When we talk of the 'image', at least in the Western context, we effectively talk of an entity or

concept that is inherently lacking. This is already clear when we look at the etymological origin of
the term, which is derived from the Latin imitatio1. Thus, more narrowly understood, we should not
speak of 'image', but we should hear an appended silent 'of' every time we hear 'image': the image is
always, even as an abstract concept, an image of. And this 'of' which the image represents is, at least
in our Judaeo-Christian philosophical traditions under Ancient Greek influence, is always external
to the image itself. That which is represented does not present itself in the image but is represented
by the image: the image implies a one-directional dependence relation to that which it represents. If
I snap a photo of Oliver here, we see in the photo that which (or whom) it represents. The reverse
does not apply: we do not see the photo in Oliver. This gets philosophically much trickier especially
when we get to representations of the unrepresentable, where the likeness is not immediately
visually apparent. But even here, the one-directional dependence relation remains the same: the
image always implies an 'of'. Thus, famously, the notion of man as imago Dei according to Gen
1.26: 'And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness'. The absolutely other,
invisible, and unrepresentable God is represented in and by man – and since God is so invisible and
unrepresentable the image is differential to itself. The discrepancy of the image to the non-
imageable God plays out entirely on the visual body of the image, whose very visuality itself
embodies the discrepancy to the invisible Almighty. This is a particularly potent dialectic: a
dialectic between the invisible God and his visible image, where the visible implies or refers to the
invisible ex negativo.
This traditional understanding of the image is significantly reassessed by the French poet André du
Bouchet.2 Two things, I argue, are fundamentally different in du Bouchet's conception of the image:
Firstly, the image is not a one-directional 'image of'; secondly, that which the image is an image 'of'
becomes part of that image, hence 'the' image is always twofold in du Bouchet. Du Bouchet
develops this conception of the image in a series of essays, written between 1951 and 1957, in
which he engages with the 'traditional' notion of the image and traces its changing trajectory in
poetry from Marice Scève, Friedrich Hölderlin to Victor Hugo and, finally, Charles Baudelaire. In a
way, du Bouchet traces these poetics, from a more traditional to a thoroughly modern conception of
the image, from Scève to Baudelaire, in order to arrive at his own poetological place in that
trajectory. Although he never explicitly states this, I will attempt to show that du Bouchet, in his
mature poetry, drives these self-proclaimed conceptual developments to their ultimate conclusion.

1 Syrotinski, Michael, ‘Image’, in Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, ed. by Barbara Cassin,
Steven Rendall, and Emily S. Apter (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), p. 478 (p. 478).
2 While the prevalence of the traditional conception of the image can be, curiously, found again in his reception by
critics.
The quote from this paper's title – 'l'image, survivant à l'oeil, se trouvait hors de l'œil' – is lifted
from his essay on Scève. Scève's 'image' seems to be most informed by what I have termed the
traditional conception of the image. Du Bouchet describes in this essay how Scève's poetic image
destroys itself to ultimately become a nothing. Yet, this 'rien', suddenly and without much further
explanation, is transformed into a 'bien': 'Ce rien, avéré, devient ce bien'. 3 The definite article of 'ce
bien', of course, can only refer to the 'divine image'. 4 This divine image is an invisible or, rather, a-
visual image – an image that is not an 'image of' but a self-identical, absolute entity.5 'Pérennité de
l'image assurée par la destruction de l'image', as du Bouchet writes about Scève's 'divine image'.6
The image of Scève is at its most pure after its destruction and supersession by the transcendental
divine image. Yet, what du Bouchet throughout his analyses of other authors remains most
preoccupied with and fascinated by is precisely the moment of transformation and destruction, that
fertile almost-coincidence of 'rien' and 'bien' in Scève. Du Bouchet's engagement with Hölderlin and
Hugo is imbued by metaphors for this moment of transformation, as the following note makes clear:
La vision nette de Hölderlin. L'encadrement de la fenêtre
qui découpe le ciel etc. sans sourciller. Cette vision parfaite,
qui élimine l'impureté et le vague de l'espace – mouches,
phosphènes, bouillons, bavures, – lucidité de Dieu. Le
médium : nommément (nämlich) il se conforme soigneusement
avec l'objet pur. Tel quel. Miracle.7
How is the clarity and untaintedness of Hölderlin's vision ('vision nette', 'vision parfaite') in the first
line reconcilable with the '[l]'encadrement de la fenêtre' of the second line, which seems to narrow
the field of this vision?
