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Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins

In this brilliant essay, Jacques Derrida explores issues of

vision, blindness, self-representation, and their relation to

drawing, while offering detailed readings of an extraordinary

collection of images. Selected by Derrida from the prints

and drawings department of the Louvre, the works depict

blindness — fictional, historical, and biblical. From Old

and New Testament scenes to the myth of Perseus and the

Gorgon and the blinding of Polyphemus, Derrida uncovers in

these images rich, provocative layers of interpretation.

For Derrida drawing is itself blind; as an act rooted in

memory and anticipation, drawing necessarily replaces one

kind of seeing (direct) with another (mediated). Ultimately,

he explains, the very lines which compose any drawing are

themselves never fully visible to the viewer since they exist

only in a tenuous state of multiple identities: as marks on

a page, as indicators of a contour. Lacking a "pure"

identity, the lines of a drawing summon the supplement of the

word, of verbal discourse, and, in doing so, obscure the

visual experience. Consequently, Derrida demonstrates, the

very act of depicting a blind person undertakes multiple

enactments and statements of blindness and sight.

Memoirs of the Blind is both a sophisticated

philosophical argument and a series of detailed readings.

Derrida provides compelling insights into famous and lesser

known works, interweaving analyses of texts — including

Diderot's Lettres sur les aveugles, the notion of

mnemonic art in Baudelaire's The Painter of Modern

Life, and Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the

Invisible. Along with engaging meditations on the history

and philosophy of art, Derrida reveals the ways viewers

approach philosophical ideas through art, and the ways art

enriches philosophical reflection.

An exploration of sight, representation, and art,

Memoirs of the Blind extends and deepens the

meditation on vision and painting presented in Truth and

Painting. Readers of Derrida, both new and familiar, will

profit from this powerful contribution to the study of the

visual arts.

  • Format
  • paperback
  • Pages
  • 152
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780226143088
  • Genres
  • philosophy, art, theory
  • Release date
  • 1993