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[The Prohibition against Representation has been visited 1810 times since 22 March 2007]

The Prohibition of Representation

Catherine Chalier

[Editing and proofing of interpolated Google machine-translation still pending....]

(Cliquer ici pour l'original en français)

                   The astonishment before the inexhaustible but fragile multiplicity of the living forms which make this world an always disconcerting, prolific, and enigmatic reality has evoked, since the most distant past, as the art of Lascaux teaches us, the desire to paint and sculpt them.[1] However, the hand that paints or carves these natural, animal or human forms also confers upon them an insistent presence that transcends the transitory duration of their life. The painting and the sculpture arrest time, they make us believe in the eternity of a smile or of a distress, they conserve amidst the living an existence at the very moment when it has been already withdrawn. Nevertheless, whether awkward or sublime, this millennial and universal gesture of representation not self-evident, it seems indeed to transgress the divine word that, in the Torah, forbids the making an idol (pesel) or an image (temouna) of “what is above in the sky, or below on earth” (Ex 20, 4; Dt 5, 7). The iconoclasts fought at the time of the council of Nicea II (in 787) understood it thus, they claimed to prohibit the veneration of the images in the context of worship as idolatrous practices by basing themselves on this biblical passage.

Banished from Jewish, Moslem and, later on, Protestant places of worship, figurative representation encourages, according to the iconoclasts, old and new, the confusion between human works and divine works, it should therefore disappear. This strict interpretation of the second commandment does not however claim  unanimity; the history of Jewish art, since the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem down to the creations of contemporary masters, shows that the biblical prohibition was not interpreted to the letter, except at certain periods, in particular in Byzantium precisely at the time of iconoclastic violence, in Islam lands or again in the ascetic Jewish currents of southern Germany in the Middle Ages.[2] As the Judaism does not separate the biblical text from the oral tradition of its interpretation, artists could moreover draw also upon the authority of Talmud to justify themselves. The sages indeed do not subscribe to an excessive rigor in this domain, for they allow the representation of the living forms even while assigning to it nevertheless a limit: that of the human face specifically. “All the faces are allowed except the face of the man” (Roch haChana 24b). This, obviously, resonates in a very particular with the remarks of Levinas on the face.

The Bible thus denounces sculpture and the image as instigators of idolatrous practices, the psalmist thus disparages “the idols of gold and silver, works of human hands. They have a mouth and do not speak, eyes but do not see; they have ears but they do not hear, nostrils but no sense of smell at all…” (PS 115, 4-6). Ezekiel (7, 22) holds that in front of them, it is necessary to divert the face (panim) with repulsion, as if the features of the human face, modeled and animated through face-to-face discussion, risked the worst by contemplating the dumb, blind and deaf face of the idol. The violence of some prophets is even astonishing: “All his carved images (in Samaria) will be crushed to pieces (…), all his statues, I will reduce them to ruins” (Mid 1, 7); “From the house of your God, I will extirpate carved images and statues cast in iron and I will make a tomb of them” (Na 1, 14). Because God who spoke to the Hebrews in the Sinai cannot be confused with an image or a sculpture of human measure without the people losing at once the sense of vocation that requires them to keep facing the invisible one, to listen to and answer him.

Such a face-to-face encounter, certainly paradoxical, would alone be capable of engendering the light that irradiates the face. Thus, when Moses re-descends from the Sinai after having received the Tablets of witness (louhot haEdout), the Torah says that “the skin of his face had become radiant when God had spoken to him” (Ex 34, 29). This radiation would be subordinated to the capacity to receive this Word within oneself and thus to give it a singular flesh and face. On the other hand, still according to this account, the people, who had just tasted with the forbidden fruit of idolatry, did not dare to approach Moses. The opprobrium of impatient temptation to capture the divine within the form of a sculpture (the golden calf) made by human hands, and to adore it rather than to support the invisible, continued to weigh upon them and forced them to lower their eyes before the light of the face of Moses. This text thus suggests that, without even knowing it, the face, in its nudity and its exposure to the claims of the world, expects of the Word—and from it only—to be rendered sensible to a light different from that which scans the days and the nights. But, just as the irrigation of fibers of the skin by the Word, and consequently its radiation, do not constitute a rampart against the wrinkles that betray the irreversibility of becoming and especially against the aggressiveness of those which seek to damage or degrade the face, to subject it to anguish and to extinguish its light, some believe they can find in the idol a higher protection, they flee towards it and become deaf to the word.

It is from this perspective that the prohibition against representation and the violence of the prophets against the makers of idols must be understood. When, standing in front of images and sculptures, man forgets the face-to-face encounter with the invisible, he can indeed only lose his own face. He believes to have produced a sensible equivalence of the invisible thanks to the work of his art or, as history never ceases to attest it, of his ideology and of his submission to the incantation of the powerful, consequently the features of his face show his total confusion in spite of his possible exaltation. Because a face becomes animated only with respect to an irreducible otherness—that of others and that of God—who calls him and makes him live, open to the risk and subjected to the disquietude of his humanity, without being able to make for himself of this otherness an image or an idea that would supposedly control it. However, since the risk and disquietude do not cease deferring happiness and the certainty, man frequently yields to the idolatrous temptation that which bruises his face.

However, the image or the sculpture is not condemnable in itself, what is so are only a certain way of looking at them, a certain type of relations that man maintains with them. The treatise Avoda Zara (idolatry) of the Talmud thus reports that “rabbis of reputation freely made use of works of art, explicitly distinguishing their aesthetic function from the religious significance which was attached to them in other milieus.”[3] The Bible also reports that two cherubim figured within the Temple, “their faces (pénéhem)” looked at each other (Ex 25, 18-20) and the voice of God passed between them to make itself heard. Besides, rabbis later on authorized painted decoration in the synagogues by prohibiting only the projecting stereoscopic images. The superb frescos of Doura-Europos (256 of the common era) attest to the licit character of the figurative representations of the biblical scenes—Abraham receiving the divine promise, the vocation of Moses towards the burning bush etc. — even though, sometimes, “the representation of the human face is avoided”, as in the fresco relating to the binding of Isaac where the face remains “without expression, the eyes fixed in the vacuum”, the characters then appear “detached from the act that they are accomplishing.” Later, in the illuminations of the manuscripts “every figurative representation is not banished, but, to avoid reproducing the human face, one provides it with a beak of a bird or one sometimes replaces it by an animal feature. This motif became so familiar with the painters that they continued to make use of it even when they no longer understand their meaning; thus, in certain late manuscripts, the women alone are represented with heads of animals.”[4] The medieval iconography of rituals attests finally to the licit character of illustrated representation, with a predilection for certain biblical scenes, David playing the harp or again the cherubim of the Temple.

