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The realists do not take the photograph for a ‘copy’ of reality, but for an emanation of past reality, a magic, not an art.

Roland Barthes

A light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve.
ROLAND BARTHES

Emotion Light Reserve Shadow
Literature is the question minus the answer.
ROLAND BARTHES

Answer Literature Question
As Spectator I wanted to explore photography not as a question (a theme) but as a wound.
ROLAND BARTHES

Exploration Myself Photography Question Wound
The realists do not take the photograph for a ‘copy’ of reality, but for an emanation of past reality, a magic, not an art.
ROLAND BARTHES

Art Magic Photography Reality
We can never know, for the good reason that writing is the destruction of every voice, every origin. Writing is that neuter, that composite, that obliquity into which our subject flees, the black-and-white where all identity is lost, beginning with the very identity of the body that writes.
ROLAND BARTHES

Body Destruction Goodness Identity Known Subject Voice Writing
In an initial period, Photography, in order to surprise, photographs the notable; but soon, by a familiar reversal, it decrees notable whatever it photographs. The ‘anything whatever’ then becomes the sophisticated acme of value.
ROLAND BARTHES

Notable Order Photography Sophistication Value
The lover who does not forget sometimes dies from excess, fatigue, and the strain of memory (like Werther).
ROLAND BARTHES

Forget Lover Memories Strain Time
In front of the photograph of my mother as a child, I tell myself: she is going to die: I shudder, like winnicott’s psychotic patient, over a catastrophe which has already occurred. Whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is this catastrophe.
ROLAND BARTHES

Children Death Fear Mom Myself Patient Photography
To whom could I put this question (with any hope of an answer)? Does being able to live without someone you loved mean you loved her less than you thought?
ROLAND BARTHES

Answer Hope Love Myself Question Yourself
There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque.
ROLAND BARTHES

Attend People Performance Spectacle Sports Thinking
Architecture is always dream and function, expression of a utopia and instrument of a convenience.
ROLAND BARTHES

Architecture Convenience Dreams Function Instrument
Language is neither reactionary nor progressive; it is quite simply fascist; for fascism does not prevent speech, it compels speech.
ROLAND BARTHES

Language Prevent Progression Speech
The book creates meaning, the meaning creates life.
ROLAND BARTHES

Creation Life Meaning
How does meaning get into the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond?
ROLAND BARTHES

Beyond Image Meaning
If I had to create a god, I would lend him a “slow understanding”: a kind of drip-by-drip understanding of problems. People who understand quickly frighten me.
ROLAND BARTHES

Creation Fear God Problem Scare Slow Understand Understanding
I encounter millions of bodies in my life; of these millions, I may desire some hundreds; but of these hundreds, I love only one.
ROLAND BARTHES

Body Desire Life Love Myself

The realists do not take the photograph for a ‘copy’ of reality, but for an emanation of past reality, a magic, not an art.

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The realists do not take the photograph for a ‘copy’ of reality, but for an emanation of past reality, a magic, not an art.

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