation
between eye and optical apparatus. During the seventeenth a nd eighteenth
centuries that relationship h a d b e e n essentially metaphoric the eye and the
camera obscura or the eye an d the telescope or microscope w e r e allied by a
conceptual similarity, in whic h the authority of an ideal eye remained unchal
lenged.47 Beginning in the nineteenth century, the relation be tween eye and
optical apparatus b e c o m e s o n e of m e t o n y m y both w e r e n o w contiguous
instruments o n the s a m e plane of operation, with varying capabilities and fea
tures.48 T h e limits an d deficiencies of o n e will b e c o m p l e m e n t e d by the capac
ities of the other a nd vice versa. T h e optical apparatus undergoes a shift
comparable to that of the tool as described by M a r x
F r o m the m o m e n t that
the tool proper is taken from man, a nd fitted into a mechanism, a machine
46.
See Roland Barthes,
Th e Reality Effect,in The Rustle of Language, trans. Richard
H o w a r d ( N e w York, 1986), pp. 141-148.
47.
O n the telescope as metaphor in Galileo, Kepler, and others see Timothy J. Riess, The
Discourse of Mode r n i s m (Ithaca, 1980)pp. 2529.
48.
In Metonymy, p h e n o m e n a are implicitly apprehended as bearing relationships to

one another in the modality of part-part relationships, o n the basis of which one can effect
a reduction of one of the parts to the status of an aspect or funaion of the other.H ayden
White, Metahistory
The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth Century Europe (Baltimore,
1973)p. 35.
131
takes the place of a m e r e implement.
49 In this sense, other optical instru

ments of the seventeenth an d eighteenth centuries, like p e e p shows, Claude
glasses, a nd print viewing boxes h ad the status of tools. In the older handicraftbased work, M a r x explained, a w o r k m a n
m a k e s use of a tool,that is, the tool
ha d a metaphoric relation to the innate p ow er s of the h u m a n subject.50 In the
factory, M a r x contended, the machine m a k e s use of m a n b y subjecting h i m to
a relation of contiguity, of part to other parts, an d of exchangeability. H e is
quite specific about the n e w me t o n y m i c status of the h u m a n subject
As soon
as man, instead of working with an implement o n the subject of his labour,
b e c o m e s merely the motive p o w e r of an implement-machine, itis a m e r e acci
dent that motive p o w e r takes the disguise of h u m a n muscle and itm a y equally
well take the form of wind, water, or steam.
51 Georges Canguilhem m a k e s an
important distinction be tw e en eighteenth-century utilitarianism, wh ic h
derived its idea of utility fro m its definition of m a n as toolmaker, and the
instrumentalism of the h u m a n sciences in the nineteenth century, w hi ch is
based o n
o n e implicit postulatethat the nature of m a n is to b e a tool, that his
vocation is to b e set in his place and to b e set to work.
52Although
set to w o r k
m a y s o u n d inappropriate in a discussion of optical devices, the apparently
passive observer of the stereoscope an d phenakistiscope, by virtue of specific
49.
Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 trans. Samuel M o o r e and Edwa rd Aveling ( N e w York,
1967), p. 374.
50.
Marx, Capital, vol. 1 p. 422. J. D. Bernal has noted that the instrumental capacities
of the telescope and microscope remained remarkably undeveloped during the seven
teenth and eighteenth centuries. Until the nineteenth century, the microscope
remained
m o r e amusing and instructive, in the philosophical sense, than of scientific and practical
value.Science in History, Vol. 2 The Scientific a n d Industrial Revolutions (Cambridge,
Mass., 1971)pp. 464-469.
51.
Marx, Capital, vol. 1p. 375.
52.
Georges Canguilhem,
Qu
est-ce que la psychologie,Etudes cTbistoire et de philosophie des sciences (Paris, 1983), p. 378. See also Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A
Thousand Plateaus, p. 490
During the nineteenth century a two-fold elaboration was
undertaken of a physioscientific concept of W o r k (weight-height, force-displacement),
and of a socioeconomic concept of labor-power or abstract labor (a h o m o g e n o u s abstract
quantity applicable to all w o r k and susceptible to multiplication and division). There was
a profound link between physics and sociologysociety furnished an economic standard
of measure for work, and physics as
mechanical currencyfor it. . . . Impose the W o r k
Model u p o n every activity, translate every act into possible or virtual work, discipline free
action, or else (which amounts to the sa me thing) relegate itto
leisure,
which exists only
by reference to work.
132
physiological capacities, w a s in fact m a d e into a producer of forms of veri

similitude. A n d what the observer produced, again and again, w as the effort
less transformation of the dreary parallel images of flat stereo cards into a
tantalizing apparition of depth. T h e content of the images is far less important
than the inexhaustible routine of mov i n g from o n e card to the next and pro
ducing the s a m e effect, repeatedly, mechanically. A n d each time, the mass-pro
duced and m o n o t o n o u s cards are transubstantiated into a compulsory and
seductive vision of the
real.
A crucial feature of these optical devices of the 1830s and 1840s is the
undisguised nature of their operational structure and the form of subjection
they entail. Even though they provide access to
the real,they m a k e n o claim
that the real is anything other than a mechanical production. T h e optical expe
riences they manufacture are clearly disjunct f rom the images used in the
device. Th e y refer as m u c h to the functional interaction of b o d y and machine
as they d o to external objects, n o matter h o w
vividthe quality of the illusion.
So w h e n the phenakistiscope and the stereoscope eventually disappeared, it
was not as part of a s m o o t h process of invention and improvement, but rather
because these earlier forms w e r e n o longer adequate to current needs and
uses.
O n e reason for their obsolescence w a s that they w e r e insufficiently
phantasmagoric,a w o r d that Adorno, Benjamin, and others have used to

describe forms of representation after 1850. Phantasmagoria was a n a m e for
a specific type of magic-lantern performance in the 1790s and early 1800s, o n e
that used back projection to keep an audience unaware of the lanterns.
A d o r n o takes the w o r d to indicate
the occultation of production by m e a n s of the outward appearance
of the product... this outer appearance can lay claim to the status
of being. Its perfection is at the s a m e time the perfection of the illu
sion that the w o r k of art is a reality
generis that constitutes itself
in the realm of the absolute without having to renounce its claim

to image the world.53
53.
T h e o d o r Adorno, In Search o f W agner, trans. R o d n e y Livingstone (London, 1981),
p. 85. O n A d o r n o a n d the phantasmagoria, see Andreas Huyssen, /fie r th e G reat D ivide
M odernism , M ass C ultu re, P ostm odernism (Bloomington, 1986), pp. 34-42. See also Rolf
133
But the effacement or mystification of a m a c h i n e

s operation wa s precisely
what David Brewster h o p e d to o v e r c o m e with his kaleidoscope an d stereo
scope. H e optimistically s a w the spread of scientific ideas in the nineteenth
century undermining the possibility of phantasmagoric effects, and h e over
lapped the history of civilization with the development of tehnologies of illu
sion and apparition.54 For Brewster, a Scottish Calvinist, the maintenance of
barbarism, tyranny, a nd popery had always b e e n founded o n closely guarded
kno wl ed ge of optics and acoustics, the secrets by which priestly and higher
castes ruled. But his implied program, the democratization a nd mass dissem
ination of techniques of illusion, simply collapsed that older m o d e l of p o w e r
onto a single h u m a n subject, transforming each observer into simultaneously
the magician a nd the deceived.
Even in the later H o l m e s stereoscope, the
concealment of the process
of productiondid not fully occur.55 Clearly the stereoscope w as dependent
o n a physical en ga ge me n t with the apparatus that b e c a m e increasingly unac
ceptable, a nd the composite, synthetic nature of the stereoscopic image could
never b e fully effaced. A n apparatus openly based o n a principle of disparity,
on a
binocularbody, a n d o n an illusion patently derived from the binary
referent of the stereoscopic card of paired images, gave w a y to a form that pre
served the referential illusion m o r e fully than anything before it. Photography
defeated the stereoscope as a m o d e of visual consumption as well because it
recreated and perpetuated the fiction that the
freesubject of the camera
obscura w a s still viable. Photographs s e e m e d to b e a continuation of older
naturalisticpictorial codes, but only because their dominant conventions

w e re restricted to a narrow range of technical possibilities (that is, shutter
speeds a nd lens openings that rendered elapsed time invisible and recorded
Tiedemann,
Dialectics at a StandstillApproaches to the Passagen-Werk
in O n Walter
Benjamin
Critical Essays a n d Recollections, ed. Gary Smith (Cambridge, Mass., 1988) pp.
276-279. For the technical and cultural history of the original phantasmagoria, see Terry
Castle,
Phantasmagoria: Spectral Technology and the Metaphorics of M o d e r n Reverie,
Critical Inquiry 15 (Autumn 1988), pp. 26-61 Erik Barnouw, The Magician a n d the Cin
e m a (Oxford, 1981 )and Martin Quigley, Jr., Magic Shadows The Story of the Origin of
Motion Pictures, pp. 75-79.
54.
Sir David Brewster, Letters o n Natural Magic ( N e w York, 1832), pp. 15-21.
55.
This device is described by its inventor in Oliver Wendell Holmes,
Th e Stereoscope
and the Stereograph," Atlantic Monthly 3 no. 20 (June 1859)pp. 738-748.
C o l u m n stereoscope. 1870s.
135
136
Phantasmagoric effects
Mid-nineteenth century theatricalperformance.
objects in focus).56 But photography had already abolished the inseparability

of observer a nd camera obscura, b o u n d together b y a single point of view, and
m a d e the n e w camera an apparatus fundamentally independent of the spec
tator, yet wh i ch m a sq ue ra d ed as a transparent and incorporeal intermediary
between observer and world. T h e prehistory of the spectacle a n d the
pure
perceptionof m o d e r n i s m are lodged in the newly discovered territory of a
fully e m b o d i e d viewer, but the eventual triumph of both d epends o n the
denial of the body, its pulsings and phantasms, as the grou n d of vision.57
56.
For the disruptive effect of Muybridge and Marey o n nineteenth-century codes of
naturalisticrepresentation, see Noel Burch,

