Short History of the Shadow

266 Pages·12.858 MB·English

by  Victor I. Stoichita

AboutthisbookThisprovocatively'short'historyofthe shadowopens
withareappraisalofthe contributiontothe subjectthatcanbeteased
outfrom commentsby Plinythe Elderand Plato. Pliny'smythofthe
origin of art, whichidentifies the birth of artistic representation as
having taken place in a Corinth potter's home, and Plato's mythof
knowledge, set forthby the philosopherin the celebrated allegoryof
the cave, both deal with the shadow- the darkspot thatby its
presenceconfirmsanabsence. Buttheshadowcanalsobeunderstood
to be the present'other' of the body, a fact enforced by the rule of
light, so that the shadow can evenbe seento be a form of self
representation.Indeed,accordingtoJ. C.Lavatarin the 18thcentury,
it was the shadow of the face, not the face itself, thatwas the soul's
true reflection.
In ourowncentury,GermanExpressionistfilm-makers have used
shadowmetaphoricallyto give added- oftenmalevolent- meaning
to the nature of 'projection'. More recently, Andy Warhol, in his 66
Shadotos canvases, and [oseph Beuys, in a shamanic Happening
photographedasActionDeadMouse,haveinturnexploredtheideaof
the shadow as the hyper-realized revelationof utter human
emptiness and as the self's awesomely powerfuldoppelgiinger.
Victor I. Stoichita explores these recentengagements with the
nature of the shadow by wayof the mythof Narcissus, writings on
artby Alberti, Vasari and others, a self-portraitby Poussin, a lake
gardenby Monet, and many further curious and absorbing
undertakings madeby artists since Antiquity. The result is a wholly
originaland compellinginvitation to reconsider the verybasis of
representationin Westernart.
AbouttheauthorVictor I. Stoichita was educated in Bucharest,
Romania, and later gained both a PhD from the University of Rome
and a Doctoratd'Etatfrom the Sorbonne in Paris. He is currently
ProfessorofHistoryofArtatthe UniversityofFribourg,Switzerland.
His publications include Visionary Experience intheGolden Ageof
Spanish Art (Reaktion, 1995)and TheSelf-Aware Image (1997).
ESSAYS IN ART AND CULTURE
inthesameseries
The LandscapeVision ofPaul Nash
In;Roger Cardinal
Lookingat the Overlooked
Four Essays on StillLifePainting
In;Norman Bryson
CharlesSheeler
and the Cultofthe Machine
In;KarenLucic
Portraiture
In;Richard Brilliant
C.R.Mackintosh
The Poetics ofWorkmanship
In;DavidBrett
Imageon the Edge
The MarginsofMedievalArt
In;MichaelCamille
Illustration
In;J.Hillis Miller
Francis Bacon
and the Loss ofSelf
In;EmstvanAlphen
Paul Delvaux
Surrealizingthe Nude
In;DavidScott
Manet'sSilence
and the Poetics ofBouquets
In;[amesH. Rubin
The SymptomofBeauty
In;FrancettePacteau
FiguringJasper[ohns
In;FredOrton
PoliticalLandscape
In;MartinWamke
Visionary Experience
in the GoldenAge ofSpanishArt
In;Victor I. Stoichita
The DoubleScreen
Mediumand Representationin ChinesePainting
In;Wu Hung
Paintingthe Soul
Icons, DeathMasks, andShrouds
In;Robin Cormack
A Short History of
the Shadow
Victor I. Stoichita
,
REAKTION BOOKS
PublishedbyReaktionBooksLtd
79FarringdonRoad, LondonEC1M 3Ju, UK
Firstpublished1997,reprinted1999
Copyright©Victor1.Stoichita,1997
Allrightsreserved.
Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,stored
inaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyform
orbyanymeans,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,
recordingorotherwise,withouttheprior
permissionofthepublishers.
TranslatedbyAnne-MarieGlasheen
CoverandtextdesignedbyHumphreyStone
PhotosetbyWilmasetLtd. Birkenhead,Wirral
PrintedinGreatBritainby
BASPrinters,OverWallop, Hampshire
British LibraryCataloguinginPublicationData:
Stoichita,Victor1.
Ashorthistoryoftheshadow.-(Essays in
artandculture)
1.Shadesandshadows2. Perspective3.Shadows
inart
1.Title
701.8'2
ISBN1861890001
Publishedwiththe contributionoftheCouncilof
theUniversityofFribourg,Switzerland
Contents
Introduction 7
1 The Shadow Stage 11
2 The Shadow of the Flesh 42
3 A Shadow on the Painting 89
4 Around 'The Uncanny' 123
5 Man and his Doubles 153
6 Of Shadow and its Reproducibility during the
Photographic Era 187
7 In the Shadow of the Eternal Return 200
References 243
List of Illustrations 259