It seems to be precisely the découpage by the window frame which makes possible the pure
'lucidité de Dieu'. The supposed purity of this vision is not – or at least not quite – constituted by 'le
vague de l'espace', in the unformed infinitude and vastness of space. It seems that it is exactly the
limited gaze through the window which enables the prophetic vision, in which the concrete act of
perception, and the object of perception coincide. The window, which would ordinarily be regarded

3 André Du Bouchet, ‘Les dizains contrastés’, in Aveuglante ou banale : Essais sur la poésie, 1949-1959, ed. by
François Tison and Clément Layet (Paris: Le Bruit du temps, 2011), pp. 183–232 (p. 187).
4 Bouchet, p. 187.
5 This is what has been termed archetypos in Neoplatonic philosophy. Hüllen, J., ‘Archetypus’, in Historisches
Wörterbuch der Philosophie, ed. by Joachim Ritter and Karlfried Gründer, 1st edn, 13 vols (Basel: Schwabe, 2007),
I, 497–500; Lessing, H.-U., ‘Typos; Typologie’, in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, ed. by Joachim Ritter
and Karlfried Gründer, 1st edn, 13 vols (Basel: Schwabe, 2007), X, 1587–1607.
This notion of a destruction of images to be able to see the 'glory of the Lord' and be 'transformed into the same
image from glory to glory' is already present in the New Testament (2 Cor 3:18), but arguably finds its most
pronounced and sophisticated interpretation by the German mystic Eckhart of Hochheim and his notion of
'entbilden', 'einbilden', and 'überbilden'.Gottfried Wackernagel, Wolfgang, ‘Subimaginale Versenkung. Meister
Eckharts Ethik der Bild-ergründenden Entbildung’, in Was ist ein Bild?, ed. by Gottfried Boehm (München: Fink,
Wilhelm, 1994), pp. 184–207.
6 Ibid.
7 André Du Bouchet and Clément Layet, Une lampe dans la lumière aride : Carnets 1949-1955 (Paris: Le Bruit du
temps, 2011), p. 65.
as an object of perception, becomes an anthropomorphised perceiving subject looking out 'sans
sourciller' in and through what it itself renders visible in its function as window. Neither the
'encadrement de la fenêtre' nor the 'ciel' themselves render the 'lucidité de Dieu' perceptible, not the
sky and not the window as such. Only the gaze onto the sky through the window which nevertheless
always keeps the window frame in view can yield the 'lucidité de Dieu'. However, this can only be
said with some reservations, as we are to find out in the last two lines. It turns out that which is seen
in and through the window has, in the end, not been 'l'objet pur' or the 'lucidité' itself, but has been
mediated. The window, for all its clarity and praise in the previous lines, still functions as
conventional windows do: as a medium which lets us look out. Thus, even if we ultimately see a
conformation of this medium with the 'objet pur', the image given by and in the fenêtre découpant
itself is only a catalyst on the path to divine vision. Just like in du Bouchet's analysis of Scève, the
Hölderlinean window-image is still an 'image of' and has to be divested of this 'of' in order to be
superseded and to transform ordinary perception into divination. Even though du Bouchet himself
seems most preoccupied by the gaps in the image, by its destruction or its découpage, for Hölderlin
and Scève these are interesting for what they ultimately yield.
