The Blind Spot: An Essay on the Relations between Painting and Sculpture in the Modern Age

by Jacqueline Lichtenstein, Chris Miller (Translator)

Beginning in the seventeenth century, the greatest French writers and artists became embroiled in a debate that turned on the priority of painting or sculpture, touch or sight, color or design, ancients or moderns. Jacqueline Lichtenstein guides readers through these historic quarrels, decoding the key terms of the heated discussions and revealing how the players were influenced by the concurrent explosion of scientific discoveries concerning the senses of sight and touch. Drawing on the work of René Descartes, Roger de Piles, Denis Diderot, Charles Baudelaire, and Émile Zola, among others, The Blind Spot lets readers eavesdrop on an energetic and contentious conversation that preoccupied French intellectuals for three hundred years.

232 pages, Hardcover

First published September 11, 2003

Reviews

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting material on the paragone (comparison of painting and sculpture) and on French discourses regarding the hierarchy of the arts. Best on the illusion of illusion, the effective sensory/cognitive mobius loop of the visual arts. Viewing a painting is, as Montmartel put it,"a continuous error constantly intermingled with the reflection that corrects it; a way of being deceived and not taken in" (p. 60). Diderot seems to enliven the author; otherwise, the prose is rather plodding, although whether this is owed to the author or translator is unclear.