Punctum Def

Barthes

Punctum—that which punctures. The point that skewers you. That "gets to you." The touch of the tip of the fencer's foil.

To my mind, punctum is the most important thing about photography overall and the most important thing of all things to understand, although you can be a photographer all your life and never encounter the term much less understand it.

Basically an anatomical term for a sharp point or tip, way down on the disambiguation page appears the line, "A concept in the 1980 French philosophy book Camera Lucida." Roland Barthes, the author of that book, his last, which you can read online or buy, coined it as a term related to photographs, yet he doesn't quite satisfactorily define it. At least not succinctly. His project in the book is to discover what he can know about photography by interrogating himself and his own reactions and feelings, which, like our innate sense of God, or goodness, is something that can only be discovered by looking inward.

He begins a discussion of punctum at the end of Part I of the book in Section 18 on page 42, and proceeds to discuss and describe it obliquely over a number of pages up to Section 23, where he slides somewhat petulantly into a sort of grumbling about eroticism and pornography. These sections won't take you very long to read. But on the other hand it's taken me 40 years to read them, and that's only so far. His examples are concrete and he doesn't appear to be trying to be obscure (we English speakers need to remember we're reading a translation), but, at the same time, his meaning winks in and out of, well, um, lucidity. His presentation is tortuous and remains at least somewhat inscrutable.

The punctum, usually a detail or discovered through a detail, is that which "pierces" or "wounds" a particular individual viewer; "it is what I add to the photograph and what is nonetheless already there." [Italics his.] "The photograph touches me if I withdraw it from its usual blah-blah: 'Technique,' 'Reality,' 'Reportage,' 'Art,' etc.: to say nothing, to shut my eyes, to allow the detail to rise of its own accord into affective consciousness."

It is a poignant detail that connects with an individual viewer's emotions or humanity—but only for that viewer. Barthes sets punctum off against studium. A "good" or "docile" photograph in his terms is one in which the objective is clear and the subject presented plainly, and the studium is the way in which such a photograph is culturally "coded," another term he introduced. We might say that the studium is the way you're intended to see the photograph and the punctum is the unruly and mysterious way that it might touch us uniquely despite itself, and despite, perhaps, the photographer's intentions. The punctum is outside of the cultural code in which the photograph was made and in which it was assumed it will be viewed and accepted.

Possibly the most remarkable thing he says about the punctum comes just before the quotation above, on page 53:

Ultimately—or at the limit—in order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes. 'The necessary condition for an image is sight,' Janouch told Kafka; and Kafka smiled and replied: 'We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes.'

What these pages in Barthes, light in words but heavy going, bring up for me is not Kafka, however, but the beginning of what is for my lifetime the only significant translation of the Tao Te Ching, approximately pronounced "dow day chin" and meaning, roughly, "the way and its power":

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
This appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching: With 150 Photographs by Jane English, translated/restated by Gia-Fu Feng and Toinette Lippe)

In a crazy way, these are both talking about the same thing. The studium is the named, the way to the myriad things of this earth, within the realm of desires; the punctum is the nameless, the mystery, the intimation of the eternal. With both Barthes and the first chapter of Old Boy (老子, Laozi, or Lao Tzu, the old man, the old master), my reaction on first reading was, what?

A distinct punctum, that mysterious or fugitive piercing or wounding that lets the mystery of life press a sharp point against your emotions, heart, or history, is the way a random snapshot can be as important to you as photographs that are among the greatest accepted artistic masterpieces of the medium. (Ever noticed how that can happen?)

Here's a link to the book. I recommend it, but at the same time, if my experience is any indication, you might find it frustrating and conceptually or intellectually dense; I think it's better to muse over it, contemplate it if you will—let it be a sort of departure point for your own meditations on the subjects it covers. After all, Barthes is examining himself and his own responses to photographs, which he thinks is the only way he can know them—and it should stand to reason therefore that you don't have to understand his responses and feelings, exactly. You have to understand yours. He can help, but only help.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Not THAT Ross Cameron: "Wow, what a way to start the day. Opened your website, read the COVID piece, then this popped up. You must have just loaded it. I’m on the morning train to work, pre-dawn light showing the underside undulations of the clouds outside, caffeine-less brain still struggling to piece through the fog of slumber. I might have to come back to this one—on the return train ride, if my brain isn’t too fried from work.  ;~) "