The interpretation of the prohibition against representation given by the Jewish law (halakha) thus accords in fact great possibilities to painters and, to a lesser extent, to sculptors. Portraits indeed exist, as shown, for example, by those of the great Hassidic masters painted by Elazar Tiefenbrun, who says he is trying to transmit to the canvas what he felt when looking at them.[5] Moreover, in a letter intended to encourage the members of the Betzalel Academy of art, which had been just created in Jerusalem, Rav Kook, certain that the aesthetic feeling, if it its is not confused for an end in itself, prepares for the reception of still higher lights than those of sensuous beauty, wrote that the interdiction relates only to “the sculpture of a complete human face, and that in certain conditions, even this may be seen to be authorized.” [6]

Discussions among the sages on the exact scope of this interdiction—and their interpretations are often not very severe—show that, though they knew that man should not make for himself (lo taasé lekha) a graven image of the face because he would be likely to forget the invisible one that vivifies him and to believe that he is controlling it through his art, they understood also the desire to approach this invisible through the sense of sight. The representation of the face, from this point of view, would then not constitute idolatry, but an attempt to direct the gaze towards the invisibility and to celebrate it. The portrait would not signify succumbing to the trap of the idolatry but, like any religious art, the elevation of matter towards a spiritual end. The painter should direct his vision towards the invisible one that emanates from the visible but avoid representing the splendor of a visible reality—especially that of the face—seeking only to celebrate its immanence and to thus give the impression that it suffices unto itself. The excellence of his task would not consign him to reproducing sensible forms, simple or complex, but to perceive and display the invisible life from whence these forms receive their being. However, for him to be able to perceive this life beyond himself, in the forms that he contemplates, in the faces that he encounters, it would be necessary for the painter to start by feeling it in himself, like a living source of his being and like secret gift that it is a question of receiving without seeking to acquire it.

Man can imitate, celebrate the world, letting it be seen in all its unsuspected richness by the self-interested, habitual, or wearied gaze that many bring to bear upon it; however, he cannot really create it. “The human being can draw a form on a wall, but he could introduce neither breath, nor organs, nor entrails into it,” says as Talmud (Berakhot 10a). Like a prayer, art offers to God the beauty of the world and helps men to have a presentiment that it does not derive its being from itself, but it also sometimes happens to foster the belief that the images it fashions invokes no unseen presence and it then incites to idolatry. This danger specific to the image, whether plane or graven, as with all human productions besides, is particularly put to the test, according to the sages, when it is a question of the human face. Any full visibility is likely to seduce the vision and to satisfy, even if temporarily, the curiosity of those who, in forgetting otherness, dream of the transparency of self to itself, or of oneself to the other. Modernity is devoted particularly to this desire; it never ceases to incite to be seen and to see, as if, beyond that, man would have lost his reality. The self-image dismisses the face, definitively sometimes, “the original disappears, unless it is made into an image—to be, is to be perceived.” [7]  Since resistance to this visual tyranny proves difficult in a world constantly in the throes of nihilism, those whose vocation is however to reflect also want to enter the limelight, to impose themselves in the eyes of the world, and find it hard to resist the illusion of a more successful life as soon as a multiplicity of looks perceive and celebrate it. As if the recognition of others could confer a face upon him who has forgotten its meaning because he does not cease from scorning the invisible that sustains his life.

Is the wisdom that prohibits the representation of a complete face or, again, its confusion with an image—that of art just like the representation that a man tries to give of himself by attracting looks and by identifying himself with the person that they recognize in him, in order to lose himself therein—decidedly obsolete? Should we emancipate ourselves once and for all from the old texts of humanity that warn man against the self-worship to which he succumbs when he transgresses this interdiction? Finally, does an image of the face exist that allows a gaze without idolatry?

        The face speaks

Parce qu’il arrête le temps et substitue l’immuable au fugitif, l’art constitue, pour ses contempteurs, « une caricature de la vie », il provoque une tombée dans la nuit sans permettre l’espérance d’une aurore, car il soustrait à toute promesse comme à tout avenir. C’est pourquoi, selon Levinas, l’art n’appartient ni à l’ordre de la révélation ni à celui de la création « dont le mouvement se poursuit dans un sens exactement inverse ». L’image et la sculpture proscrivent en effet l’élan créateur de la vie, elles le figent en un instant soudain métamorphosé en destin indépassable. « Eternellement le sourire de la Joconde, qui va s’épanouir, ne s’épanouira pas », éternellement l’avenir restera en suspens. Les visages peints ou sculptés s’enferment ainsi dans leur destin, ou dans leur impuissance à forcer l’avenir ; réfractaires au moindre frémissement de la vie, ils restent soumis à l’ordre d’une nécessité impersonnelle et aveugle. La nuit de l’art ne laisse pressentir aucun lendemain, elle méconnaît le mouvement créateur de la vie puisqu’elle ne promet aucune clarté capable d’orienter les pas de l’homme sur la terre où, incompréhensiblement souvent, il grandit et périt. Il est ainsi impossible de s’adresser au visage peint ou sculpté car il ne regarde personne et il ne s’adresse à personne ; même et surtout s’il semble chercher chacun du regard, il ne renvoie en fait à rien d’autre que lui-même. Pourtant, « dans sa stupidité d’idole », il met fréquemment son emprise sur ceux qui le contemplent, il les tient en arrêt et les fascine, c’est-à-dire les possède hors tout contexte significatif et personnel. La jouissance esthétique séduit pour cette raison précisément puisqu’elle allège de la responsabilité envers la fragilité des hommes et des choses : « On se venge de la méchanceté en produisant sa caricature, qui lui enlève la réalité sans l’anéantir ; on conjure les mauvaises puissances en remplissant le monde d’idoles qui ont des bouches, mais qui ne parlent pas ». Or, lorsque le visage vivant de l’homme partout crie souffrance, chercher l’évasion et l’apaisement dans les plaisirs de l’art ne signifie pas « le désintéressement de la contemplation, mais de l’irresponsabilité », voire de la méchanceté, de l’égoïsme et de la lâcheté. Il y a des époques, dit Levinas, « où l’on peut en avoir honte, comme de festoyer en pleine peste ». Le philosophe dénonce ainsi l’hypertrophie de l’art et de ses ombres séductrices qui servent de nourriture spirituelle à beaucoup pour les dispenser de se tenir en proximité de leur frère quand l’heure le demande, c’est-à-dire maintenant. L’art fait désirer la mort au lieu de la combattre, en soi et en autrui, il demande de céder au destin et d’oublier les vivants que ne transfigure encore aucune sérénité. C’est pourquoi, conclut Levinas, « la proscription des images est véritablement le suprême commandement du monothéisme, d’une doctrine qui surmonte le destin—cette création et cette révélation à rebours » ([8]).