Introduction
We know verylittle about the birth ofpainting, said Plinythe
Elderin his Natural History(xxxv, 14).Onething, however, is
certain: it was born the first time the human shadow was
circumscribed by lines. It is of unquestionable significance
that the birth of Western artistic representation was 'in the
negative'. When painting first emerged, it was part of the
absence/presence theme (absence of the body; presence ofits
projection). The historyofartisinterspersedwiththe dialectic
of this relationship.
At the time that Plinywas outlininghis treatise (during the
first century AD), the pictorial image was already - and had
beenfor sometime- more thanjustthe outlineofa darkspot.
The shadow had been integrated into the area of a complex
representationto suggestthe third dimension- volume, relief,
the body. Initially (to the author of the Natural Historyas well
as to his artistic contemporaries) the shadow-image was no
more than a distant memory, a half-mythical, half-historical
fact, a sign of its origins that had to be perceived (or
recognized) but which was constantly evaded: what - asked
one of Pliny's contemporaries - would havebeen the result if
no one had done more than his predecessors? The reply was:
'theartofpaintingwouldhavebeenrestrictedto tracingaline
round a shadow thrown in the sunlight' (Quintilian, Institutio
oratoria, x, ii, 7).
This inaugurative statement, borne out by several sources,
can be compared to another account, one that establishes the
Western theory of knowledge: Plato's myth of the cave. Plato
imagines primitive man imprisoned in a cave (The Republic,
517-19);he cando no more thanstareat the backofhis prison
- on the wall of which are projected the shadows of an
external reality, the existence of which he does not even
suspect. Onlyby turning around and facing the world of the
sun can he gain access to real knowledge.
Pliny's and Plato's myths are parallel accounts that do not
communicate on the level of discourse but which facilitate a
dialogue on the hermeneutic level. If they have never been
7
studied together, it is probably due primarily to the highly
risky nature of such an enterprise. Plato and Pliny speak of
different things within different contexts. However, several
factors would justify theirbeing read as a dialogue: theyboth
dealwithmythsoforigin (withPlinythemythof artandwith
Platothe mythof knowledge); the mythregarding the birthof
artistic representation and the one regarding the birth of
cognitiverepresentationare centredon themotifofprojection;
this early projection is a dark spot - a shadow. Art (real art)
and knowledge (real knowledge) are its transcendence.
The relationship with the origins (the relationship with the
shadow) characterizes the history of Western representation.
This book aims to trace the milestones of thathistory. Since it
is the study of a negative entityit should come as no surprise
that little has been said about it so far. In fact, this is the first
time such an inquiry has been undertaken in any coherent
way. Our conception of history - Hegel's, that is - and our
conception of representation - Plato's in fact - have enabled
and encouraged us to approach the history of light" from
different angles but have circumvented the possibility of a
historyoftheshadow, and it was Hegel himself who indirectly
delineated the nature of this ambiguity:
But one pictures being to oneself, perhaps in the image of
pure light as the clarity of undimmed seeing [die Klarheit
ungetriibien Sehens], and then nothing as pure night - and
their distinction is linked with this very familiar sensuous
difference. But, as amatteroffact, ifthis veryseeingismore
exactly imagined, one can readily perceive that in absolute
clearness [in derabsoluten Klarheit] thereisseenjustas much,
andas little,as in absolutedarkness,thattheoneseeingisas
good as the other, that pure seeing is a seeing of nothing.
Pure light and pure darkness are two voids which are the
same thing. Something can be distinguished [unterscheiden]
onlyin determinatelightor darkness (lightisdeterminedby
darkness and so is darkened light, and darkness is deter
minedbylight,isilluminateddarkness),andfor this reason,
thatitisonlydarkenedlight[getriibtesLicht] andilluminated
darkness which have within themselves the moment of
difference and are, therefore, determinate being [Dasein].2
Consequently, it is only from a strictly Hegelian viewpoint
that the study of the relationship between shadow and light
8