THE CROSSING OF THE VISIBLE Jean-Luc Marion ‘Translated by James K. A. Smith STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 2004Stanford Universicy Press Stanford, California The Crasing of the Visible was originally published Jn French in 1996 under the tile La Cried vb, {© 1996, Presses Universitaires de France ‘This book hasbeen published with the assistance ‘of the French Ministry of Culrure—National Genrer for the Book English rransation © 2004 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, All rights served. No par of this book may be reproduced or transmitted inany form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying and recording, o in any infor- ‘mation storage or retrieval system without the prior writen permission of Stanford University res Printed in the United Stats of America on acide, archival quality paper Library of Congress Caralogingsin-Publication Data Marion, Jan-Lc, 1946 {Croisce da visible English) “The erosing of the visible /Jean-Lae Marion + seared by James K. A. Smith p. em — (Cultural memory in the present) \s8N 08047359 (lth alle paps) — tsa o-8047-3392-9 (pbk alk. pape) 1 Vial perception. 2, Perpetve. 5. Pincng — Philosophy. 4. Phenomenology. Title I. Seis Nom4o.¥5515 2004 ps0''—pea2 reojong6t Typeser by Tim Roberts in 1/135 Adobe Gsramond ‘Original Printing 200 Last igure blow indicares yar ofthis printing 1 2 1 10 09 08 oF 06 os of Contents Preface 1 The Crossing of the Visible and the Invisible 2 What Gives 3 The Blind at Shiloh 4 The Prototype and the Image Bibliographical Note Translarors Note Notes 46 66 89 3face The question of painting does not pertain first or only to painters, much less only to aestheticians. It concerns visibility itself, and thus per- tains to everything—to sensation in general. In truth, one is restricted to what one can see and where one can go. And this is certainly why philosophy cannot refrain from finding itself, ‘when it comes to painting, permanently. This is because philosophy to- day has become, essentially, phenomenology: yet phenomenology no fonger pretends w scturis to the things themselves, because it has under- raken the task of seeing what gives itself [ce qui se donne) —what gives (ce (que cela donne). The exceptional visibility of the painting has thus be- come a privileged case of the phenomenon, and therefore one possible route to a consideration of phenomenality in general Bur is it enough for phenomenology to delimit visibility end thus every possible painting [‘ableaus}? Does not the painting admit iself only to a singular status rather than to a merely domestic collection of general possibilities? In the movement from the idol ro the icon, we of course fol- ow carly research, but we follow above all the necessity of the ching it- self. the painting—the visible par excellence—offers a dilemma of two figures of appearance, inverted, opposed, but nevertheless indispensable and inseparable. Theology becomes, in this situation, an indisputable au- thority [instance] concerning any theory of painting. Having sometimes denied this, other times simply forgotten it, aesthetic thought finds itself entangled in long aporias. Pethaps the time has come for it to deliver it- selfand to sce the visible face-to-face, a8 a gift of appearance. ‘The studies collected here were produced in response to invitations. In my eyes, this gives them a special value: without the trust of invitingx Preface friends, I would never have been able to develop by myself what I then attempted in expounding them. Thus I am returning today what was first offered to me. But, among all those who urged me ro think and speak swhere I did nor want to venture, among them Michel and Anne Henry, it is to the fiiendship of Alain Bonfand that I owe the most. He is to be truly thanked here. As for the insufficiencies of my project, one could at- tribute them to the traditional vanity of philosophy, which always says more than it knows—but often less than it thinks. Lods, December, 1990 THE CROSSING OF THE VISIBLEThe Crossing of the Visible and the Invisible 1 In itself, perspective! exercises a paradox. Even more than that, per- spective and paradox are determined by similar characters: both indicate ‘the visible entirely in its withdrawing, discretely but radically. The para~ dox attests to the visible, while atthe same time opposing itself, or rather, while inverting itself [erally it constitutes a counser-visible, a counter seen, a counter-appearance that offers in a spectacle? to be seen the oppo- ‘oF what, at frst sight, one would expect to see. More than a surpris- opinion, the paradox often points to a miracle—it makes visible that which one should not be able to see and which one is not able to see wirh- outastonishment [stupew]. Thus, in the Septuagint, the works of God in liberating Israel from Egypt themselves produce paradoxes, known as miracles: “See what is most paradoxical [napaddEsraov): in water that extinguishes, the fire increases its power” (Wisdom 16:17). In this sense, or rather, in another sense that will soon become precisely the inverse of this, the human face offers a paradox to be seen; in the words of Char: “As the bee leaves the orchard for the fruit already black, so the women supported without betraying the paradox of this face that did not have characteristics of a hostage.”