Because it arrests time and substitutes the immutable for the fugitive, art constitutes, for its despisers, “a caricature of life”, it causes a fall into the night without allowing the hope of a dawn, because it withdraws from any promise as from any future. This is why, according to Levinas, art belongs neither to the order of revelation nor to that of creation “whose movement continues in an exactly opposite direction.” The image and the sculpture indeed proscribe the creative surge of life; they immobilize it within a moment suddenly metamorphosed into an unsurpassable destiny. “Eternally the smile of the Mona Lisa that is about to blossom, will not blossom,” eternally the future will remain suspended. The painted or sculpted faces are thus locked up in their destiny, or in their powerlessness to force the future; impervious to the least quivering of life, they remain subjected to the order of an impersonal and blind necessity. The night of art does not let have a presentiment of any morrow, it ignores the creative movement of life since it does not promise any clearness able to direct the steps of the man towards the ground where, incomprehensibly often, he grows and perishes. It is thus impossible to be addressed to the face painted or carved because it does not look at anybody and he does not address himself to anybody; even and especially if it seems to seek each one of the glance, it returns in fact to anything else only itself. However, “in its stupidity of idol”, it frequently puts its influence on those which contemplate it, it holds them in stop and the fascine, i.e. overall significant and personal context has them. Aesthetic pleasure allured for this reason precisely since it reduces of the responsibility towards brittleness for the men and the things: “One is avenged for spite by producing his caricature, which removes reality without destroying it to him; one entreats the bad powers by filling the world with idols which have mouths, but which do not speak”. However, when the face living of the man everywhere shouts suffering, to seek the escape and the appeasing in the pleasures of art “the satisfying of contemplation, but of irresponsibility does not mean”, even of spite, selfishness and cowardice. Times ago, said Levinas, “where one can have shame of it, like feasting in full plague”. The philosopher thus denounces the hypertrophy of art and his tempting shades which are used as spiritual food with to exempt them much to be held in proximity of their brother when the hour requires it, i.e. now. Art makes wish death instead of fighting it, in oneself and in others, it asks to yield to the destiny and to forget the alive ones that no serenity transfigure yet. This is why, concludes Levinas, “the proscription of the images is truly the supreme command of the monotheism, of doctrines which overcome to it destiny-this creation and this revelation with wrong way” ().         

The severity of this judgment, however, brooks discussion. The idea that art produces only shadows without a future or caricatures of life, the certainty that the painted or sculpted face is mired in the night of an irrevocable destiny, in a silence close to that of death masks, are they indeed without appeal? Is artistic representation necessarily opposed to creation, to this movement that makes light emerge from the very heart of dumb and inert darkness, and to the revelation, to this word that orients man to enable him to distinguish, in any time and any place, between life and death?

         Bien des peintres et des sculpteurs en effet désirent donner à voir l’ailleurs dont vivent les formes, ils sont davantage en quête de la possibilité d’une transposition sensible du mouvement créateur que d’une reproduction des formes déjà existantes. Paul Klee évoque ainsi l’art comme une image de la création, il dit vouloir « imiter dans le jeu de l’art les forces qui ont crée et créent la vie », il parle de rendre visible ce qui ne l’est pas et de chercher à « atteindre au-delà de la forme le mystère même de l’être » ([9]). Or cette démarche ne signifie pas nécessairement impiété, volonté de rivaliser avec le Créateur ou de se substituer à Lui, comme certains iconoclastes ont pu l’affirmer. Le Midrach oppose certes la création de l’artiste à celle de Dieu—l’artiste ne peut rien faire sans un rude labeur, le Saint, béni-soit-Il, crée les choses grâce au souffle de Sa parole : ‘Que la lumière soit’ (Gn 1, 3) ; l’artiste meurt et ses créations lui survivent, « le Saint, béni-soit-Il, vit éternellement tandis que Ses créatures meurent » ([10]), mais il n’en déduit pas pour autant la vanité des œuvres humaines. Ce qui importe, dans sa perspective, c’est l’effort pour percevoir comment le verbe créateur anime tout ce qui existe, comment le visage de l’homme vit de cette présence en lui, même s’il l’ignore, et comment il ressemble à Celui qui ne ressemble pourtant à aucune forme particulière, afin de le faire percevoir à d’autres, grâce à une toile par exemple. Le portrait devient alors appel au recueillement, il éveille une émotion qui touche l’esprit, le cœur et les sens. Le Rav Kook reconnaissait ainsi avoir passé des heures à la National Gallery de Londres afin de regarder les portraits de Rembrandt et il se disait persuadé que la lumière cachée du premier jour—lumière réservée pour les justes dans le monde à venir—éclairait les tableaux du peintre ([11]).

Many painters and sculptors indeed wish to give to see elsewhere whose the forms live, they are more in search of the possibility of a significant transposition of the creative movement that of a reproduction of the already existing forms. Paul Klee thus evokes art like an image of creation, he says to want “to imitate in the play of art the forces which have creates and create the life”, he speaks to return visible what is not it and to seek “to reach beyond the form the mystery to even be it” (). However this step necessarily does not mean impiété, will to compete with the Creator or to replace Him, as certain iconoclasts could affirm it. Midrach opposes certainly to the creation of the artist to that of God-L' artist cannot nothing make without a hard labour, the Saint, bless-is it, creates the things thanks to the breath of Its word: `That the light is' (Gn 1, 3); the artist dies and its creations survive to him, “the Saint, bless-are it, saw eternally while Its creatures die” (), but it does not deduce any therefore vanity from human works. What imports, in its prospect, it is effort to perceive how verb creative animates all that exists, how the face of the man saw EC presence in him, even if it is unaware of it, and how he resembles That which however does not resemble any particular form, in order to make it perceive with others, thanks to a fabric for example. The portrait becomes call to meditation then, it wakes up an emotion which touches the spirit, the heart and the directions. Rav Kook thus admitted having spent the hours to the Gallery National of London in order to look at the portraits of Rembrandt and he thought persuaded that the hidden light of the first day-light reserved for the right ones in the world with come-lit the tables of the painter ().

