Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (44.2011)

Within an iconological reading of the motif, out
initial position was an investigation into the trans-
position from text to image, enabling us to identiiy
a number of iconographie peculiarities and difhcul-
ties. This reading hrst drew our attention to the fact
that in the iconographie élaboration and process of
transposition, redundant narrative éléments were
not included and the touch between Jesus and the
Haemorrhoissa was placed at the centre. This touch
is, however, never shown as one-dimensional, and
nor did it ever develop into a hxed pattern. Different
moments are Condensed into a single image: "TAn*
Ař /wwř/yAr gf Ai* /A o/ (TAtA
PPA, ^7
The centrality of the touch identihed through the
iconography in its turn conhrms the importance of
the tactile within the anthropologically identihed
affective patterns from which the motif crystallizes.
The touch médiates the affective patterns. But the
speeihe form that the touch takes in the PwyogrqpA'r
motif indicates that in the further development of
the motif, the generative effect of the touch must
have been feit as more primordial. With regard to
the early Christian représentations, this can certainly
be situated within their Roman-Hellenic context of
origin, in which the Jewish cultural résonances move
to the background, and the miraculous dimension
— in a worldview still coloured by magic — moves to
the foreground.
This approach contributes to an understand-
ing of this "consonance", synergistically afhrm-
ing, reinforcing and developing iconological and
anthropological intuitions. In this methodological
synergy and in the framework of this particular in-

vestigation, anthropology can, in particular, be used
to open the image to dimensions of meaning that
cannot be "seen" unambiguously, let alone "read"
pictorially. An anthropological reading rehnes the
immaterial dimensions of signihcance that shimmer
through the motif and that the "image" cannot di-
rectly "represent", but which do inform its affective
grounds of origin. An anthropological élucidation
thus in the hrst instance does not lead away from the
image, but looks at the opaque zone yhw/ the
image is incarnated. In this way, it can contribute to
an opening up of the image to oblique and not only
direct approaches. It should be apparent from this
essay that an anthropological injection can contribute
to a "fragilized" iconology, that does not fearfully
ban association, the unconscious, the drive-directed
visual from its held of enquiryA Conversely, we have
already stated that iconological study can complé-
ment anthropological research, in the sense that
images are "reality-constituting" in specific ways, and
therefore unlock dimensions of signihcance relevant
to anthropology.
This last considération, however, charges us to
conclude as follows: between and amidst this cross-
fertilization there are always the "images". They
cannot be incorporated, they are not found where
an anthropologically identihed "underside" - basal
layer — and iconologically identihed "upperside"
— iconographie expression - seek to place them, nor
where both approaches meet. Although we catch a
sideways glimpse through the interchanges of iconol-
ogy and anthropology, they only really light up m
their stubborn BPAPPAP.
EygAP Py P. APAn/ív

5' DIDI-HUBERMAN 1990 (see m note 6), p. 36.

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