« Les yeux qui ont vu l’Empereur » ou du regard dans la photographie

This article proposes, from the perspective of photographic reception, a parallel reading of two fundamental texts on photography, Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida and Walter Benjamin’s Little History of Photography, pointing out the importance of the gaze in the narrative construction of an (imaginary) encounter between the viewer and the “subject” of the image. Our analysis focuses on the visual vocabulary employed by both authors in the construction of their narratives, which is not without resemblance with the traditional hierophanic scenarios such as the Transfiguration or the Resurrection. The supposed “reality” of the referent – which is thought as the core of analogue (vernacular) photography – breaks the unreality of the image, surpassing representation with its perceived presence, whose visual expression is (excessive) light. Thus, the discourse on photography paradoxically becomes a discourse without image(s), the sacralization of the latter being at stake.

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