         Certains artistes disent voir dans l’attention à la lumière et au verbe dont ils vivent intérieurement ce qui leur permet de percevoir la sainteté de la réalité qui les entoure, d’autres évoquent l’émotion qui les saisit devant la beauté de la création comme incitatrice à cette attention. Mais les deux attitudes s’appellent sans doute l’une l’autre pour disposer l’esprit, le cœur et les sens à voir ce dont l’empressement à être prohibe ordinairement la perception. En effet, comme l’écrivait Matisse, « à force de voir les choses, nous ne les regardons plus. Nous ne leur apportons que des sens émoussés. Nous ne les sentons plus. Nous sommes blasés. Je me dis que, pour bien jouir, il serait sage de se priver. Il est bon de commencer par le renoncement, de s’imposer de temps en temps une cure d’abstention » ([12]). Or, si le retrait s’avère un préalable indispensable à la perception—et non à la mise à nu—de l’inépuisable secret qui anime les formes vivantes, de leur fragile beauté et de l’imminence de la fin de tout ce qui ne tient pas son être de soi, c’est bien sûr le cas du visage. L’artiste qui le contemple, voire se recueille devant lui, puis le dessine, le peint ou le sculpte, cherche-t-il vraiment à l’immobiliser en un instant qui, comme le soutient Levinas, devient alors un destin ? Cherche-t-il, comme il le dit encore, à oublier la responsabilité qui saisit face à sa vulnérabilité ? Propose-t-il une idole à l’adoration des hommes au lieu de leur commander le service de Celui qui transcende toute représentation ?

Certain artists say to see in the attention with the light and with the verb of which they live internally what enables them to perceive the holiness of the reality which surrounds them, others evoke the emotion which seizes them in front of the beauty of creation like instigator to this attention. But the two attitudes are undoubtedly called one the other to lay out the spirit, the heart and the directions to see that whose eagerness to be usually prohibits perception. Indeed, as Matisse wrote it, “by see the things, we do not look at them any more. We bring only blunted smell to them. We do not smell them any more. We are blasés. I think that, for enjoying well, it would be wise to be deprived. It is wise to start with the renouncement, to impose a cure of abstention from time to time” (). However, if the withdrawal proves to be a precondition essential to perception-and not to the setting to naked-of the inexhaustible secrecy which animates the alive forms, of their fragile beauty and of the imminence of the end of all that does not hold its being of oneself, it is of course the case of the face. The artist who contemplates it, even collects himself in front of him, then draws it, paints it or, really seek does carves it to immobilize it in one moment which, as Levinas supports it, becomes a destiny then? Does it seek, like it still says it, to forget the responsibility who seizes vis-a-vis his vulnerability? Does it propose an idol with the worship of the men instead of their ordering the service of That which transcends any representation?

         Le peintre ou le sculpteur, animés d’un sentiment religieux, visent à faire ressentir comment tout visage, celui de la force comme celui de la faiblesse, renvoie à une autre réalité que lui-même. Dans cette mesure donc, leur geste contrarie l’idolâtrie, en son principe même. Seul l’artiste qui donnerait le sentiment que le visage a une réalité absolument autonome inciterait à vénérer ce qui a une bouche et ne parle pas, des oreilles et n’entend pas. Mais, quand la beauté silencieuse d’un visage peint ou sculpté touche celui qui regarde, brise sa suffisance et lui fait pressentir l’invisible dont il vit, l’œuvre ne convie pas le regard au contentement de la jouissance, elle lui demande de répondre à l’appel sensible de l’invisible. Il devient alors possible de soutenir, comme le fait Levinas à propos du visage humain, que ce visage là parle , ou encore qu’il adresse une prière à celui qui, soucieux ou distrait l’instant précédent, s’éprouve soudain requis par lui, sans savoir souvent balbutier autre chose que quelques mots maladroits sur la beauté de ce qui le tient en arrêt. Quand la force de la couleur ou de la ligne, la fermeté du geste et l’audace de l’imagination animent le désir de se tenir à plus grande proximité de la source de toute vie, ou le suscitent, la représentation du visage ne soustrait pas à la responsabilité envers les vivants, elle lui donne au contraire une nouvelle vigueur. Car un visage peint ou sculpté qui parle ainsi à l’homme du verbe secret d’où toute vie ne cesse de tenir son être lui révèle en même temps la fragilité des créatures et leur appel à plus de sollicitude. Celui qui repart inchangé et simplement satisfait, après avoir regardé les figures hassidiques de David Malkin par exemple, a-t-il entendu leur appel ? Et celui qui n’éprouve, devant elles, que la nostalgie douloureuse d’un monde disparu tragiquement, au temps où même un visage d’enfant constituait une cible pour les meurtriers, ne se dérobe-t-il pas non plus à lui ?

The painter or the sculptor, animated of a religious feeling, aims at making feel how any face, that of the force like that of the weakness, returns to another reality that itself. In this measurement thus, their gesture opposes the idolatry, in its principle even. Only the artist who would give the feeling that the face has an absolutely autonomous reality would incite to venerate what has a mouth and does not speak, of the ears and does not hear. But, when the quiet beauty of a painted or carved face touches that which looks at, breaks its sufficiency and makes him have a presentiment of the invisible one of which it saw, work does not invite the look to the satisfaction at the pleasure, it asks him to answer the significant call of the invisible one. It then becomes possible to support, like it makes Levinas concerning the human face, that this face there speaks, or that it addresses a prayer to that which, concerned or distracts the previous moment, tests themselves suddenly necessary by him, without often knowing to stammer another thing that some awkward words on the beauty of what holds it in stop. When the force of the color or the line, the firmness of the gesture and the audacity of imagination animate the desire to be held with greater proximity of the source of any life, or cause it, the representation of the face does not withdraw from the responsibility towards the alive ones, it gives him on the contrary a new strength. Because a painted or carved face which speaks thus with the man about the secret verb from where any life does not cease holding its being reveals at the same time the brittleness to him of the creatures and their call to more solicitude. Did that which sets out again unchanged and simply satisfied, after having looked at the hassidic figures of David Malkin for example, hear their call? And that which does not test, in front of them, which the painful nostalgia of a tragically disappeared world, at time when even a face of child constituted a target for the murderers, isn't concealed either with him?