Charles Baudelaire versus Doctor Fran
kenstein,v Afierimage 8-9 (Spring 1981), pp. 4-21.
57.
O n the problem of modernism, vision, and the body, see the recent w o r k of Rosalind
Krauss
Antivision,October 36 (Spring 1986), pp. 147-154
T he Blink of an Eye,in The
States of Theory: History, Art, a n d Critical Discourse, ed. David Caroll ( N e w York, 1990),
pp. 175-199; and
Th e Impulse to See,in Vision a n d Visuality, ed. Hal Foster (Seattle,
1988), pp. 51-75.
5 Visionary Abstraction
.. the nineteenth century, still the

most obscure of all the centuries of
the m o d e m age up to now.
~ M a r t i n Heidegger
Allergic to any relapse into magic

art
ispart a n d parcel of the disenchant
m e n t of the world
to use M a x Weber's
term. It is inextricably intertwined
with rationalization. Wha t m e a n s

a n d productive methods art has at its
disposal are all derived f r o m this
nexus.
~ T h e o d o r Adorno
T h e collapse of the camera obscura as a m o d e l for the condition of an

observer w a s part of a process of modernization, even as the camera itself had
b ee n an element of an earlier modernity, helping define a
free,private, and
individualized subject in the seventeenth century. B y the early 1800s, h o w
ever, the rigidity of the camera obscura, its linear optical system, its fixed posi
tions, its identification of perception and object, w e r e all too inflexible and
immobile for a rapidly changing set of cultural and political requirements.
Obviously artists in the seventeenth an d eighteenth centuries h ad m a d e
countless attempts to operate outside the constraints of the camera obscura
138
and other techniques for the rationalization of vision, but always within a
highly delimited terrain of experimentation. It is only in the early nineteenth
century that the juridical m o d e l of the camera loses its preeminent authority.
Vision is n o longer subordinated to an exterior image of the true or the right.
T h e eye is n o longer what predicates a
real world.
T h e w o r k of Goethe, Schopenhauer, Ruskin, and Turner a nd m a n y oth
ers are all indications that b y 1840 the process of perception itself had
become, in various ways, a primary object of vision. For itw a s this very process
that the functioning of the camera obscura kept invisible. N o w h e r e else is the
b r e a k d o w n of the perceptual m o d e l of the camera obscura m o r e decisively
evident than in the late w o r k of Turner. Seemingly out of nowhere, his paint
ing of the late 1830s an d 1840s signals the irrevocable loss of a fixed source
of light, the dissolution of a cone of light rays, and the collapse of the distance
separating an observer fro m the site of optical experience. Instead of the
immediate an d unitary apprehension of an image, our experience of a Turner
painting is lodged amidst an inescapable temporality. H e n c e Lawrence G o w ing
s account of Turner
s concern with
the indefinite transmission an d dis
persal of light b y an infinite series of reflections from an endless variety of
surfaces an d materials, each contributing its o w n colour that mingles with
every other, penetrating ultimately to every recess, reflected everywhere.
1
T h e sfumato of Leonardo, w hi c h h a d generated during the previous three cen
turies a counter-practice to the d o m i n an c e of geometrical optics, is suddenly
and overwhelmingly triumphant in Turner. But the substantiality he gives to
the void b e t we en objects and his challenge to the integrity a nd identity of
forms n o w coincides with a n e w physics the science of fields and
thermodynamics.2
T h e n e w status of the observer signaled b y Turner is perhaps best dis
cussed in terms of his celebrated relationship to the sun.3 Just as the sun
1.
Lawr e nc e G o wi n g, Turner
Im agination a n d Reality ( N e w York, 1966), p. 21.
2.
Turner
s break with N e wt o n i a n a n d Euclidian m o d e l s of space a n d f o r m is discussed
in Karl Kroeber,
Romantic Historicism
T h e T e m p o r a l Sublime,in Im ages o f R om anti
cism
Verbal a n d VisualAffinities, ed. Karl K roeber a n d William Walling ( N e w Haven, 1978),
pp. 163-165, a n d in Michel Serres,
Turner traduit Carnot,in La traduction (Paris, 1974),
pp. 233-242.
3.
Turner
s relation to the su n is discussed in Ronald Paulson,
Turner
s Graffiti: T h e
S u n a n d Its Glosses,in Im ages o f R om anticism , pp. 167-188
Jack Lindsay, Turner
H is Life
139
described b y classical mechanics wa s displaced b y n e w notions of heat, time,

death, an d entropy, so the sun presupposed by the camera obscura (that is, a
sun that could only b e indirectly re-presented to a h u m a n eye) w a s trans
fo r me d b y the position of a n e w artist-observer.4 In Turner all of the m e d ia
tions that previously ha d distanced an d protected an observer from the
dangerous brilliance of the sun are cast off. T h e exemplary figures of Kepler
a nd N e w t o n e m p l o y e d the camera obscura precisely to avoid looking directly
into the sun while seeking to gain know l ed ge of itor of the light itpropagated.
In Descartes
s La dioptrique, as discussed earlier, the form of the camera w a s
a defense against the m a d n e s s and unreason of dazzlement.5
Turner
s direct confrontation with the sun, however, dissolves the very
possibility of representation that the camera obscura w a s m e a n t to ensure. His
solar preoccupations w e r e
visionaryin that h e m a d e central in his w o r k the
retinal processes of visionan d itw a s the carnal e m b o d i m e n t of sight that the
camera obscura denied or repressed. In o n e of Turner
s great later paintings,
the 1843 Light a n d Colour (Goethe's Theory)~The Morn in g After the Deluge,
the collapse of the older m o d e l of representation is complete the view of the
sun that h ad dominated so m a n y of Turner
s previous images n o w b e c o m e s
a fusion of eye a nd sun.6 O n o n e h a n d it stands as an impossible image of a
luminescence that can only b e blinding a nd that has never b e e n seen, but it
also resembles an afterimage of that engulfing illumination. If the circular
structure of this painting a nd others of the s a m e period m i m i c the shape of
the sun, they also correspond with the pupil of the eye a nd the retinal field
a n d W o r k ( N e w York, 1966), pp. 210-213; and Martin D. Paley, The Apocalyptic Sublime
( N e w Haven, 1985), pp. 143-170.
4.
O n the cultural effects of these n e w concepts
see Krzysztof Pomian, L
ordre d u temps
(Paris, 1984)pp. 300-305.
5.
See Michel Foucault, Mad n es s a n d Civilization
A History of Insanity in the Age of
Reason, trans. Richard H o w a r d ( N e w York, 1973), p. 108
Dazzlement is night in broad
daylight, the darkness that rules at the very heart of what is excessive in light
s radiance.
Dazzled reason opens its eyes u p o n the sun, and sees nothing, that is, it does not see ...
6.
T h e extent to which Turner was influenced by Goethe
s writings o n physiological
optics is uncertain. That Turner was clearly aware of the physiological p o w e r of comple
mentary colors is asserted in Gerald E. Finley,
Turner: A n Early Experiment with Colour
Theory,
Journal of the W a r b u r g a n d Courtauld Institute 30 (1967), pp. 357-366. See also
John Gage,
Turner
s Annotated Books Goethe
s
Theory of Colours,
Turner Studies 4
(Winter 1982) pp. 34-52.
140
J. M. W. Turner. Light a n d Colour ( G oe t h e s Theory) T h e M o r n i n g After the Deluge.

