Dialectical images and anachronism in art history (according to Georges Didi-Huberman)

Abstract

One of the main theoretical proposals by Georges Didi-Huberman is his intent of thinking art’s history as an anachronistic discipline. That is possible starting from Walter Benjamin concept of dialectical image as a method for historical research. Because the historian’s procedure opposes heterogeneous fragments, ruins and heterogeneous objects to obtain a non-synthetic image of the past. This procedure retrieves all that remains invincible for historical progress; but in spite of that, refuses to disappear and remains between the ruins and ashes of history. This method makes possible for Didi-Huberman to introduce images’ anachronism on art history supported on the dialectical montage of images. It implies to question the dominant progressive temporality of art’s history, and also, to find epistemological alternatives for the image as knowledge about art and culture.

Keywords

• history
• memory
• images
• anachronism
• dialectics