Pictures of the past

Abstract

This article explores the key moments in Benjamin's and Barthes's analyses of the cultural significance of the photograph. For Benjamin these are: the optical unconscious, the transmission of aura, the representation of cultural and political decay and proto-surrealist political commentary. For Barthes they are: the techniques of the photographer, the studium, the punctum and the ecstasy of the image. These rather different approaches to photography reveal a common concern with history. Both authors have written about the nature of historical understanding, and photography has provided both with a powerful metaphor. What emerges from their analyses of photographs is that each evokes a double moment of historical awareness; of being both in the present and in the past. For Benjamin this is the `spark of contingency' with which the aura of past existence shines in the present. For Barthes it is the `ça-a-été', the emotional stab of awareness that what is present and visible in the photograph is irretrievably lost in the past.

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