1843.
141
o n which the temporal experience of an afterimage unfolds. T h r o u g h the

afterimage the sun is m a d e to belong to the body, and the b o d y in fact takes
over as the source of its effects. It is perhaps in this sense that Turner
s suns
m a y be said to b e self-portraits.7
But Turner was not alone in the nineteenth century with his visionary
relation to the sun. Three scientific figures already mentioned in this study,
Sir David Brewster J o s e p h Plateau, and Gustav Fechner, all severely d a m a g e d
their eyesight by staring into the sun in the course of research o n retinal after
images.8 Plateau, inventor of the phenakistiscope, wen t blind permanently.
T h o u g h as scientists their immediate aims obviously differed from those of
Turner, o n a m o r e important level theirs too w a s a shared discovery of the
visionarycapacities of the body, and w e miss the significance of this research

ifw e d o n
t acknowledge its strange intensity and exhilaration. W h a t this w o r k
often involved w a s the experience of staring directly into the sun, of sunlight
searing itselfonto the body, palpably disturbing it into a proliferation of incan
descent color. Clearly these scientists c a m e to a piercing realization of the cor
poreality of vision. Not only did their w o r k find the b o d y to b e the site and
producer of chromatic events, but this discovery allowed t h e m to conceive of
an abstract optical experience, that is of a vision that did not represent or refer
to objects in the world. A n d the w o r k of all three, whether as technological
invention or empirical scientific study, was directed toward the mechaniza
tion and formalization of vision.
Although not involved like Brewster or Plateau in the invention of any
optical device, the career of Gustav Fechner is perhaps the most interesting
w h e n juxtaposed with Turner
s.9 Fechner confounds m a n y of the conven
tional dichotomies o n which m u c h nineteenth-century intellectual history is
7.
T h e suggestion that Turner
s suns are self-portraits is m a d e in Paulson,
Turner
s
Graffiti: T h e S u n a n d Its Glosses,p. 182, a n d in Lindsay, T urner, p. 213.
8.
Turner
s personal contact with Brewster is discussed in J. A. Fineberg, The L ife o f
J. M. W. T urner R .A , 2nd. ed. (Oxford, 1966)
p. 277; Lindsay, T urner, p. 2 0 6
a n d Gerald E.
Finely,
T urner
s Colour a n d Optics
A N e w Route in \S 2 2 ^ Jo u rn a l o f th e W arburg a n d
the C o u rta u ld In stitu te 36 (1973) p. 388.

9.
O n F e ch n er s seminal position in the history of scientific psychology, see, for e x a m
ple, E. G. Boring, A H istory o fE xp erim entalP sychology ( N e w York, 1950), pp. 275-296. For
a general statement of his principles for the m e a s u r e m e n t of sensation, see Fechner, E le
m ents o fP sychophysics, trans. H e l m u t E. Adler, ( N e w York, 1966 )
pp. 3 8 - 5 8
E lem ente d er
P sychophysik (Leipzig, 1860)
vol. 1, pp. 48-75.
142
founded. Standard accounts have insisted o n a kind of split personality. O n

o n e h a n d h e s e e m e d a Romantic mystic i m m e r s e d in xhe Naturphilosophie of
O k e n a nd Schelling and in a Spinozist pantheism.10 O n the other, h e w a s the
founder of a rigorously empirical an d quantitative psychology, crucial for the
later w o r k of Wilhelm W u n d t a nd Ernst Mach, providing t h e m with the the
oretical foundations for a comprehensive reduction of perceptual and psychic
experience to measurable units. But these two dimensions of Fechner w e r e
always intertwined.11 His exhilarating and finally agonizing experience of the
sun in the late 1830s wa s n o less primal than it w a s for Turner.12 Already in
1825 a solar preoccupation infused Fechner
s literary meditations o n vision
T hus w e m a y view our o w n eye as a creature of the sun o n earth,
a creature dwelling in a nd nourished by the sun
s rays, a nd hence
a creature structurally resembling its brothers o n the sun. ... But
the s un
s creatures, the higher beings I call angels, are eyes whi ch
have b e c o m e autonomous, eyes of the highest inner development
w hich retain nevertheless, the structure of the ideal eye. Light is
their element as ours is air.13
This early declaration of an emanative, a u t o n o m o u s vision, of a luminous and
radiant eye, is part of a wider recurrence in the nineteenth century of a Plotinian m o d e l of the observer to which Turner can also be linked.14 In 1846
10.
O n Fechner
s
mysticalwritings, see the
Introductionby Walter Lowrie in Reli
gion of a Scientist
Selectionsf r o m Gustav Theodor Fechner, trans. and ed. Walter Lowrie
( N e w York, 1946), pp. 9-81. See also Fechner, LifeJ^terDeath, trans. Mary Wadsworth ( N e w
York, 1943). For Spinoza
s relation to the w o r k of Muller and Fechner, see Walter Bernard,
Spinoza
s Influence o n the Rise of Scientific Psychology,Journal of the History of the
Behavioral Sciences 8 (April 1972), pp. 208-215.
11.
See, for example, William R. Wo od ward,
Fechner
s Panpsychism A Scientific Solu
tion to the Mind-Body Problem,''Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 8 (Octo
ber 1972), pp. 367-386.
12.
Fechner
s so-called crisis of 1840-1843, his physical and mental problems resulting
from his experiments with afterimages, is detailed by his n e p h e w inJohannes Emil Kuntze,
Gustav Theodor Fechner
Ein deutsches Gelehrtenleben (Leipzig, 1892), pp. 105-138. H e
also suffered severe eye strain due to the precise scalar readings needed for his studies of
binocular vision.
13.
Gustav Fechner,
O n the Comparative Anatomy of Angels,trans. Marilynn Marshall,
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 5 no. 1 (1969), pp. 39-58.
14.
Goethe gave Plotinus a place of prominence in the introduction to his optics
We
are reminded here of the words of an old mystic writer, which m a y be thus rendered,
143
Turner produ ce d a painting titled The Angel Standing in the Sun. A square
canvas exactly the size of Light a n d Colour of 1843
the formal structure here
is also insistently circular. In both of t h e m Turner
s familiar vortex modulates
into a pure spherical whirlpool of golden lighta radial conflation of eye a nd
sun, of self a nd divinity, of subject and object.
In the center of the later w o r k is the figure of a wi n g e d angel raising a
sword. Turner
s use of this symbol, however, is an indication less of his links
to a Romantic or Miltonic tradition of such imagery than of his remoteness
from the paradigm of the camera obscura. As it w a s for Fechner, the recourse
to the angel, an object with n o referent in the world, is a sign of the inadequacy
of conventional m e a n s for representing the hallucinatory abstraction of his
intense optical experiences. T h e angel b e c o m e s a symbolic acknowledgment
by Turner of his o w n perceptual autonomy, an exalted a n n o u n c e m e n t of the
ungroundedness of vision. A n d it is in this sense that Turner
s w o r k can b e said
to b e sublime his painting is concerned with experience that transcends its
possible representations, with the insufficiency of any object to his concept.15
But if Turner
s w o r k suggests the extent of experimentation and inno
vation in the articulation of n e w languages, effects, and forms m a d e possible
by the relative abstraction a nd a u t o n o m y of physiological perception, Fechner
s epochal formalization of perceptual experience c o m e s out of a related
crisis of representation. Like Turner
s art, Fechner
s w o r k is g ro u n d e d in an
If the eye w er e not sunny, h o w could w e possibly perceive light? If G o d

s o w n strength
lived not in us, h o w could w e delight in Divine things?
This immediate affinity between
light and the eye will be denied by n o n e ... Itwill be m o r e intelligible to assert that a dor
mant light resides in the eye, and that it m a y be excited by the slightest cause from within
or without.Theory of Colours, p. liii. Heidegger discusses this passage from Goethe in his
Schelling
s Treatise o n the Essence of H u m a n Freedom, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Athens,
Ohio, 1985), pp. 54-56. O n Plotinus and his relation to the history of art theory, see Eric
Alliez and Michel Feher,
Reflections of a Soul,Z o n e 4 (1989), pp. 46-84.
15.
M y use of the term sublime refers to the w o r k of Jean-Frangois Lyotard, The Post
m o d e r n Condition
A Report o n Knowledge, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis, 1984),
pp. 77-79
Modernity in whatever age itappears, cannot exist without a shattering of belief
and without discovery of the
lack of reality
of reality, together with the invention of other
realities. ... I think in particular that it is in the aesthetic of the sublime that m o d e m art
(including literature) finds its impetus and the logic of avant-gardes its axioms Th e sen
timent of the sublime .. develops as a conflict between the faculties of a subject, the faculty
to conceive of something and the faculty to
presentsomething.See also Lyotard,
The
Sublime and the Avant-Garde,n Artforum 22 (April 1984), pp. 36-43-
144
J. M. W. Turner. T h e Angel Standing in the Sun. 1846.
145
exhilaration a nd delirium m a d e possible by the collapse of the dualities inher

ent in the camera o b s c u r a i t s split between perceiver a nd world. Fechner
had a primal certainty of the interconnection between m i n d and matter they
w e r e simply alternate ways of construing the s a m e reality. But what he wanted,
and spent years seeking, w a s a m e t h o d of establishing an exact relationship
between interior sensory experience a nd events in the world, to situate these
two domains o n the s a m e field of operations. Whatever his intentions, the e n d
result w a s to relocate perception and the observer within the reach of empir
ical exactitude and technological intervention.
Sensation as a multiplicity of intangible psychic affects, however, wa s not
in itself rationalizablethat is, it w a s not directly accessible to study, m a n i p
ulation, duplication, a nd m e a s u r e m e n t as an empirically isolable entity. But
ifsensation did not lend itself to scientific control and management, any form
of physical stimulus did. Th us Fechner set about rationalizing sensation
through the m e a s u r e m e n t of external stimulus. W h e r e Herbart h ad failed in
his attempt at mental measurement, Fechner succeeded by quantifying sen
sations in terms of the stimuli that p ro duced them. His achievement w as the
establishment of w hat is variously called Fechner s L a w or W e b e r
s Law, in
w hich he proposed a mathematical equation that expressed a functional rela
tion betwe en sensation a nd stimulus.16 With such an equation the inside/out
side of the camera obscura dissolves and a n e w kind of annexation of the
observer is m a d e possible. For the first time subjectivity is m a d e quantifiably
determinable. This is Fechner
s
Galileana c h i e v e m e n t m a k i n g measurable
something that h ad not b e e n so before.17
Fechner
s research furthered the realization of the arbitrary or disjunc
tive relation of sensation to its external cause that Mullers w o r k o n nerve
energies ha d already disclosed.18 For example, h e found that the intensity of
16.
N a m e d for Ernst Weber, Fe c hn e r
s teacher, w h o s e w o r k b e t w e e n 1838 a n d 1846 o n
the sense of touch w a s the basis for Fechner
s proposals. Foucault cites W e b e r s w o r k in
the 1840s as coinciding with the e m e r g e n c e of a technology of behavior a n d the
supervision of normalityin a variety of fields. D iscipline a n d Punish, pp. 294-296.
17.
See Harald H0ffding, H istory o f M odem Philosophy, vol. 2 ( N e w York, 1955)
p. 5 2 9
T h e only difference b e t w e e n Fechner a n d Spinoza here is that Fechner is eager to dis

