L'effet Pygmalion: Pour Une Anthropologie Historique Des Simulacres

by Stoichita, Victor I.

• ISBN13: 9782600005371
• ISBN10: 2600005374
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-12-31
• Publisher: David Brown Book Co

Summary

L'Effet Pygmalion is based on the literary, visual and audiovisual incursions of the first recorded simulacrum in Western culture. Although given life as woman and wife of her sculptor by the gods, and despite her soul and body, Pygmalion nevertheless remained a fantasy and artefact, a simulacrum. Neither a copy of a model, nor based on resemblance, the simulacrum exists on its own and transgresses the mimesis of artistic thought. This ambitious work goes beyond an interdisciplinary approach, and delves directly into the concept of representation. Victor Stoichta ranges from Ovidian texts to medieval miniatures, from a living Renaissance statue to paintings, photography, film and even Barbie dolls, in order to apply critical principals and to contribute to the hermeneutical discourse on the Western concept of images. The Pygmalion myth, as a parable of the breach of representation, the eviction of mimesis and the diversion of desire, brings to light the ruse in any society, such as our own, that is captivated by simulacra and its own delusions. French text.