This seems to change in Hugo. The mysterious and negatively connotated 'mouches, phosphènes,
bouillons, bavures' which would obscure our vision and are contrasted with Hölderlin's 'vision
parfaite' in this note from 1951, are prevalent in du Bouchet's later scholarship on Victor Hugo. In
Hugo, according to du Bouchet, we encounter the '[t]hème de la vue en tant qu'effraction.'8 The
splitting line of this 'effraction' in Hugo's conception of vision or perception runs between the
fictional narrator and the world he perceives. Hugo's world is relative to the perception of the
narrator who describes the scene to us but in so doing realises his own perspectival limitations, the
relativity and subjectivity of his own gaze or narration. Unlike Hölderlin's 'vision parfaite' which
ultimately 'se conforme [...] avec l'objet pur' – a form of seeing in which perceiver, act of
perception, and object of perception coincide transcendentally in the divine image – the gaze or
vision in Hugo is split between perceiver and object of perception. In Hugo, according to du
Bouchet, one begins seeing 'qu'on ne voit pas.' 9 We get '[i]mages qui ne font qu'“autentifier”
l'impossibilité de voir'.10 This is what the 'mouches, phosphènes, bouillons, bavures' express when
du Bouchet talks about Hugo. I cannot explain the significance of all of these words in du Bouchet's
analyses of Hugo, but I will vicariously explain 'phosphène' to which the other words are
8 André du Bouchet, ‘Vue et Vision Chez Victor Hugo. Essai Sur La Création Poétique’, in Aveuglante Ou Banal.
Essais Sur La Poésie, 1949-1959, ed. by Clément Layet (Paris: Le Bruit de Temps, 2011), pp. 148–59 (p. 148).
9 André du Bouchet, ‘Vision et Connaissance. Essai Sur La Création Poétique’, in Aveuglante Ou Banal. Essais Sur
La Poésie, 1949-1959, ed. by Clément Layet (Paris: Le Bruit de Temps, 2011), pp. 160–68 (pp. 166–7).
10 Ibid.
Of course, seeing that one does not see is still a form of seeing. Such a form of negative cartesianism thus runs into
fundamental epistemological problems and the possibility of an ultimate solution is doubtful. Yet, even though du
Bouchet's critical examinations of other authors engage philosophical problems, it should be borne in mind that
they are poetological considerations which, in the end, do not require philosophical rigour.
understood to be roughly synonymous by du Bouchet. Phosphenes denote a sensation of light
without light actually entering into the retina of the eye. You probably habitually experience
phosphenes when you stare too long into a bright light: the colorful patches of colour that appear
before your eyes after that are phosphenes. These phosphenes are constitutive to du Bouchet's
conception of sight in Hugo: we see light that is no light, hence we see images that are not 'images
of' anything. Yet, neither are they the absolute image of God that is the image without an 'of'.
Once again we notice du Bouchet's interest in the destruction of the image, but this time this
destruction does not entail some form of supersession by which we arrive at an absolute divine
image. Instead the phosphene-image vanishes, an image which simply attests to the impossibility to
see (chronic phosphenes are also a sign of defective sight) or at least the impossibility to see beyond
one's existential limitations: phosphenes continuously remind us of the fallibility of our senses.