cover a mathematical functional relation b e t w e e n the t w o sides of existence.
18.
E v e n w h e n applied in the s a m e way, o n e a n d the s a m e stimulus m a y b e perceived

as stronger or w e a k e r b y o n e subject or organ than b y another, or b y the s a m e subject or
146
Ti
pi/
8
6
4
K t
t snlil
co
stimulus p - ^
------ ---- -*
-5
-4
-3
-2
-1
Negative Sensation = - S
+1
+2
+3
+4
+5
Sensation = + S
F echners Law
S = k lo g R.
a sensation of light does not increase as quickly as the intensity of the physical
stimulus. Thus h e concluded that there wa s a disproportional, though pre
dictable, relation between increases in sensation and increases in stimulation.
Central to Fechner
s w o r k w a s the establishment of measurable units of sen
sation, quantifiable increments that w o u l d allow h u m a n perception to be
m a d e calculable and productive. These w e r e derived from thresholds of sen
sation, from the magnitude of the stimulus n e e d e d to generate the very least
noticeable sensation over and above the stimulus that is unnoticed b y the
h u m a n sensorium. These units w e r e the much-debated
just noticeable dif
ferences. ^ Thus h u m a n perception b e c a m e a sequence of magnitudes of vary
ing intensity. As Fechner
s experiments with afterimages also had s h o w n him,
perception w a s necessarily temporal an observer
s sensations always
d e p e n d e d o n the previous sequence of stimuli. But it is segmented t empor
alityvery different from that implied in Turner, or from the kind of experience
that Bergson and others later sought to c h a m p i o n over the scientific project
organ at o n e time as stronger or w e a k e r than at another. Conversely, stimuli of different
magnitudes m a y b e perceived as equally strong u n d e r certain circumstances.M E lem ents o f
P sychophysics, p. 38.
147
initiated b y Fechner. It is relevant that at the time Fechner w a s performing his

experiments in the 1840s, G e o r g e Boole w a s overlapping the operations of
logic with those of algebra, attempting a related formalization of
the laws of
thought.But as Foucault has insisted, mathematization or quantification,
although important, is not the crucial issue in the h u m a n sciences in the nine
teenth century.19 Rather, at stake is h o w the h u m a n subject, through k n o w l
edge of the b o d y an d its m o d e s of functioning, w a s m a d e compatible with n e w
arrangements of p o w e r the b o d y as worker, student, soldier, consumer,
patient, criminal. Vision m a y well b e measurable, but what is perhaps most
significant about Fechner
s equations is their homogenizing functionthey are
a m e a n s of rendering a perceiver manageable, predictable, productive, and
above all consonant with other areas of rationalization.20
Fechner
s formalization of perception renders the specific contents of
vision irrelevant. Vision, as well as the other senses, is n o w describable in
terms of abstract a nd exchangeable magnitudes. Ifvision previously had b e e n
conceived as an experience of qualities (as in G oe t h e
s optics), it is n o w a
question of differences in quantities, of sensory experience that is stronger or
weaker. But this n e w valuation of perception, this obliteration of the quali
tative in sensation through its arithmetical homogenization, is a crucial part
of modernization.
19.
Michel Foucault, The Order o f Things, pp. 349-351.
20.
In a sense, the p o w e r of normalization imposes ho m og e n e i t y

but it individualizes
b y m a k i n g it possible to m e a s u r e gaps, to determine levels, to fix specialties, a n d to render
the differences useful b y fitting t h e m o n e to another. It is easy to understand h o w the p o w e r
of the n o r m functions within a system of formal equality, since within a ho mo g en e it y that
is the rule, the n o r m introduces, as a useful imperative a n d as a result of measurement, all
the shading of individual differences.Michel Foucault, Discipline a n d Punish, p. 184. Fou

cault^ notion of
homogeneityrecalls its place in the w o r k of Georges BatailleHomo
geneity signifies here the commensurability of elements and the awareness of this
commensurability
h u m a n relations are sustained b y a reduction to fixed rules based o n
the consciousness of the possible identity of delineable persons a n d situations. ... T h e
c o m m o n denominator, the foundation of social h om o ge n ei t y a n d of the activity arising
f r o m it, is m o ne y , n a m e l y the calculable equivalent of the different products of collective
activity. M o n e y serves to m e a s u r e all w o r k a n d m a k e s m a n a function of measurable p r o d
ucts. According to the j u d g m en t of hom ogenous society, each m a n is wo r th w ha t h e p r o
duces
in other w o r d s h e stops being an existence for itself
h e is n o m o r e than a function,
arranged within measurable limits, of collective production (which m a k e s h i m an exis
tence for something other than itself.)Bataille, Visions o f Excess
Selected W ritings 1927
1939, trans. Allan Stoekl (Minneapolis, 1985), pp. 137-138.
148
At the center of Fechner

s psychophysics is the law of the conservation
of energy, an insistence that organisms a n d inorganic nature are ruled by the
s a m e forces. H e describes the h u m a n subject
In a w a y the relations are like
those of a steam engine with a complicated mechanism. .. T h e only differ
ences is that in our organic machine the engineer does not sit o n the outside
but o n the inside.
21 A n d Fechner is certainly not alone here. All of Helmholtz
s w o r k o n h u m a n vision, including binocular disparity, s t e m m e d from
his original interest in animal heat and respiration and his overriding a m b i
tion to describe the functioning of a living being in precise physiochemical
terms. T h e r m o d y n a m i c s stand behind both his and Fechner
s delineation of
a being that works, produces, ^ndsees through a process of muscular exertion,
combustion, an d release of heat according to empirically verifiable laws.22
Even if Fechner
s dominant legacy is the h e g e m o n y of behaviorism and the
myriad processes of conditioning and control, it is important to see h o w his
psychophysics originally sought a delirious merging of the interiority of a perceiver into a single charged a nd unified field, every part of it vibrating with
the s a m e forces of repulsion and attraction, an infinite nature, like Turner
s,
w h e r e life and death are simply different states of a primal energy. But m o d e r n
forms of p o w e r also arose through the dissolution of the boundaries that had
kept the subject as an interior d o m a i n qualitatively separated from the world.
Modernization d e m a n d e d that this last retreat b e rationalized, and as Foucault
ma k e s clear, all the sciences in the nineteenth century beginning with the pre
fixpsycho- are part of this strategic appropriation of subjectivity.23
21.
Fechner, E lem ents o fP sychophysics, p. 35.
22.
Fechner, E lem ents o fP sychophysics, pp. 32-33:
Accordingly the kinetic energy of a
system m a y increase without drawing o n potential energy a n d m a y decrease without a cor
responding increase of potential energy as long as the kinetic energy simultaneously
decreases or increases in another part of the s y st e m... It is impossible to b e lost in external
perception a n d to think deeply at the s a m e time. In order to reflea acutely o n something
w e have to abstract f r o m something else. ... the facts are too closely connected with the
previous discussion for us not to see also in t h e m an extension of the law of the conser
vation of energy to the play of purely psychophysical forces.
23.
Foucault, D iscip lin e a n d P unish, p. 193. Fr e u d
s expressed admiration for Fechner
s
e c o n o m i c standpointis well k n o w n , but o n a m o r e general level psychoanalysis can b e

