''The ontology of the photographic image'' – Andre Bazin (1945): Difference between revisions

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The ontology of the photographic image – Andre Bazin (1945)

In the Ontology of the Photographic Image, Bazin argues that photography is the most important event in the history of the plastic arts because it has freed Western painting from its obsession with realism and allowed it to recover its aesthetic autonomy. (Bazin, 1945).

In Ancient Egypt, where the dead were embalmed to make sure they could take their bodies to the afterlife. To ensure this afterlife, terra cotta statuettes were used as substitutes for the body just in case something would happen to the original body. According to Bazin “This lays bare the primordial function of statuary, namely, the preservation of life by a representation of life.” (p.09). So they believed by representing the body through a statue (giving it a magical function) people could outsmart death.

Eventually this magical function was relieved from the arts. As civilization and art progressed “no one believes any longer in the ontological identity of model and image, but all are agreed that the image helps us to remember the subject and to preserve him from a second spiritual death” (p.10).

In the fifteenth century onwards, symbolic realism was not the most important aspect anymore. Western painting tried to recreate the outside world as realistic as possible. This was caused by the invention of the first mechanical system of reproduction: perspective. With the invention of the Camera Obscura, artists were now able to create the illusion of a three-dimensional space. “Thenceforth Painting was torn between two ambitions: one, primarily aesthetic, namely the expression of spiritual reality wherein the symbol transcended its model[spiritual real]; the other purely psychological , namely the duplication of the world outside.”[psychological real](p.11). So artists not only wanted to show the spiritual real of the world anymore as in the Middle Ages but also depict the world as realistic as possible.

A painting can not truly represent the world in an objective way, it’s always created by the hand of the artist. So a chair painted by the artist is referring to what the painter sees as a chair, the chair is not referring to an actual chair but to a chair that the artist believes a chair looks like. Painting can’t get rid of this untrustworthy image.

In the nineteenth century photography finally freed the plastic arts from their “resemblance complex”. For the first time an image was created automatically. A direct vingerprint of the world was left on the light sensitive plate. “This production of automatic means has radically affected our psychology of the image. The objective nature of photography confers on it a quality of credibility absent from all other picturemaking. In spite of any objections our critical spirit may offer, we are forced to accept as real the existence of the object reproduced, actually re-presented, set before us, that is to say, in time and space. Photography enjoys a certain advantage in virtue of this transference of reality from the thing to its reproduction.” (p. 13/15).

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 '''The ontology of the photographic image – Andre Bazin (1945)'''
 <br><br>
-'''Bazin argues that photography is the most important event in the history of the plastic arts because it has freed Western painting from its obsession with realism and allowed it to recover its aesthetic autonomy.'''<br>
+In the Ontology of the Photographic Image, Bazin argues that photography is the most important event in the history of the plastic arts because it has freed Western painting from its obsession with realism and allowed it to recover its aesthetic autonomy.  (Bazin, 1945).
-He looks back in time and argues that at the heart of the plastic arts there is a need to preserve our being beyond its physical existence. It is actually a primitive need to create something that endures your own life span.<br><br>
-In the origin of painting and sculpture might lie a mummy complex he claims. In Ancient Egypt the dead were embalmed to make sure they could take their bodies to the afterlife (the first Egyptian statue). To ensure afterlife, terra cotta statuettes were placed next to the sarcophagus, if the mummy would be destroyed, these statuettes could ‘go on’ instead. ''“This lays bare the primordial function of statuary, namely, the preservation of life by a representation of life.”''
 <br><br>
-Later on this ''‘magic role’'' of the plastic arts has been relieved by society. Coming from a believe of the ontological identity of model and image, or the question of survival of death. The focus turned to a primarily aesthetic and symbolistic function. The latter came in the fifteenth century through the invention of the camera obscura by Da Vinci. The artist could now create the illustion of a three-dimensional space and therefore painting was torn between these two ambitions of the symbolic and aesthetic function.
+In Ancient Egypt, where the dead were embalmed to make sure they could take their bodies to the afterlife. To ensure this afterlife, terra cotta statuettes were used as substitutes for the body just in case something would happen to the original body. According to Bazin ''“This lays bare the primordial function of statuary, namely, the preservation of life by a representation of life.”'' (p.09). So they believed by representing the body through a statue  (giving it a magical function) people could outsmart death.
 <br><br>
-With the invention of photography the image was for the first time, formed automatically.  “This production of automatic means has radically affected our psychologoy of the image. The objective nature of photography confers on it a quality of credibility absent from all other picture-making. Photography enjoys a certain advantage in virtue of the transference of reality from the thing to its reproduction.”
+Eventually this magical function was relieved from the arts. As civilization and art progressed ''“no one believes any longer in the ontological identity of model and image, but all are agreed that the image helps us to remember the subject and to preserve him from a second spiritual death”'' (p.10).
 <br><br>
-Even though Bazin still kindof claims the objectivity of photography, he also says it can surpass art in creative power.
+In the fifteenth century onwards, symbolic realism was not the most important aspect anymore. Western painting tried to recreate the outside world as realistic as possible. This was caused by the invention of the first mechanical system of reproduction: perspective. With the invention of the Camera Obscura, artists were now able to create the illusion of a three-dimensional space.
-''“Surrealists didn’t consider his aesthetic purpose and the mechanical effect of the image on our imaginations as things apart. For him, the logical distinction between what is imaginary and what is real tends to disappear. Every image is to be seen as an object and every object as an image. Hence photography ranks high in the order of surrealist creativity because it produces an image that is a reality of nature, namely, an hallucination that is also a fact. “''
+''“Thenceforth Painting was torn between two ambitions: one, primarily aesthetic, namely the expression of spiritual reality wherein the symbol transcended its model''[spiritual real]; ''the other purely psychological , namely the duplication of the world outside.”''[psychological real](p.11).  So artists not only wanted to show the spiritual real of the world anymore as in the Middle Ages but also depict the world as realistic as possible.
 <br><br>
-So now painting didn’t have a ''‘resemblance complex’'' anymore and the crisis of realism was kind of solved by photography as a sort of vingerprint of reality. <br>
+A painting can not truly represent the world in an objective way, it’s always created by the hand of the artist. So a chair painted by the artist is referring to what the painter sees as a chair,  the chair is not referring to an actual chair but to a chair that the artist believes a chair looks like. Painting can’t get rid of this untrustworthy image.
-Painting became an ''‘ersatz’'' of the processes of reproduction. The photographic image freezes the object itself from time and space. It shares by virtue of the very process of its becoming, the being of the model of which it is the reproduction; it is the model.
 <br><br>
-''“The photograph allows us on the on hand to admire in reproduction something that our eyes alone could not have taught us to love, and on the other, to admire the painting as a thing in itself.”''
+In the nineteenth century photography finally freed the plastic arts from their “''resemblance complex''”. For the first time an image was created automatically. A direct vingerprint of the world was left on the light sensitive plate. ''“This production of automatic means has radically affected our psychology of the image. The objective nature of photography confers on it a quality of credibility absent from all other picturemaking. In spite of any objections our critical spirit may offer, we are forced to accept as real the existence of the object reproduced, actually re-presented, set before us, that is to say, in time and space. Photography enjoys a certain advantage in virtue of this transference of reality from the thing to its reproduction.”'' (p. 13/15).
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