         En effet si le visage, peint ou sculpté, parle à celui qui le regarde, il ne peut le faire en contentant ou, au contraire, en avivant la douleur d’un passé anéanti, mais uniquement en éveillant au sens de la précarité présente de chaque visage humain. Précarité révélée par la grâce d’une toile ou d’une sculpture qui, pourtant, semble fixer, pour l’éternité, le plus fugitif et le sauver ainsi. Mais entendre l’appel du visage peint ou sculpté, c’est aussi savoir que la beauté ne sauve qu’à condition de mettre en rapport avec l’invisible, avec ce qui n’est pas donné, avec un surplus de significations qui excède toutes les formes plastiques. Or, de cela, paradoxalement, peinture et sculpture sont capables si, en les contemplant, l’homme réalise que la vie sensible concerne la vie spirituelle, s’il se laisse appeler par elles vers une perception plus intérieure du présent. Il découvre alors que l’art appelle à voir maintenant la réalité autrement, avec davantage d’attention et de recueillement, dans la certitude du caractère irremplaçable de ceux qui partagent un éphémère présent avec soi. L’art, dans ce cas, perd toute connotation idolâtrique, il ne transfigure pas la matière pour que l’homme s’adore lui-même dans ses œuvres, mais pour lui révéler comment, grâce à cette matière aussi, le verbe qui fait vivre toute créature parle au regard, comment il attend de chacun qu’il lui réponde. Et cette réponse commence à prendre forme quand le regard cesse de déserter les visages de ceux qui vivent avec soi, sous prétexte parfois, de souci esthétique.

Indeed if the face, painted or carved, speaks with that which looks at it, it cannot do it while satisfying or, on the contrary, by reviving the pain of a destroyed past, but only while waking up within the meaning of the precariousness present of each human face. Precariousness revealed by the grace of a fabric or a sculpture which, however, seems to fix, for eternity, most fugitive and to save it thus. But to hear the call of the face painted or carved, it is as to know as the beauty saves only with the proviso of putting in connection with the invisible one, with what is not given, with a surplus of significances which exceeds all the plastic forms. However, of that, paradoxically, painting and sculpture are able if, by contemplating them, the man carries out that the significant life relates to the spiritual life, if it is let call by them towards a more interior perception of the present. It discovers whereas art invites to see now reality differently, with more attention and of meditation, in the certainty of the irreplaceable character of those which share a transitory present with oneself. Art, in this case, loses any idolatric connotation, it does not transfigure the matter so that the man adores itself in his works, but to reveal to him how, thanks to this matter also, the verb which makes live any creature speaks with the glance, how it awaits each one that it answers him. And this answer starts to take form when the glance ceases sometimes deserting the faces from those which live with oneself, under pretext, of aesthetic concern.

How, from this point of view, do we understand the limit that the sages assign to the representation of the face, that of its completeness?

        L’irreprésentabilité

         La plupart des maîtres de la tradition juive estiment en effet que l’interdit biblique porte sur une représentation en relief d’un visage humain complet. Mais qu’entendre par là ?

         Davantage qu’une prévention contre l’adoration de ses propres œuvres, il peut s’agir d’abord d’une mise en garde contre les tentatives, récurrentes pourtant, d’imiter le Créateur dans son processus créateur lui-même, tentatives qui allèrent parfois jusqu’à vouloir fabriquer un homme artificiel, un golem . Cette pratique qui provient de traditions anciennes—comme les petites figurines des Egyptiens censées répondre à la place du mort—relève sans doute de la magie, mais elle ne reste pas étrangère aux juifs. Comme en témoigne déjà ce passage du Talmud (Sanhédrin 65b), évoquant l’homme créé par Rabbah et qui fut dénoncé comme une créature de sorcellerie parce qu’elle ne répondait pas à celui qui lui parlait, ou, bien plus tard, comme le transmettent les légendes autour du fameux golem attribué au Maharal de Prague, ces êtres artificiels ne cessèrent de fasciner sages et moins sages. Cependant, malgré leur habileté et leur désir d’utiliser les secrets de la langue hébraïque pour construire un homme artificiel et inscrire sur son visage les lettres censées lui transmettre un souffle de vie, aucun de ceux qui le tentèrent ne réussit à faire parler la créature ainsi fabriquée. Mais si tous les récits relatifs aux golem ([13]) soulignent cet échec, ils visent surtout à montrer comment en prétendant rivaliser avec Dieu dans le processus créateur et la maîtrise du monde, les hommes courent à leur perte. Les êtres artificiels échappent en effet au contrôle de leurs créateurs et bientôt ceux-ci découvrent qu’au lieu d’accroître leur puissance sur le monde ils se trouvent plus démunis qu’auparavant.

         Selon cette ligne de compréhension de l’interdit biblique, nul ne devrait sculpter un visage humain complet, car il pourrait bel et bien réussir à donner une apparence d’humanité à sa créature et, ce faisant, inciter naïfs et mégalomanes à croire et à imposer de croire en la toute-puissance et en la pure autonomie de l’homme dans un monde sans Dieu. L’admiration et la fierté devant les réalisations du génie humain iraient alors de pair avec l’illusion de suffisance. Or l’idolâtrie consiste moins en la vénération de ses propres œuvres qu’en la croyance « d’être quelque chose par soi-même » ([14]), sans songer à la présence divine qui, secrètement, anime pourtant, selon les sages, les replis les plus profonds de l’âme. Afin de prévenir cette entreprise destructrice du rapport de l’homme à la source vive de son être, il faudrait donc prohiber tout geste susceptible de séduire par sa perfection au point que l’homme, fasciné, cesse de penser à l’existence de cette source, de désirer s’en approcher, et en vienne à se contenter du sentiment immédiat qu’il a de lui-même. L’interdit de la représentation du visage concernerait bien l’idolâtrie, mais celle-ci serait à comprendre comme volonté d’oublier et de commander l’oubli d’une parole originaire à laquelle l’homme veut souvent substituer l’exclusivité de la sienne, en arguant de la réussite de ses œuvres comme d’une preuve de sa suffisance.

