Questions of representation

 

Who is being seen? And who is telling us what to see? – Ourselves? The rules of representation? Velazquez? Infanta? The canvas?

“He rules the threshold of those two incompatible visibilities (Foucault pg.4).”

Object? Are we the assigned object? Foucault spends the first half of this chapter pointing out questions on subject and object in Las Meninas. In opening he is talking about the gaze. Since we are first engaged with the gaze, when confronted by this painting, we are led into it, but to 

where? This is Foucault’s basis for explanation of this work in this chapter. “Representation in its pure form,” is Foucault’s conclusion. So, from gaze, to object, to subject, we are automatically engaged in language set up as an representation of an event, and at the same time are able to understand representation altogether.

 

Representation : Rep`re*sen*ta"tion\ (-z?n-t?"sh?n), n. [F. repr?sentation, L. representatio.] 1.The act of representing, in any sense of the verb. 2. That which represents. Specifically: (a) A likeness, a picture, or a model; as, a representation of the human face, or figure, and the like. (b) A dramatic performance; as, a theatrical representation; a representation of Hamlet. (c) A description or statement; as, the representation of an historian, of a witness, or an advocate. (d) The body of those who act as representatives of a community or society; as, the representation of a State in Congress. (e) (Insurance Law) Any collateral statement of fact, made orally or in writing, by which an estimate of the risk is affected, or either party is influenced. 3. The state of being represented.Syn: Description; show; delineation; portraiture; likeness; resemblance; exhibition; sight.

There is a definition of Representation. The painting is better because it is visual language that can be interpreted in many ways as literal information. The laws of representation on a two-dimensional surface is one literal piece of information Velazquez shows us in the piece by the use of linear perspective, directing the gaze on Infata through implied lines, the gaze, overlap, atmospheric perspective, and the foot on the dog, and more.

Again, the big questions in this chapter and this painting are what are the subject and the object? Embodiment is our answer. We are Velazquez, or Infata, or mostly through basic art history, or vainness, King Philip and Mariana, or we are ourselves being empathetic to this experience of representation, which brings up a question from myself. In regards to empathy, is Velazquez understanding, showing, and forcing representation on us? Or, does he have knowledge of the rules of two-dimensional painting, figures in his studio, a need to represent this seen, and out of intrigue, knowledge, and coincidence did he create “representation in its pure form?

Is this clever?, or the infinite role reversal of the subject/ object, or a true understanding and mapping of all information regarding representation at one given moment? I believe, or want to, in the latter, but with experience in these exact questions and understandings of representational painting, there is a part of me who empathizes with only the artist, and does not read this painting literally at all, and sees an experience occurring, and unfolding as a representational painting.  This brings me to another question regarding Foucault’s writing. Foucault mentions the artist’s gaze in regards to it dismissing us by becoming the subject, but what about the artist’s self portrait? 

He is gazing at the subject he is painting, to make the painting a representation of an occurrence, but is he not also gazing at us, or himself (he is painting himself) in contemplation of the understanding and showing of representation, or embodiment itself? And, on top of that making a seemingly effortless painting of it?