L’image avant l’image : réflexions sur le colloque

Abstract

It is usually considered that symbolic function is a trait of modern human. And this way, namely in Europe, the coming out of figurative representations on various supports, preeminently appearing as a symbolic behaviour, falls in with Homo sapiens occurring at the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic. If this fact seems well established, however it looks likely that the emergence of image and aesthetic feeling has to be dated back to the Lower Palaeolithic. Indeed, the Acheulean biface shows a morphological symmetry and a remarkable aesthetic. Whenever this tool exclusively constitutes the lithic assemblage of a culture, as it is the case in the site of Nadaouiyeh Aïn Askar (central Syria), it can be suggested that it conveys a strong symbolic power. The question is, was this harmonic aspect of the shape really conceived by the tool maker or does it result from an unconscious phenomenon related to the knapping of the artefact? If it is indeed a conscious and desired symmetry, it is not impossible that the artisan tried to project his own image into the tool. The second stage during the genesis of figurative pictures issuing from mental images appears as Human turned his inner reality into graphic expression. Pictures most certainly were born from a surge of intellectual need just as tools had appeared, long before, to meet vital necessities. The rock surface may have stood for a privileged interface for accepting an image full of signification. Starting from the fact that Man is both a biological and a social being, the use of pictures might have worked as a means of reinforcing the cohesion of the two entities. In the course of time, figurative images as they appeared and developed, might have enabled the individual to better fit into his social group. Image has truly been giving life to matter and substance, the ultimate and crucial stage of humanisation.