seen as another operation of relocating the
interiorcontents of the unconscious onto a
field w h e r e they can b e formalized in linguistic terms, h o w e v e r imprecisely.
149
But Fechner
s rationalization of sensation not only led to the develop
m e n t of specific technologies of behavior a nd attentivenessitwa s also a sign
of the reshaping of an entire social field and the position of a h u m a n sensorium within it. Later in the nineteenth century G e o r g S i m m e l found Fechners formulations to b e an incisive m e a n s of expressing h o w sensory
experience ha d b e c o m e adjacent and even coincident with an econ om ic an d
cultural terrain dominated by exchange values. S i m m e l derived from Fechner
an informal kind of calculation to demonstrate h o w exchange values w e r e
equivalent to quantities of physical stimulation.
Money,h e wrote,
operates
as a stimulus to all kinds of possible sentiments because its unspecific char
acter, devoid of all qualities, places it at such a great distance from any sen
timent that its relations with all of t h e m are fairly equal.
24 In S i m m e l s account
of modernity, the observer is conceivable only as an element in this flux a nd
inexorable mobility of values
Within the historical-psychological sphere,
m o n e y by its very nature b e c o m e s the most perfect representative of a cog
nitive tendency of m o d e r n science as a w h o l e ~ t h e reduction of qualitative
determinations to quantitative ones.
25
The
real wor ld that the camera obscura had stabilized for two cen
turies w a s n o longer, to paraphrase Nietzsche, the most useful or valuable
world. T h e modernity enveloping Turner, Fechner, and their heirs had n o
nee d of its kind of truth a nd immutable identities. A m o r e adaptable, auton
omous, and productive observer w as n e e d e d in both discourse and prac
t i c e t o conform to n e w functions of the b o d y and to a vast proliferation of
indifferent and convertible signs and images. Modernization effected a deterritorialization and a revaluation of vision.
In this b o o k I have tried to give a sense of h o w radical w a s the recon
figuration of vision by the 1840s. If our pr ob l em is vision and modernity, w e
must first examine these earlier decades, not the modernist painting of the
1870s and 1880s. A n e w type of observer wa s formed then, a nd not o n e that
24.
Georg Simmel, The Philosophy of Money, trans. T o m Bottomore and David Frisby
(London, 1978), p. 267. For S im m e l s extended reconstrual of Fechner s Law, see pp. 262271.
25Simmel, The Philosophy of Money, p. 277.
150
w e can see figured in paintings or prints. W e

ve b e e n trained to assume that
an observer will always leave visible tracks, that is, will b e identifiable in rela
s a question of an observer w h o also takes shape
tion to images. But here it
in other, grayer practices a nd discourses, a nd w h o s e i m m e n s e legacy will b e
all the industries of the image and the spectacle in the twentieth century. T h e
b o d y that had b e e n a neutral or invisible term in vision w a s n o w the thickness
from which k n owledge of the observer w a s obtained. This palpable opacity
and carnal density of vision l o o m e d so suddenly into view that its full co n
sequences and effects could not be immediately realized. But once vision
b e c a m e relocated in the subjectivity of the observer, t wo intertwined paths
o p e n e d up. O n e led out toward all the multiple affirmations of the sovereignty
and a u t o n o m y of vision derived from this newly e m p o w e r e d body, in m o d
ernism an d elsewhere. T h e other path w a s toward the increasing standard
ization and regulation of the observer that issued from knowled ge of
visionary body, toward forms of p o w e r that d e p e n d e d o n the abstraction and
formalization of vision. W h a t is important is h o w these paths continually inter
sect and often overlap o n the s a m e social terrain, am i d the countless localities
in which the diversity of concrete acts of vision occur.
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Index
Addison, Joseph, 6 4 n 84
Adorno, Theodor, 11
57n69, 7 7 132,137
Aesthetics, 8,12, 23, 7 5 - 7 6
8 3 - 8 5 116,
I43nl5
Afterimage, retinal, 16, 21, 68-69, 97-98,
100 102-107 118 1 39 - 14 1 ,142nl2,
146
Alberti, L e o n Battista, 86. See a lso
Perspective, Renaissance
Alhazen, 27
Alliez, Eric, I42nl4
Alpers, Svetlana, 32n9, 34-36, 66 n85
A m p e r e , Andre-Marie, 100
Analogy, 12
37, 63
Anamorphosis, 3 3
50 n 54
Angels, 142-143
A n sch a u lich keit, 11
Antiquity, 17
22
9 3 97
Arcades, 23
Architecture, 20, 39
baroque, 51n56, 52n6l
Aristotle, 2 7 98
Art, 9 llnll, 29, 3 4 - 3 6
66
838 4
96,
132, 137-138, 1 4 3 n l 5 . 5 ^ t o
Cinema
Painting
Photography
eighteenth-century, 5 2 -5 4
62-66
historiography of, 3
5
2 1 - 23
25-26
32-36,149
late antique, 22
nineteenth-century, 3 - 4
21-22, 96,
116 132 138-143
object, 5
8, 2 1 32
seventeenth-century, 4 3 - 4 7
Assemblages,8
3 0 - 3 2 112126
Associationism, 57n72
Attention a n d attentiveness, 16 18
24, 8 4 85
9 6 102 141149
Avant-garde, 3-4, 95-96, 126 I43nl5
Babbage, Charles, 17n21

Bacon, Roger, 27
Barbari, Jacopo d e
52-53
View o f V enice, 53
Barthes, Roland, 129
Bataille, Georges, I47n20
Baudelaire, Charles, 2 0 113-114, 116
Baudrillard, Jean, 11-12, 17n22
Behaviorism, 89n51, 100, 148
Bell, Sir Charles, 8 1 89
Bellotto, Bernardo, 126
Benjamin, Walter, 11, 19-21, 23, 30n5, 112,
1 27132
Bentham, Jeremy, 18
Bergson, Henri, 2 9
72
85n46, 89n53,
98n2, 146
Berkeley, George, 3 9
55
57 -5 8
59 62
Bernal, J. D. 131n50
Bernini, Gianlorenzp, 53n63
Bichat, Xavier, 78-79, 8 1 89
Biology, 7 3
77. See a lso Canguilhem,
Georges
Physiology
Science
Blake, William, 70
Blindness, 58-60, 66. See a lso M o l y n e u x
problem
caused by sun, 107141
Blind spot, 7 5 104
Blumenberg, Hans, 50n55
164
In d ex
Body, 2
3 10 1517 18
69-74, 88-89, 9 8 Catoptrics, 64
Cezanne, Paul, 6 6
95, 96n63, 126
104 133 136n57, 141 147, 149-150.
Chardin, Jean-Baptiste, 62-66
See a lso Brain E y e Knowledge, of
B asket o f W ild Straw berries, 63
the b o d y
Nervous system
Senses
B oy B low ing B ubbles, 65
capacities of, 7 3
84-85, 89, 92, 94-95,
Chesleden boy, 66
9 6 132141
4
26
2 7 127n45
Cinema, 1
denial of, 7 1
78, 84-85, 136
history of, 8
2 6 110
instincts of, 77
s o u n d in, 18n26
m o tilite of, 72
visionarypotential of, 75, 104, 139141150

Boole, George, 147
Bourgeoisie, 11, 112125
Brain, 7 5
76-77
83-84, 119. See a lso
Nervous system
localization of functions in, 81-83
Brewster, Sir David, 113 116, 118 120122 133141
Burckhardt, Jacob, 22n 3 0
Cabanel, Alexandre, 22
C a m e r a obscura, 8 12-14, 24, 26-66, 6 9
71,86, 91,92, 98, 113 127 133
137-139 143 -1 4 5149
in artistic practice, 2 9
32-34, 43n45,
126 137-138
closed aperture of, 6 8 - 6 9 70
as epistemological model, 14
27-32,
35
38, 4 0 - 4 7
51
55
57
86
99, 137
as eye, 2 7
33
35
47, 49, 129
as metaphor, 2 9
35
42, 51
origins of, 34 n l4
as paradigm, 8 14
27
35
40, 4 2
51
69, 91, 129, 136 143145
portable, 2 8 30
projections of, 27, 32-34, 38, 55-56
receptivity of, 51 75
suppression of subjectivity in, 39, 6 0
137-138, 139, 141145
various apparatuses of, 2 7
30
3 1 40
Canaletto, Antonio, 52, 126
P ia zza San M arco, 54
Canguilhem, Georges, 15n20, 7 3
78, 131
Capitalism, 10 12
24
94. See a lso
Bourgeoisie
Commodity
Cartesianism, 46n46, 48-50, 60n79, 6364
Cassirer, Ernst, 38, 56-57, 69n3
Clark, T.J.,96n63
Class, 11-12, 2 1 112125
Claude glasses, 131
Codes, 12
96, 133-136
C oenesthese (coenesthesia), 72
Color, 7 4
8 8 104 118 141. See a lso
Afterimages
as subjective production, 6 8
70-75
104, 139
,
C om m od i ty , 10 11 14 192 0
6 2 112
Communication, 10 1214
Condillac, Etienne de, 58n72, 59
73, 75,
100
Conic sections, 50-51
Consumption, 10 13 14, 1819
20-21
2 7 132 133-136
Copernican revolution, 5 059
Copy, 12
Counterfeit, 12
Courbet, Gustave, 2 2 126
L adies o f th e V illage, 126
The M eeting, 126
Culture, m as s visual, 3-4, 5
9 14, 1 6 -18
2 1 104 1 27 132-138
popular, 5 106 109-110, 112 118
131n50
scientific, 5 18, 2 3 - 2 4
3 5 104, 112
118 131n50, 133
Daguerre, Louis, 112
Death, 2 4
7 8 139
Debord, Guy, 2 18-19
Defoe, Daniel, 48 n53
Delacroix, Eugene, 22
D e Landa, Manuel, 13nl4
Delaroche, Paul, 22
Deleuze, Gilles, 8 10n8, 18n25, 30-31,
51n56, 56n68, 6 7 126 131n52
165
In d ex
Della Porta, Giovanni Battista, 36-38

