Forms of the Visible

Imagery and figuration are not just figments of an artist’s imagination.  Perception and imagination are always shaped by what habit has taught us to discern.  The visual path we spontaneously trace through the world depends on where we are situated in the four regions of the ontological archipelago: animism, naturalism, totemism or analogism. Each of these four regions corresponds to a way of conceiving the objects that make up the world, of perceiving the continuities and discontinuities in the folds of the world and of drawing the dividing lines between humans and nonhumans.  From Alaskan Yup’ik masks and Aboriginal bark paintings to miniature landscapes from the Song dynasty and Dutch Golden Age interior scenes: each image reveals, through what it shows or fails to show, a certain figurative regime, identifiable by the formal means it uses and by the device through which it can unleash its power to act.  The figurative regime enables us to grasp – sometimes better than words can – the contrasting ways of living that characterize the human condition and its relation to the nonhuman.  By comparing a great diversity of visual images and artworks, Descola masterfully lays the theoretical foundations for an anthropology of figuration.  One of the world’s leading anthropologists, Philippe Descola has developed a comparative anthropology of relations between humans and nonhumans that has revolutionized both the human sciences and our ways of thinking about the great ecological issues of our time.  His new book will be of great value to students and scholars of anthropology, visual art and art history and to anyone interested in art, culture and the relations between the human and nonhuman worlds.

Preface 1. The Folds of the World Layers of invisibility The embodied sign Ontologies of images Geometries of figuration Forms of ostension and powers to act PART ONE: PRESENCES 2. Embodied Spirits Animal persons Think animals Who's there? Distinguishing resemblances Ontological camouflage 3. Multiplying Viewpoints 4. Relational Identities PART TWO. INDICES 5. Types of Beings and Courses of Life Figuring the ordering Figuring the organizer Figuring the traces of the organizing 6. A Heraldry of Qualities 7. The Power of Traces Variation 1. Repertoire-Image and Person-Image PART THREE. CORRESPONDENCES 8. Exercises in Composition Hybrids and chimeras Pictured bonds The great world and the small one 9. Conjunctive Spaces 10. Role Playing PART FOUR: SIMULACRA 11. Facing the World The conquest of the visible Painting the soul Instituting nature Toward immanence Impossible objectivity 12. Objectivizing the Subjective 13. Detecting Resemblance Variation 2. Playing on All Fronts Conclusion. Image-Making Ontologies Forms Agencies Incarnations Postscript. Scaffoldings The quarrel over resemblance Animating images Imaged languages Acknowledgements Notes Bibliography Index List of Illustrations List of Tables