The Image, Eye and Manazashi

[ SPECIAL ISSUE: CHROMOSOME OF PHOTOGRAPH ]

Abstract

  The chinese characters for "Eizo" which we Japanese use to mean visual image have a hard and mechanical impression, compared to "image" which means both inner and visual images. Its double meaning enables the word "image" to approach the subject from both the sides of our being, internal and external.

  J.-D. Nasio witnessed the separation of eyes and manazashi with one of her patients in Les yeux de Laure. Jacque Lacan, following J.P.Sartre, argued that eyes and manazashi do not coexist but hide each other. Lacan saw the embodyment of the invisible power of manazashi in the symbolic object flying in air in the middle space of the tableau, "The Ambassadors" by Hans Holbein the younger. He regards it as the expression of the hidden male desire incarnated in a skull=phallus image.

  The image as the projection of manazashi reflects the spirit of the viewer as well as his or her figure.