D e Man, Paul, 95n6l
Denis, Maurice, 95
Descartes, Rene, 3 5
42n39, 43, 4650
55 56,
60, 139 See a lso Canesianism
Desire, 7 8 113114
control of, 8 4 - 85 {see a lso Subject,
control of)
Deterritorialization, 10n8
Diderot, Denis, 57n70, 5 9 - 6 0
6 2 124
Dioptrics, 6 4 104
Dioramas, 112-113 114, 122
Discontinuity, 3-5, 7 13, 2 2
26-27, 3 0 - 3 2
36
6 6 112
Distance, perception of, 4 2
59, 62, 1181 19 129, 132
D ubois - Re y mo n d, Emil, 93
Duration, 98n2, 10 1104
quantifiable, 101-102 (see a lso T i m e
Vision, temporality of)
Eastlake, Sir Charles, 90 n5 5
Economy, 2
9 - 1 0 13
94, 149
Education. See Pedagogy
Electromagnetism, 8 8 106107. See also
Energy
Empiricism, 9 16
29, 3 5
575 9
79n31
British, 2 6 72
E ncyclopedie, 32-33, 56
Energy, 7 2
88-89, 139, 148. See a lso
Electromagnetism
Thermodynamics
Engels, Friedrich, 114
Enlightenment, 56
57n69, 60 n7 9
Entertainment, 2 9
3 3 104, 106
mass, 14, 2 2 112
Episteme, 35 nl 6
Epistemology, 7 0
79
91-92
98, 102 120.
See a lso C a m e r a obscura, as
epistemological m o d e l
Equivalence, 1214
Euclid, 2 7 138n2
Extension, 46-47, 6 2 - 6 3 74
Exteriority. See Interiority
Eye, 2 19, 2 4
26
43
47-48
72
74
79, 92,
94-96, 98-99, 112-113129-131,
138, 139 142-143. See a lso
Afterimages, retinal
Sensation
Senses
Vision
a n d c a m e r a obscura, 47-48, 50
innocent,6 6
95 -9 6
irritability of, 7 4 104 120n37
muscular m o v e m e n t s of, 7 2 104
Faraday, Michael, 8 8 106-107, 111-112
Faraday wheel, 1 0 6 - 10 7 109
Fatigue, 73,104. See a lso Attention a n d
attentiveness
Fechner, Gustav, 101, 111, 141-149
Fechner
s Law, 145-146
Feher, Michel, I42nl4
Feyerabend, Paul, 6n3, 25
Fiedler, Konrad, 22n30, 82
Film. See C i n e m a
Fingerprints, 104nl7
F laneur, 21
Flourens, Pierre, 81-82
Foucault, Michel, 6n2, 15-18, 19,, 3 7
41,
5 6- 5 7
70
71-72
74nl6, 7 9 112,
139n5, I45nl6, 147148
France,17-18, 2 0 117123
Fresnel, Augustin Jean, 8 6 88
Freud, Sigmund, 29, I48n23
Fried, Michael, 66 n8 5
Friedlander, Walter, 23n31
Friedrich, Caspar David, 22
Galileo Galilei, 26
Gall, Franz Joseph, 81
Genealogy, 6n2
Geometry, 5 9 - 6 0
6 2-63
G e r o m e , Jean-Leon, 22
Gleyre, M a r c Gabriel Ch., 22
Goethe, J o h a n n W olfgang von, 14, 6 7 - 7 4
79, 88, 9 2
97, 99-100, 101 102
104nl6, 107 111, 138, 139n5,
I42nl4, 147
G om b ri c h, Ernst, 3 2n 9
G ow i ng , Lawrence, 138
Guattari, Felix, 10n8, 131n52
Guillaume, Marc, 10n8
Hacking, Ian, 17n21
Hall, Marshall, 8 1
83n4l
166
In d ex
Harris, John, 3 3 n l 0
Hartley, David, 58n72
Hegel, G e o r g W i l h e l m Friedrich, 30n3,
99-100
Heidegger, Martin, 5 5 - 5 6 137 I43nl4
Helmholtz, H e r m a n n von, 85-86, 8 8
89,
91
9 3 - 9 4 120, 124,148
Herbart, J o h a n n Friedrich, 100-102,145
Hildebrand, Adolf von, 2 2 n30
Hobbes, T h o m a s , 9 3 n 5 7
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 133n55
Horkheimer, Max, 5 7n69
Horner, William George, 110
H u m e , David, 42
Husserl, E d m u n d , 41
Huygens, Christian, 86
Illusions, 16
33
91-92, 9 6 118 122, 129
132-133
Imagery, 13 17 19, 2 3
96,120-122, 132,
138,
149-150. See a lso Stimulus,
arbitrary relation to sensation
fabricated, 13 17, 2 1 127-128,129
illusory, 92
photographic, 13 16, 21, 118, 127-128,
132
pornographic, 127
realityof, 32n9, 122

tangibility of, 19, 5 5 59 122, 127-128
Kepler, Johannes, 2 7
38, 50n55, 86, 119
139
Kircher, Athanasius, 33nll, 70
Knowledge
of the body, 14, 15-17, 19, 2 6
59
7071
78
8 8 10 4- 1 05 112, 1 19 147,
150 (see a lso Physiology)
eighteenth-century, 5 1
57n69, 62-64,
66
69-70
74
89, 9 5
98, 129-131
empirical, 14
26
35
41-42, 57
62
7879
91
9 3 101 110141
nineteenth-century reorganization of,
3
7
9 1 1 15 -1 6 19, 5 9
62, 6 9
70
79-80, 9 8 , 118 138, 147-148
perceptible, 5 7
62
70, 77
rational, llnlO, 29, 3 5
40
41
43-44,
46-47, 5 3
57n69, 6 2
7 7 137,
of space, 5 9
62, 118 129132 *
transcendental, 42, 48
validated by senses, 11
60
6 2-64
of vision, 14 16
26
70
8 8 139n6
visuality-centered, 2 7 38
Kobell, W i l h e l m von, 22
Krauss, Rosalind, 136n57
Kuhn, T h o m a s S., 17n21
Kwinter, Sanford, 34 nl3
Lacan, Jacques, 3 9
4 2 n 39
Lamp, m e t a p h o r of, 9
132
Language, 10
9 6 143,148n23
Impressionism, 3
2 2 36
universal, 3 7
48n51, 55
Industrialization, 10n8, 12
15n20, 2 0 112 Leclerc, Helene, 53n63
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 3 5
5 0 - 5 2 56
116 131 150. See a lso
Modernization
Rationalization
Lens, 2 6
3 6 47
L eonardo D a Vinci, 2 7 138
Industrial revolution, 15
Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, 22
Light, 2 6
90-91, 138
Instrumentalism, nineteenth-century, 2 4
131
theories of, 86, 138, 142-143 (see a lso
Electromagnetism
Optics
Interiority, 2 4
38-39, 4 6 - 4 7
68
72
75
92, 97-98, 137 I48n23. See a lso
Observer, interiorized
Irritability, 23, 83. See a lso Stimulus
Jameson, Fredric, 36n20, 9 4n 5 9
Kaleidoscope, 1 1 3- 1 16 115, 139
Kant, Imma n ue l , 69-70, 74, 7 6 - 7 7
83
92,
100
Stimulus)
Lipps, Theodor, 81
Literature, 5
9 I43nl5
Locke, John, 3 5 40-43, 5 1 5 5
58
59, 7 4 75, 9 8
99, 100
Lotze, H e r m a n , 91
Lukacs, Georg, 10
39 n2 9
Lyotard, Jean-Frangois, 5 0 n 5 4
71n9,
143nl5
167
In dex
Mach, Ernst, 76,142

Machines, in relation to vision, 2, 3 1, 129131132
Magendie, Francois, 8 1 89
Magic, 38
Magic lantern, 33,117, 132
M a i n e d e Biran, Frangois-Pierre, 7 2 - 73
100
M a n d e l b a u m , Maurice, 57n72
Manet, Edouard, 3 22
The E xecu tio n o fM a xim illia n , 126

View o f th e In te rn a tio n a l E xh ib itio n ,
126
Marey, Etienne-Jules, 136n56
Marin, Louis, 52n58
Marx, Karl, 10n9, 13, 29, 9 4 113-116,129
Money, 13, 149. See a lso C o m m o d i t y

Economy
Morelli, Giovanni, 21
M o v e m e n t , 6 2 111, 112118
representation of, 3 3 34
simulation of, 16 104-112
Muller, Johannes, 8 1
8 8 - 9 5 I42nl0, 145
M u s e u m s , 2 0 - 2 1 23
Muybridge, Eadweard, 136n56
Naturalism, 32n9, 133-136
N aturphilosophie, 142
Nervous system, 7 6
82-84
93-94
localization of functions in, 81-83
specific nerve energiesin, 8 9