® A paradox of the face, which finds itself ful- filled in this “strange paradox in Christ (népa6ofov), the Lord in the form of a servant, the divine glory (BG§a) within the strictures of the hu-2 The Crossing of the Visible and the Invisible man.” The paradox testifies here that what enters into visibility is that which one should nor have encountered humanity; the paradox is born from the interv invisible in the visible, whatever it might be. From this arises the necessary effect of the paradox, in thought but also in the sensible: it dazzles, taking the ‘mind by surprise and shocking the gaze [Je oue}’ in such a way that, far from fulfilling or saiating® them, its very gicess af visibility injures them. Just asthe miracles give rise to so much resistance that chet realty cannot be questioned, so theoretical paradoxes stimulate polemic much more than they stimulate the production of evidence. —And yet perspective, in its own way, also provokes a paradox. Or rather, it imitates the para- dlox, by inverting the relation it has established between the visible and the invisible. In the two operations, the gaze strives to see what it is not able to see, but differently: the paradox offers a eaunter-appearance, while perspective suggests a breakthrough of the gaze. The paradox poses a vis- ible that belies the visible, perspective a gaze that picrces through the vis- ible. Moreover, in classical Latin, perspicuus qualifies what offers itself as transparent to the gaze, fo: example a vestment; and in fact, in perspec- tive, the gaze pierces through what one would call, for lack of a berter term, a middle ground [milieu], a miliew so transparent that it neither stops nor slows down the gaze but allows ir ro rush through, without any resistance, as if it were a vacuum [vide]. In the case of perspective, the ‘ize pierces the void [le vide,’ without any obstacle or limi other than its own exhaustion; not only does ie crass through this void, since it does not aim at any object defined by a horizon, bur perspectives gaze pierces the void without end beczuse it crosses through ie for nothing; in per spective, the gaze loses itself in the void—more specifically, it aims at emptiness, outstripping every object once and for all, in order to aim at this void itself In this, moreover, it loses itself only to find itself there continually, ‘What void? Here i is not a question of a physical void, which, as a pure absence of things, a real [réelle| breakdown of res, gives nothing to be seen but rather gives only vertigo. A physical void: there is nothing to be seen, no new spectacle, bur conversely, the real void of reality (le vide réel de la réalite, as a desert of things, where | then enter, am moved, live, possibly fall and, when it ends, crash upon the final frontier. This ere: fire in water, divinity in The Crossing of the Visible and the Invisible 3 st of things I then almost see, as opposed to other things that mark its boundaries in a way that renders the void visible. The phys- void, precisely because it defines itself as a visible desert of things, ns reified, eal, visible. On the contrary, the void that opens itself gaze in perspective does not open itself as areal “traversable” space could be inhabited or defined, nor does it add anything to the store isible things, not eved a visible void. The void of perspective does add anything to the real visible, since it puts it om the scene. In of in perspective my gaze invisibly traverses the visible, in such a way , without undergoing any addition to the real, it becomes that much -visible: the auditorium that houses us today would not appear hab- le to me, and strictly speaking would nor be so, if, while crossing a in invisible emptiness, my gaze was not rendered vast. For itis my , opened up by perspective, that separates these colored surfaces to seen and made out as walls, that raises this other clear surface to see f¢ and make out a ceiling, chat finally levels out this darker surface in jer to recognize the unfolding of a ground where I can put my feet. cr, without the invisible space thar separates them, we would not be le 10 recognize the surfaces in what would remain simply parches of lor, amassed without order, or sense, or figure, piled up one on top of other, without the slightest crack, thus requiring that we be sub- ced t0 a test 10 determine if our eyes are functioning like a kind of cra. In other words, more simply, if my gaze did nor have the strange ital property described as binocular vision, if thus did not have an bility to deal with space, precisely the strained character of invisible 1 as the dense and confusing aggregate of the visible, chen the audi- rium containing us would not appear to us as—therefore would not — spacious: we would be stifted by the promiscuous lack of differen- tiation of surfaces, to the extent that we would perceive not even stt- s but rather spots and colored shadows. With the visible coming to {crush us, anguish would beset us, just as it did the prisoner who, in Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum, saw the walls inexorably closing in upon him, A quotidian Samson, the gaze of perspective separates the visible by the fequial power of the invisible, in a way thae renders it for us vast, inhahire ¢ able, organized. Perspective’s gaze bores through the visible in order ta/| ‘establish there the invisible distance that renders it aimed-at (visable)