         Mais pourquoi l’interdit porte-t-il précisément sur la complétude du visage humain ? En quoi une telle représentation serait-elle plus pernicieuse que celle d’une autre réalité vivante ?

         La représentation d’un visage humain ne signifie pas une ressemblance point par point avec un visage vivant, car une telle ressemblance échoue à imiter la vie. « Les figures des hommes sont sans ressemblance. Il faut attendre l’apparence cadavérique, cette idéalisation par la mort et cette éternisation de la fin, pour qu’un être prenne cette beauté majeure qui est sa propre ressemblance, cette vérité de lui-même dans un reflet » ([15]). Peintres et sculpteurs savent d’ailleurs que la réussite d’un portrait ne consiste pas à donner l’illusion de la vie grâce à une image fidèle de ce que le regard ordinaire perçoit. Une représentation artistique ne s’impose en effet qu’à condition de renvoyer à la vie absente, en donnant surtout à la sensibilité de percevoir la face invisible d’un être, mais cette tâche reste souvent un idéal inaccessible. Giacometti écrit ainsi : « Tout ce que je pourrai faire ne sera jamais qu’une pâle image de ce que je vois, et ma réussite sera toujours en dessous de mon échec ou peut-être la réussite toujours égale à l’échec » . A son modèle Isaku Yanaihara, il se plaint : « Si je pouvais continuer à peindre votre visage au moins un an ! (…) Que l’on puisse continuer à peindre un visage pendant toute sa vie sans être troublé par rien, on ne pourrait pas espérer une condition meilleure que celle-ci ». Il confie enfin : « L’aventure, la grande aventure, c’est de voir surgir quelque chose d’inconnu chaque jour, dans le même visage, c’est plus grand que tous les voyages autour du monde » ([16]).

The majority of the Masters of the Jewish tradition estimate indeed that the biblical interdict relates to a representation in relief of a complete human face. But what to understand by there? More than a prevention counters the worship of its own works, it can however be a question initially of a warning against the attempts, recurring, to imitate the Creator in his creative process itself, attempts which went sometimes until wanting to manufacture an artificial man, a golem. This practice which comes from traditions old-like the small supposed figurines of the Egyptians to answer the place of undoubtedly death-raises of the magic, but it does not remain foreign with the Jews. As already this passage testifies some to Talmud (Sanhédrin 65b), evoking the man created by Rabbah and which was denounced as a creature of sorcery because it did not answer that which spoke to him, or, well later, as the legends around the famous golem transmit it allotted to Maharal of Prague, these artificial beings did not cease fascinating wise and less wise. However, in spite of their skill and their desire to use the secrecies of the Hebraic language to build an artificial man and to register on his face the supposed letters to transmit a breath of life to him, none of those which tried it succeeds in making speak the creature thus manufactured. But if all the accounts relating to the golem () underline this failure, they especially aim at showing how while claiming to compete with God in the creative process and the control of the world, the men run to their loss. The artificial beings escape control indeed from their creators and soon those discover that instead of increasing their power on the world they are stripped more than before. According to this line of comprehension of the biblical interdict, no one should not carve a complete human face, because it could indeed succeed in giving an appearance of humanity to her creature and, by doing this, encouraging naive and megalomaniacs to be believed and force to believe in the absolute power and the pure autonomy of the man in a world without God. Admiration and the pride in front of the achievements of the human genius would then go hand in hand with the illusion of sufficiency. However the idolatry consists less of the veneration of its own works than in the belief “to be something by oneself” (), without thinking of the divine presence which, secretly, however animates, according to the wise ones, the major folds of the heart. In order to prevent this destroying company of the report/ratio of the man to the sharp source his being, it would thus be necessary to prohibit very gesture likely to allure by its perfection so much so that the man, fascinated, cease to think of the existence of this source, to wish to approach some, and comes from there to be satisfied with the immediate feeling which it has of itself. The interdict of the representation of the face would relate to the idolatry well, but this one would be to include/understand like will to forget and order the lapse of memory of an originating word for which the man wants to often substitute the exclusiveness in his, by asserting success of its works like proof of its sufficiency. But why the interdict relate does precisely to the complétude of the human face? In what such a representation would be it more pernicious than that of another alive reality? The representation of a human face point by point does not mean resemblance to alive face, because such a resemblance fails to imitate the life. “The figures of the men are without resemblance. It is necessary to await cadaveric appearance, this idealization by the death and this eternisation of the end, so that a being takes this major beauty which is its own resemblance, this truth of itself in a reflection” (). Painters and sculptors know besides that the success of a portrait does not consist in giving the illusion of the life thanks to a faithful image of what the ordinary glance perceives. An artistic representation is essential indeed only with the proviso of returning to the life absent, while especially giving to the sensitivity to perceive the invisible face a being, but this task remains often an inaccessible ideal. Giacometti writes as follows: “All that I will be able to make will not be never but one pale image of what I see, and my success will be always in lower part of my failure or perhaps the success always equal to the failure”. With its model Isaku Yanaihara, it complains: “If I could continue to paint your face at least a year! (…) That one can continue to paint a face during all his life without being disturbed per nothing, one could hope for a condition better than this one”. It entrusts finally: “The adventure, the great adventure, it is to see emerging something of unknown each day, in the same face, it is larger than all the voyages around the world” ().

         La sagesse propre à l’interdit de mimer la complétude d’un visage s’impose alors. En effet, les artistes n’éprouvent pas toujours le sentiment de l’impossible achèvement de l’œuvre, certains cherchent la complétude et croient l’atteindre. De leur côté, ceux qui regardent un visage peint ou sculpté ont parfois l’impression de rencontrer ce qui satisfait pleinement leur regard. Le danger du tableau ou de l’image taillée en relief—puisque l’interdit la concerne particulièrement—ne réside-t-il pas là, dans la prétention de complétude comme dans le désir d’un regard enfin comblé ? L’idée de complétude renvoie toujours à la mort—celle du visage, celle du regard sur lui—puisque l’un s’y fige à jamais tandis que l’autre, en se laissant saturer, risque de mourir à tout désir. Or le sens fondamental de l’interdit de la représentation, comme des autres interdits de la tradition hébraïque, réside là : non dans une volonté de paralyser la vie, de la limiter injustement dans ses ambitions créatrices, mais dans celle de prévenir ses tentations de consentir à sa propre asphyxie et bientôt à sa mort. Seule la mort—celle de soi et celle de l’autre—constitue l’interdit absolu dans la Bible, et les autres préceptes, négatifs et positifs, le confirment, chacun à sa manière, en se préoccupant des mille et une façons, pas toujours spectaculaires, aimables parfois, dont la mort s’insinue dans une existence.

