Images and power: scenario, erasure and painting

Abstract

This article addresses the power of images in three periods of 20th century history. The use of images, particularly of photography, during these periods became omnipresent, although there are many other examples of the power of images over the relevance of words: the sight of Phryne’s partially naked body, for instance, had a big impact in her trial in the 4th century. Two of the examples presented in this paper (Nazism and Stalinism) used images as an instrument of power. They aimed to present simultaneously a sense of heroism and of “normalization” in radical contrast to the brutality that left a decisive mark in history as one of the most tragic dark moments of the 20th century. On the other hand, under Stalin, photos and images were manipulated: erasing people in photos can be understood as a macabre allegory of their annihilation in real life. The efficacy in the re-construction of reality through the manipulation of photos seems to result from an illusional omnipotence, as if dictators had the power to enunciate, create and destroy “reality”. The third part of this article discusses the answer open and given by painting to the increasing erosion of images witnessed nowadays. Painting, contrary to the ephemeral nature of photography, survive dark times. It resists in a stubborn way, as we can see, for instance in the example of Tuymans’ paintings. You cannot erase its memory. Painting is not “programmatic”. It is an attempt to depollute images. And by doing this, it tears open a space for the search for meaning.