94, 145
Newton, Isaac, 2 6
35
40
636 4
74
86
139.
See a lso Optics, N e wtonian
N e w t o n color wheel, 107
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 2 3 - 2 4
39, 6 7
78
97,
131
Mass media, 1-2, 4
5, 18. See a lso C i n e m a
Entertainment
Television
Maxwell, J a m e s Clerk, 88
llln23, 149
Measurement. See Quantification
Normalization, 14, 15 - 1 6 17n22
Meissonier, J.-L.-E., 22
M e m o r y , visual, 20
Object, 3 11, 13 19
20
23
74-75
84, 92,
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 4 2n 3 9
104, 1 07-109 119-120, 122 127
Meryon, Charles, 20
128 132, 137143
Metz, Christian, 127n45
classical, 62-63
Microscopes, 129, 131n50
Observer, 13
5
6
8 10 16
23-24
26
Millais, J o h n Everett, 22
30
36
66
8 8 112 120 126 127Mknesis, 4
9, 12, 2 2 41
128 136 138, 145 149-150. See
Mind, 4 3 55
81
99, 137
a lso Subject
a n d perception, 9 122,148
in relation to apparatus, 8
30
32
41
specialized operations of, 39, 81-83
5 9 112-113 129 133136
Mirror, m e t a p h o r of, 9
artist-observer, 6 6
94-96, 139
Mo de r ni s m, 3-5, 126,136, 150. See a lso
b o d y of, 15 - 1 6
24, 4 1
68
7 5 112,
Avant-garde
Industrialization
118-122, 128 1 32-133145 (see
Rationalization
a lso Physiology)
Modernity, 3
9 , 10n8, 11 17 18
23
69,
Cartesian, 3 2
35nl6, 4 8 - 5 0
6 2 - 6 8 98
71
81
9 4 113 12 7 137 I43nl5,
classical m o d e l of, 3
6, 8
26, 33nll,
149
38
75
9 2 128
nineteenth-century, 3
9,15, 2 1
21
69,
decentered, 50 128
74-75
85
9 4 , 11 3 126-127
eighteenth-century, 6
8
26-27
30
40,
twentieth-century, 3 20
55
59, 129
Modernization, 5
9 - 1 0 14-15,19-20, 2 4
eye of, 2
42
68
9 7 - 9 8 , 104 111, 118,
66
94-95,113- 1 16 , 13 7 ,1 4 7- 1 49
127-128
Molyneux, William, 33nl0, 6 4n83
immobile, 109, 112-113, 129
M o l y n e u x problem, 58-59, 6 6
89
95,118
interiority of problematized, 6 8
75
Monet, Claude, 6 6 95
145
168
Observer (cont.)
interiorized, 33nll, 3 4
39
46, 5 5 68
Keplerian, 3 5
50n55
mobile, 14 19-20, 4 1 113
neutralityof, 2 6
27
43n45, 72, 96
nineteenth-century, 6 - 7
9 , 1 0 - 1 1 1314
27
32, 7 0
88-89, 112, 118 120
126 129, 138, 149
observer-consumer, llnlO, 13,14, 18
9 6 106 1 27 -128149
passivity of, 7 5 132
Plotinian, 142-143
position of, 2 1 9
41
46
55
69-70
106 112, 120-122, 128-129, 137138,
149 (see a lso Viewpoint)
as producer of visual experience, 9
69,
97-98, 1 04 118 132, 139
self-regulation of, 4 0
4 2 - 4 3 112, 133
149
O ken, Lorenz, 142
Optic nerve, 7 5 119
Optics, 2 6
33nll, 48, 6 8
71
86-88
89,
92, 9 7 133137
Cartesian, 35nl6, 474 8
64 n8 5
geometrical, 16
86, 9 7 127 137138
Goethe
s, 6 7 - 7 4 I42nl4, 147
Keplerian, 3 5
38, 86
Newtonian, 4 0
64
68, 7 4 86
physical, 2 9
86-88
physiological, 16
26
70
8 8 139n6
Overbeck, Friedrich, 22
Painting, 5 13 19-20, 2 1- 2 2
32
95. See
a lso individual painters b y n a m e
Italian, 35
modernist, 4 - 5 14, 6 6 149
nineteenth-century, 2 0 - 2 3 126
Northern, 32n9, 3 4 - 3 6
43-47
panorama, 112-113
perspectival, 13114 (see a lso
Perspective)
proximity of objects in, 62-64,122,
125126
Renaissance, 22
Panofsky, Erwin, 3 5 n l 7
Panopticon, 17-18
In dex
Paris, John, 105-106

Pascal, Blaise, 50
Pavlov, Ivan, 89n51, 92
Pedagogy, 15102
Peep-shows, 3 3 n l 0 , 131
Perception, 4-5, 6 14
19-20, 5 5
57
62
72, 9 2
95n6l, 96, 9 7 138 143 145.
See a lso Senses
Touch
Vision
aesthetic, 83-84, 94, 143
early nineteenth-century m o d e l s of,
95 -9 6
effects of s peed on, 104-113
a n d fatigue, 18
7 3 104
objective,84-85, 1 02-104,137-138
as process, 7 3
9 6 98
pure,7 6
78
84, 95n6l, 96, 136
quantification of, 19, 21, 81, 95,100,
142,145
synthetic, 59
60
7 7 118 129139
true
97-98
Perspective, 33-34, 35nl7, 3 6
41
47,
48n52, 52, 5 5
8 6 1 19-120,127-128
late quattrocento, 4ln 3 4
linear, 12
26
34
41, 8 6 124
Renaissance, 1
2 6 86
Phantasmagoria,132-133, 136
of equality, 11
Phenakistiscope, 14
1 6, 107 108,109-110,
112 113 H 6 n 3 0 , 120 129 132141
Phe no m en o lo g y, 6n2
Philosophy, 8
9 14 16. See a lso C a m e r a
obscura, as epistemological m o d e l
Epistemology
Photography, 1
4 1 3 - 14 19
20, 27, 36,
92
9 9 1 16 - 11 8 125 127 133-136
history of, 5, 8, 16
26
3 1 - 3 2 118
Physics, 6 3 - 6 4
8 8 1 3 1 n 5 2 , 139
Physiology, 71-85, 89-94, 112. See a lso
Optics, physiological
advances in, 14
7 8 88
nineteenth-century, 14 1 5 - 17
59
70
73
76
81-83
85, 89,112,118
Plateau, Joseph, 107
111, 112,141
Plato, 25
Plotinus, 142-143
Pornography, 127
Positivism, 9
In d ex
Power, 3
4, 6 - 8 , 12 15, 18, 2 6
79-80, 118
133 147148
institutional, 2
3
8, 9 1 4- 1 6 1718
7 9 n 3 2 , 102
Print viewing box, 131
Productivism, 9 10n9, 3 2 116,147n20
Proust, Marcel, 43
Psychology, 7 3
89n51, 100, 102, 14ln9,
142. See a lso Behaviorism
physiological, 7 3
85, 89, 9 3 100
nineteenth-century, 14, 15
59, 89, 93,
142
Purkinje, Jan, 1 02-104 111, 1 12118
Quantification, 15 -1 6 17 19, 2 1
81
8485
95, 100-107, 112 142145
Quattrocento, 25
Railroads, 11
20
2 3 106, 111
Rationalism, llnlO, 29, 3 5
40, 4 3 - 4 4
57n69,62, 7 7 137
Rationalization, 2 10 llnlO, 1 4 -1 5 16,
11 2 138,14 5
1 4 7 150
of labor, 10 1 5 - 16
85
9 4 131
of m o v e m e n t , 16
8 5 113
of perception, 16
24
8 5 137-138, 145
of sensation, 24, 95, 112, 145-149
Realism,4 - 5
9, 14, 17
32n9, 120,126
Reality, llnlO, 32n9, 92, 112, 122 127n45,
169
interior, 4 0 - 5 0
70-71
physiological site of, 5 0
69, 7 7 138
progressof, 3-4, 10
23
26, 3 0 110
122 126132
as
property,3 9
6 9 94
three-dimensional, 127n45 (see a lso
Distance, perception of
Space)
two-dimensional, 34, 46
Reproduction, industrial, 12-13, 20-21,
127132
mechanical, 2, 1 2-13 17
99, 132
Res co g ita n s, res extern a , 46

Resemblance, 37-38, 42, 74-75
Ricoeur, Paul, 48 n 52
Riegl, Alois, 22n30, 8 2 95
Riemann, Georg, 126
Rights of man, 11
Rimbaud, Arthur, 93
Roget, Peter Mark, 106109
Romanticism, 9
5 9 14 2 143
Rorty, Richard, 4 3 55
Ruskin, John, 6 6
94-95, 138
Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de, 114-116
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 79n31
Saunderson, Nicholas, 59- 60
Scenography, 52, 53 n 6 3 , 112-113 125126. See a lso Theater, Italian