         La tradition hébraïque n’interdit pas la représentation d’un visage, elle prohibe la complétude. Ce faisant, elle met en garde contre la démesure de l’artiste avide de s’emparer de l’invisible et de le réduire à une image, au lieu de se laisser saisir et appeler par lui vers l’inconnu pressenti par Giacometti et tant d’autres peintres ou sculpteurs habités par la quête de la lumière invisible qui seule donne véritablement de voir, sans elle-même se laisser voir. L’interdit de complétude s’adresse aussi à ceux qui regardent les œuvres artistiques ; il ne commande pas de s’abstenir d’admirer peintures et sculptures, mais il incite à poser sur elles un regard attentif à l’invisible. Ou, comme le disait le Rav Kook, un regard en quête de la lumière du premier jour, lumière dont les yeux de chair ne peuvent percevoir que le clair-obscur et non l’éclat.

         L’homme, selon la Bible, cherche le visage, impossible à représenter pourtant, de Celui auquel il ressemble—« Ma Face (panaï) vous guidera » (Ex 33, 14) ; « Qu’il fasse luire Sa face (panav) sur nous » (Ps 67, 2)—et il lui faut poursuivre cette quête, sans trouver satisfaction et repos dans telle ou telle image, en répondant par sa vie à la Parole qui lui commande d’avancer vers son humanité. Or il doit, pour cela, se défaire des prisons imaginaires, séductrices mais redoutables, qui le représentent, à son propre regard comme à celui d’autrui, en figeant son visage dans une image sans vie. Ces représentations rassurent pourtant, voire ravissent, car elles mettent un terme à la quête de soi et dispensent de se tenir encore sur le qui-vive, animé du désir de la face invisible, prêt à aller pour elle, fût-ce en solitude, à l’extrême de ses possibilités d’être.

         Mais, objectera-t-on, le désastre advenu au vingtième siècle—la destruction de ceux et de celles qui surent ou ne surent pas garder visage humain au temps où la barbarie ne supportait ni le regard de l’enfant ni celui du vieillard—n’atteste-t-il pas, avec la plus cruelle évidence, dans un effroi sans consolation, du caractère absurde de cette quête de la Face invisible ? Et comme, maintenant encore, les hommes choisissent de célébrer la mort plutôt que d’entendre l’appel à la vie, c’est-à-dire à l’émergence de chaque visage hors des limbes dérisoires qui le captivent, ne faut-il pas se résigner à l’abandon des visages ? Ne faut-il pas surtout, depuis la Choah, enseigner que l’interdit de la représentation porte désormais sur les visages assassinés ?

         La lutte du peintre ou du sculpteur avec l’impossibilité de représenter la Choah et la volonté de témoigner, sans pouvoir le faire, éprouvent bien des artistes. Dans sa série Job (1974-1975), Miklos Bokor pour qui Job est le nom de celui qui en appelle à la Face invisible de Dieu, mais contre elle, pour dénoncer la trahison de Sa promesse, donne ainsi à voir, en lieu et place de visages, des vêtements déchirés. « Cette veste que l’on reconnaît à ses traits rudimentaires est comme l’emblème du statut de la représentation. Evocatrice mais ébauchée seulement, analogique, mais bordée par une sorte de gangue d’ombre qui, on le sent bien, en reste inséparable. Contrairement à l’oiseau Phénix, la peinture ne renaît pas ici intacte des cendres. Blessée par l’épreuve de l’infigurable, elle continue d’en porter les traces ; tout se passe comme si le trait qui visait à représenter était aussitôt contredit, ou du moins entravé, par un trait adverse destiné à dénoncer l’illusion de la forme trop claire, comme si la pose même de la peinture sur le papier devait tout ensemble suggérer l’intégrité de la représentation et la récuser » ([17]). Pourtant, même alors, le destin des morts reste, pour Miklos Bokor, inséparable de cette relation à la Face invisible puisque sa peinture constitue aussi une réinterprétation tragique des thèmes bibliques. Le visage humain disparaît derrière le vêtement déchiré—le vêtement de deuil selon la tradition hébraïque, mais ici d’un deuil impossible—il ne reste de lui qu’une ombre qui titube et s’efface sous la force destructrice de l’ange. Néanmoins, dans certaines toiles dont celle intitulée Fils prodigue, l’annonce d’une émergence nouvelle du visage humain se fait aussi jour : « Mais sur quel fond d’ombre ce couple, comme rivé au sol par quelque pesanteur invisible, ne doit-il pas se détacher ! » ([18]). Sur quel fond de détresse en effet le visage humain, dont l’agonie multipliée a laissé, et ne cesse de laisser, indifférent, se donne-t-il encore à aimer et à représenter ! Et comment le percevoir enfin, à l’extrême de sa souffrance, à l’instant imminent de sa destruction, dans la trace de l’invisible Face à laquelle, selon la Bible, il ressemble ?

         Cette question ne hante pas seulement l’artiste, elle habite tous ceux qui, incapables de se prévaloir de leur vie et de leur réussite pour passer outre l’opprobe, savent que sur l’art, sur la philosophie ou encore la quête spirituelle, pèse la grande ombre du désastre. Elle fait mémoire des terribles persécutions magnifiées par la violence lorsqu’aux imprécations des uns ne fait écho que le silence sans courage des autres. Car, en ce monde, l’interdit par excellence ne porte pas sur la représentation du visage mais sur le désir de demeurer visage, parmi les siens, là où, aux heures joyeuses et tristes, amitié et amour plaident la cause de la vie. Mais cet interdit là ne provient pas de Celui dont certains espèrent encore qu’un jour Il tournera sa Face de lumière vers eux, seule le proclame l’implacable dureté des hommes incapables de partager la terre avec ceux qu’anime un autre élan que celui de la puissance sur autrui. Pourtant, lorsque brutalité et perversion veulent à tout prix faire blêmir le visage d’un homme, il arrive que celui-ci lève encore les yeux vers une lumière non éteinte, celle du premier jour peut-être, lumière qui, selon la tradition juive, brille pour les justes. Or en dépit de tous les drames qui avivent la douleur de vivre dans un monde où nul n’essuie les larmes figées sur la joue de l’enfant, il arrive qu’un visage humain promette cette lumière et que l’œuvre d’un artiste la transmette. Celui qui la perçoit ne peut que rendre grâce.