This development in Hugo, for du Bouchet, culminates in Baudelaire. In Baudelaire, we find
ourselves utterly grounded in our very real and non-transcendental existence. According to du
Bouchet's interpretation of 'Le rêve d'un curieux', Baudelaire tries to imagine and witness his own
death. But his attempt to imagine something which there cannot be an 'image of' re-confines
Baudelaire all the more to his existential limitations, because imagining one's own death implies
surviving it and therefore never actually imagining death. Nevertheless, it is this experience of these
boundaries of life, or rather the impossibility to consciously experience them, to experience death,
which 'fonde irrémédiablement sa présence [that is the presence Baudelaire's poetry] dans
l'immédiat'.11
With du Bouchet and through Baudelaire as well as Hugo, we have arrived at a conception of the
image which is not dependent on some invisible 'image de Dieu' of which we see only but a limited
visible image. Rather, the image is conceived as a subjective image – with Hugo and Baudelaire's
image, du Bouchet speaks for the first time of 'imaginaire'. 'L'imaginaire tenu en échec'. 12 There is a
gap in our image of ourselves. Death is beyond the imagination and here we have a gap or void in
our imagination, in our image of ourselves. Yet, unlike in Höderlin or Scève, this beyond cannot
even be conceived,13 without risking the presupposition of some form of objective, transcendental
'image de Dieu'. There are only images that are 'images of', no independent, pure images. And thus,
this void or gap can only be experienced as image, as an 'image of' something there can be no
'image of'. I am sorry for this seeming sophistical trickery, but this paradox is du Bouchet's or even

11 André du Bouchet, ‘Baudelaire irrémédiable’, in Aveuglante ou banale : Essais sur la poésie, 1949-1959, ed. by
François Tison and Clément Layet (Paris: Le Bruit du temps, 2011), pp. 89–110 (p. 95).
12 du Bouchet, ‘Baudelaire irrémédiable’, p. 106.
13 This is, to an extent, resemblant of Kant's own problem pertaining to the 'thing in itself'. It denotes that which lies
beyond our grasp and knowledge. However already already this assumption of ulteriority or of a beyond is, strictly
speaking, as Kant was well aware, already going beyond what we can reasonably say of our knowledge. Thus we
face the paradoxical need for a concept of that which is beyond conception in order to define the limits of our
conception, but in so doing we already transgressed that very limit.
Baudelaire's, not my own. Du Bouchet has different names for this 'image of that which there is no
image of'; he variously calls it 'sol', 'fond', or 'vide'. I will term it more generally 'absence', and this
absence cannot be conceived independently of a 'présence'; because the absent image, as we have
seen, is the result of the image of our presence, as the latter is a result of the former. Présence and
absence are co-dependent and presuppose each other.
This paradoxical and dialectical conception underlies du Bouchet's entire poetry, which teems with
all kinds of dualisms, fond-figure, feu-froid or feu-glace, soif-désaltérance… I will limit my
discussion to a few remarks on image and visuality as variations of absence and présence in du
Bouchet's poetry.
14

This is an excerpt from du Bouchet's notebook which is representative for his poetry and how it
looks. I would just briefly like to focus on 'image, j'ai voulu la prendre / à la racine – sa disparition'.
Of course, what seems to be the most interesting word of this passage is the last word, 'disparition'.
Not only by virtue of its semantic polyvalence – it can link up with 'racine' or 'image' – but also
because it pronounces what lies beyond its power to pronounce: disappearance. Given that the gaps
in du Bouchet's poetry visually confront us with the paginal space and the ink on the page, we
naturally consider the white space in opposition to the black ink. The 'disparition', although
pronounced by the word, cannot be enacted by it, because the black ink of the word is still very
present and apparent. But as the word disappears we arrive at the disappearance or absence of
which the word spoke. On the other hand, this absence is never realised as such, without being
announced by the word 'disparition', for otherwise we would never consider the space to be imbued
with any meaning and would consider it as a normal margin or else.. Further, this word, although
not meaningless as such, would not have the same meaning if the absence of ink would not realise
what the présence of ink announces: 'disparition'. This illuminates the multiple ways in which
'disparition' can be read to connect to 'image' or 'racine'. The lines can be read as a desperate attempt
by the poetic voice to grasp the image at its root, yet which disappears nonetheless. But more
interesting and more fitting, in light of what I said about du Bouchet's image previously, is the
interpretation that the very root of the image is the fact that it disappears. Absence and présence are
both images 'of': they are images of each other, incomplete displays which await their realisation by
the other.

14 André du Bouchet, Carnet 2 (Fontfroide-le-Haut: Fata Morgana, 1999), p. 148.