Schelling, Friedrich W i l h e l m von, 98-99,
100n7, 142
I 4 3 n l 5 145
exterior, 71
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 14
70-71, 7 4 - 8 5
illusory, 4 0
1 32,142nl5
88
92,138
Referentiality, 4 14 19
23, 91, 98,113
Science, 9, 2 6
2 9 106, 149
Reflex, 76, 78, 8 2 - 8 3 92
classical, 34nl3, 48n51
Reid, Th o m a s , 58n74
eighteenth-century, 51, 56, 63-64, 6 6
Reification, 10llnll
70
74
93, 9 8 129-131
R e m b r a n d t van Rijn, 64n 8 5
nineteenth-century, 8-9, 14,15-16
Renaissance, 11
22
38, 50n55, 7 1n9
17n22, 59, 7 3 - 7 4
76
89
93, 9 5
Representation, 1
3
5-9, 13, 30, 32, 4 0 9 8 n 2 , 1 02-112 118- 12 2
133,14141,
46
48, 6 9
77
8 6 101 113 122,
142 147,148
127 132139
Sensation, 14
24
41-42
48
55
73
74,
autonomy/authenticity of, 12-13, 21,
9 1 - 93
9 6 , 1 0 2 -1 0 4, 1 2 0 n3 7 ,122
32-33
37
69-70, 77, 9 9 101
122,
145
132
figural
2 2 122
ideology of, 11, 26-27, 3 2
9 6 n 6 3 , 101,
110,122
external, 4 1
72
9 2 145, 146
internal, 24, 41, 72, 92,145
multiplicity of, 2 4
59
70-71,100,118,
145
170
Sensation (cont.)
nonmimetic, 89, 95 -96
separated f r o m signification, 91n56, 96,
145-146
as succession, 98, 113 120-122
Senses, 19
57-62
89
93,122-124. See
a lso T o u c h
Vision
distinct nerves of, 8 1 - 8 3 89
separation of, 19, 57-58, 8 1
89
94,
122-124
specification of, 5 7- 5 9
79, 89, 94
Sens in tim e, 72
Sensorium, 19-20, 2 3
48,112,146,149
validates knowledge, 2 9
6 0 64 (see
a lso To u ch )
Serres, Michel, 46n46, 51
Seurat, G e or g es
Sunday J^tem o o n o n th e Isla n d o fLa

G rande Ja tte , 126
Sexuality, 39n29, 78, 9 6 , 104nl6
Signs, 10 11- 13
48
55
9 1 149
aristocratic, 12 17n22
external, 24
mobility of, 10 11
17n22, 62,149
m o d e r n , 11 - 13 , 1 7 n 2 2 , 128149
nineteenth-century, 1 2-13 14,17
Signification, 4
96. See also
Representation
Sensation
Stimulus
Simmel, Georg, 10
2 3 149
Simon, Gerard, 3 5 n l 6
Simulacrum,12
Space, 2 3
41-42, 59, 6 2
92, 1 18-129
classical, 4 138n2
optically constructed, 59, 6 2 119-128,
132
(see a lso Perspective)
psychologically constructed, 75
Riemann, 126
urban, 1052
Specific nerve energies, theory of, 8 9
94,
145
Spectacle, 17-19, 3 3 112,136150
society of the, 2 17-19
Spectator, 5 112
Spinoza, Benedict de, 142 145nl7
Spurzheim, J o h a n n Gaspar, 81
Stampfer, S i m o n Ritter von, 110
Stereoscope, 8
9 14 , 16 19
59
62,
Ind ex
1 1 2 n 3 0 , 1 16 -126 129-134
a n d sense of touch, 19
6 2 122 127128
Stimulus, 2 0
23-24
83
93-94, 9 6 149
arbitrary relation to sensation, 90-93,
9 8 145-146,149
quantification of, 1 01-102 124142
Stroboscope, 110
Subject, 3
6n2, 10 14
69
92,100, 1 37
148,150
control of, 15 18, 2 4
73
81, 84-85, 92,
102 ,1 0 4 n l 7 , 112 145 148,150
observing, 5, 9 , 16 19
27
38, 4 1
69
9 2 1 00133
physiology of, 15-17, 7 0
72
76-79, 92,
1 4 5 -1 4 6148 (see a lso Observer,
b o d y of)
rationalization of, 3
9,14-18, 24, 66,
73
84-85, 92, 9 5 129-131,*145
relation to external world, 4-5, 27,
33nll, 3 4
39
4142, 46, 69, 7 3
92
136,137
transcendental, 2 7
41
77, 79
Subjectivity, 2 10 15
38
69
85
9 8,113
1 14 1 45,148,150
Sublime, 143
Sun, 4 3 138-143
as cause of blindness, 1 07141
Surrealism, 18n26
Surveillance, 17-18112
Symbol, 37
Tables, scientific, 17n21, 5 6
6 0 63
Telegraph, 11,93
Telescope, 129 131n50
Television, 1, 4 1 8n26
Thaumatrope, 105-106
Theater, Italian, 12, 52. See a lso
Scenography
T h er m od y na m ic s , 138-139, 148. See a lso
Electromagnetism; Energy
Time, 2 4
34
92, 95n6l, 9 8 , 100 107 112
139.
See a lso Duration
Tools, 8 129-131
Touch, 19, 59-64, 122-124
a n d vision, 5 7 60
Turner, J. M. W , 138-143, 146, 149
In dex
The A ngel S ta n d in g in th e Su n , 143

144
L ight a n d C olor (G oethe's T heory), 139,

140
Urbanism, 11,19,112
Utilitarianism, eighteenth-century, 131
Vattimo, Gianni, 10
Velasquez, Di e g o d e
Las M eninas, 41
Verisimilitude, 2 6
32n9, 86, 110, 1 22-124
127 132. See a lso Representation,
ideology of
Vermeer, Jan, 43 - 4 7
The A stronom er, 4 4 46
The G eographer, 45, 46
Viewpoint, 50-52, 59, 96, 1 12-113128
ichnographic, 5 1 - 52
9 5-96
multiple, 2 0
5 0 118
singular, 48-51, 9 5 - 9 6 113 136137
Vision, 1-7, 17-19, 24, 26-27, 7 0
74nl6,
8 8 126 136 139, 141, 142 147
149-150. See a lso E y e
Viewpoint
a u t o n o m y of, 14
48
57-58, 6 2
75-76,
94-95, 98, 141-143, 150

binocular, 1 6
48-50
53 118-122, 133
I42nl2, 148
classical m o d e l of, 3
4 , 19
24, 27
35
6970
c o n e of, 43, 5 1 -5 3 138
decorporealized, 1 6 19, 3 9
4 3 47
innocent,6 6
9 5-96
k n o w l e d g e of, 7 14 1 6 - 17
33
70-71
147
monocular, 39, 48-50, 52-53, 127
natural,2 6124
necessary conditions of,6 8 - 6 9

9091
normative, 4
5 llnll, 161795
objective, 98, 102-104, 137-138
parallax in, 119-121
peripheral, 16104
Renaissance m o d e l of, 3, 4, 38
subjective, 9 14 16 19
69
85-86, 91
95
97, 104 112 118 139, 141
171
temporality of, 97-98, 104, 141, 146147

Visuality, abstraction of, 2 - 3
9 14, 19, 24,
39
41,88, 1 13 141 147, 150
Northern,34- 3 6
privileging of, 11, 3 8
48n53, 5 5 - 5 6
57
62
95, 141
specialization of, 18, 5 7 59
structuring of k n o w l e d g e by, 11 17-19,
38
48n53, 5 7
59
91-92
98, 112116 118-119, 1 27-128 133-138,
148-150
Western tradition of, 1 -4
1719
2 526,31,57
W a r b u r g School, 21
Weber, Ernst, 101 I45nl6
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Techniques of The Observer

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Techniques

Techniques of the Observer

First M I T Press paperback edition, 1992

Modernity a nd the Problem of the Observer

T h e C a m e r a Obscura a nd Its Subject

Subjective Vision and the Separation of the Senses

Techniques of the Observer

A m o n g the people w h o m a d e this b o o k possible are m y three friends

For the materialist historian, every

according to the catastrophic or

1 Modernity and the Problem of the Observer

The field of vision has always seemed

spacesradically different from the mimetic capacities of film, photography,

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

T o c o m p r e h e n d this relentless abstraction of the visual and to avoid m y s

1 W h a t is the relation between the dematerialized digital imag

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

turies of another m o d e l of vision, loosely definable as Renaissance,

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

whether as a style, as cultural resistance, or as ideological practice~can be

observedoes not literally m e a n

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

single social surface.

It m a y even b e necessary to consider

the observer as a distribution of events located in m a n y different places.3

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

cifically, I pose the camera obscura as paradigmatic of the dominant status of

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, trans. Se^n H a n d (Minneapolis, 1988), p. 48.

(London, 1953), pp. 57-65.

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

H e n c e exploration of all nature in order to discover new, useful qualities in things

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

of the nineteenth century, an observer increasingly h a d to function within dis

10 Several decades earlier, Walter

phantasmagoria of equality.Thus modernity is inseparable from o n o n e

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

a total clarityeach sign refers unequivocally to a status In caste

potentially indentical objects produced in indefinite series,herald the

Jean Baudrillard, Vechange sym bolique et la m ort (Paris, 1976), p. 7 8

trans. Paul Foss ( N e w York, 1983), pp. 84-85.

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

Within this n e w field of serially produced objects, the mos t significant,

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

its invention is secondary to the events I intend to detail here. M y contention

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

Michel Foucault has b e e n crucial for its delineation of processes a nd insti

large familial setups, n e w

decentralized arrangements w e r e devised to control and regulate masses of

Michel Foucault, D iscipline a n d Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan ( N e w York, 1977).

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

in the nineteenth century

Like pedagogical reform, hospital reform expresses a d e m a n d

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

23 Although this remark occurs in the midst of a comparison

M e a s u r e m e n t takes o n a primary role in a b road range of the physical sciences

ies in Scientific Tradition a n d Change (Chicago, 1979), pp. 219-220. K u h n is supported b y

After 1800 or so there is an avalanche of numbers, m o s t notably in the social

T h e m o m e n t that s a w the transition fr o m

Foucault, D iscipline a n d Punish, p. 217.

M odernity a n d the Problem o f the Observer

W h e n h e wrote the b o o k in the early 1970s,