Wisdom specific to the interdict of mimer the complétude of a face is essential then. Indeed, the artists always do not test the feeling of the impossible completion of work, some seek the complétude and believe to reach it. On their side, those which look at a face painted or carved have sometimes the impression to meet what satisfies their glance fully. Doesn't the danger of the table or the image cut in relief-since the interdict relates to it particularly-reside there, in the claim of complétude as in the desire of a glance finally filled? The idea of complétude always returns to death-that of the face, that of the glance on him-since one solidifies there forever while the other, while being let saturate, risk to die in any desire. However the fundamental direction of the interdict of the representation, like others prohibited of the Hebraic tradition, resides there: not in a will to paralyse the life, to wrongfully limit it in its creative ambitions, but in that to prevent its temptations to grant to its own asphyxiation and soon its death. Only death-that of oneself and that of other-constitutes the absolute interdict in the Bible, and the other precepts, negative and positive, confirm it, each one with its manner, in alarming of the thousand and one ways, not always spectacular, pleasant sometimes, in which death penetrates in an existence. The Hebraic tradition does not prohibit the representation of a face, it prohibits the complétude. By doing this, it warns against the disproportion of the avid artist to seize invisible and to reduce it to an image, instead of letting themselves seize and call by him towards the unknown had a presentiment of by Giacometti and so much of other painters or sculptors inhabited by the search of the invisible light which only truly gives to see, without itself to let itself see. The interdict of complétude is also addressed to those which look at artistic works; it does not order to abstain from admiring paintings and sculptures, but it encourages to pose on them a glance attentive with the invisible one. Or, as it said Rav Kook, a glance in search of the light of the first day, light of which the eyes of flesh can perceive only theobscure one and not the glare. The man, according to the Bible, seeks the face, impossible to however represent, of That which it resembles “My Face (panaï) will guide you” (Ex 33, 14); “That it makes shine Its face (panav) on us” (PS 67, 2) - and it should continue this search, without finding satisfaction and rest in such or such image, while answering by its life the Word which orders to him to advance towards its humanity. However it must, for that, to demolish imaginary, tempting but frightening prisons, which represent it, with its own glance as with that of others, by solidifying its face in an image without life. These representations however reassure, even charm, because they put a term at the search of oneself and exempt to be still held on the alert, animated desire of the invisible face, ready to go for it, was this in loneliness, to the extreme of its possibilities of being. But, will one object, the disaster occurred at the twentieth century it destruction of those and of those which knew or could not to keep human face at time when cruelty supported neither the glance of the child nor that of the old man-N' does not attest it, with the cruelest obviousness, in a fear without consolation, of the absurd character of this search of the invisible Face? And like, still maintaining, the men choose to celebrate death rather than to hear the call to the life, i.e. for the emergence of each face out of the ridiculous limbs which captivate it, shouldn't one be resigned to the abandonment of the faces? Doesn't one especially need, since Choah, to teach that the interdict of the representation relates from now on to the assassinated faces? The fight of the painter or the sculptor with impossibility of representing Choah and the will to testify, without being able to do it, test many artists. In its series Job (1974-1975), Miklos Bokor for whom Job is the name of that which calls some with the invisible Face of God, but against it, to denounce the treason of Its promise, thus gives to see, instead of faces, of torn clothing. “This jacket which one recognizes with his rudimentary features is like the emblem of the statute of the representation. Evocative but only outlined, analogical, but bordered by a kind of gangue of shade which, one smells it well, in inseparable remainder. Contrary to the Phoenix bird, painting does not reappear here intact of ashes. Wounded by the test of the infigurable, it continues to carry the traces of them; all occurs as if the feature which aimed at representing was contradicted at once, or at least blocked, by an unfavourable feature intended to denounce the illusion of the too clear form, as if the installation even of painting on paper were any unit to suggest the integrity of the representation and to challenge it” (). However, even then, the destiny of deaths remains, for Miklos Bokor, inseparable from this relation to the invisible Face since its painting constitutes also a tragic reinterpretation of the biblical topics. The human face disappears behind the clothing torn to it mourning clothes according to the Hebraic tradition, but here of an impossible mourning it remains of him only one shade which staggers and is erased under the destroying force of the angel. Nevertheless, in certain fabrics of which that entitled Prodigal sons, the advertisement of a new emergence of the human face is done also day: “But on what a bottom of shade this couple, as rivetted on the ground by some invisible gravity, should not it be detached! ” (). On what a bottom of distress indeed the human face, whose multiplied anguish left, and does not cease leaving, indifferent, is still given it to like and represent! And how to perceive it finally, to the extreme of its suffering, the imminent moment of its destruction, in the trace of invisible Face which, according to the Bible, it resembles? This question does not haunt only the artist, it lives all those which, incompetents to prevail itself of their life and their success to pass in addition to the opprobe, know that on art, philosophy or the spiritual search, the great shade of the disaster weighs. It makes report of the terrible persecutions magnifiées by violence when with the imprécations of the ones echo only silence without courage of the others makes. Because, in this world, the interdict par excellence does not relate on the representation of the face but to the desire to remain face, among his, where, at the merry and sad hours, friendship and love plead the cause of the life. But this interdict there does not come from That of which some still hope for that a day It will turn its Face of light towards them, only proclaims it the relentless hardness of the men unable to divide the ground with those that another dash animates that that of the power on others. However, when brutality and perversion want at all costs to make turn pale the face of a man, it happens that this one still raises the eyes towards a nonextinct light, that of the first day perhaps, light which, according to the Jewish tradition, shines for the right ones. However in spite of all the dramas which revive the pain of living in a world where no one essuie tears solidified on the cheek of the child, it happens that a human face promises this light and that the work of an artist transmits it. That which perceives it can only return grace.