John Camp: "I once took bus from Chuncheon, Korea, to Seoul. I was in the Army, had with me my new Pentax Spotmatic, and was shooting all kinds of stuff, which I would print in the base darkroom. Anyway, the bus went past a tall building which I shot out the window as we passed. When I printed the shot, I found that a Caucasian man (probably a soldier) had been sitting in one of the windows, hunched over, staring out, almost exactly at my eye level. I had inadvertently caught his face in perfect focus; and there was something very strange about his expression, both harsh and remote. I have no idea of who he was, and have spent some time wondering what his expression could have meant. And I wonder if he saw me taking his photo, and if he did, if he wondered what the heck I was doing. When I read the Barthes book and his discussion of punctum, I immediately thought of that picture, which I can remember clearly some 55 years later. A simple, routine, thoughtless photo taken more to push the button on the camera than anything else, but which produced this very strange, odd, memorable instant, both striking and meaningless."

darlene: "One day, in my third-grade classroom, while the rest of the students were working, my teacher let me escape to the library after I finished with time to spare. I always looked forward to the library, and there it was one afternoon, staring back at me from an encyclopedia—my future! Doretha Lange’s Migrant Mother was my 'punctum' into photography. It took me years to understand why, and eventually, it surfaced from that deep abyss of my dark matter. It was the jet fuel for my motivation to live the life of a photographer. That experience, at the age of eight, opened my eyes to photography's profound potential. It revealed that it holds mysteries and answers. It illuminated the notion that there's a hidden essence, a 'secret sauce,' within great photography. Great article, Michael. Thank you!"

Yoshi Carroll: "'The Way that can be way’d is not the eternal Way'—my favorite translation of the first line. There are so many translations of the Tao Te Ching, and so much varied commentary, that I’ve come to think of the meaning as existing in the space between the translations. The translation that can be read is not the eternal translation. Which is much the way I feel about using words to describe photographs: rich and rewarding, generative, and eternally unsatisfying. I love the things you're pointing to in this post."

Mike replies: That's a great way to put it. I once heard it claimed that there are more "translations" of the Tao Te Ching written by people who do not speak Chinese than by people who do. Another claim is that it is the second most translated book into English after the Holy Bible. The one I linked, my favorite probably because I encountered it first, was translated by Gia-Fu Feng, who understood the Chinese deeply but did not write English well. His translation was then reworded by editor Toinette Lippe, who does not speak Chinese. She provides an account of the genesis of this version in an introduction to the current edition, which you can read in the Amazon sample. When I wrote about the book here many years ago, we got a response from Ms. Lippe herself. I felt about like I would if I had gotten a personal message from Helen Mirren or Joni Mitchell!

Dave Levingston: "I've tried to read Barthes, but...'you might find it frustrating and conceptually or intellectually dense.' Never was able to make much of it. I confess I had trouble with Sontag too. I guess I'm the dense one."

Bob Rosinsky: "With the exception of its incomprehensible first chapter, Camera Lucida is an excellent book. I used to assign it to my students when I taught college-level photography."

calvin amari: "Barthes’ theory of the opposition between ‘studium’ and ‘punctum’ in a photo is actually about the lightest dose of French theory one can imagine. One can succumb to a lot worse, and I frankly think that it is generally worth some effort and attention for any photography lover. (I like the quip observing that a photo works in practice but questioning whether it works it theory.) If I recall correctly didn't Szarkowski in Looking at Photographs pretty much address punctum and just call it the photo's 'grace note?'"

Comments

[Stan B.]

Think I'll pass, that was enough fun for one afternoon.

[David Bennett]

mike, you should definitely listen to Wagner after that post!

[Bear.]

Creating linguistic definitions of visual images is difficult. As Justice Steward Potter famously said of the meaning of the term "hard-core pornography", "I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that": 378 U.S. at 197, concurring. It's why pictures are said to be worth the proverbial 1000 words...

[Kye Wood]

Holy sh*t Mike. What an insightful post on a such a dense dense subject.

Two things. Aren't there always two things? Hmm.

1. There is an incredible book on forgiveness (that I won't name) that though translated into scores of languages other than English, hit a strange bump. Did you know that the term/notion of 'forgiveness' simply doesn't exist in many cultures?

2. Nothing unites like a common purpose. Purpose is the giver of meaning to life. There is great hope in this world yet.

3. Bonus thing! Because the French dictionary has so few words (is it 1/3 that of the English dictionary?), translations are extremely subjective.

[Tom Burke]

Interesting post, and one that resonated with me immediately. There are many, many 'very good' photographic images (and I've taken one or two myself) but very few that actually speak to me, or take my breath away (and I don't think I've taken any). Increasingly I'm finding that the ones that do are frozen moments that we don't normally see because they're over too fast; the best of these (for me) are often 'birds in flight' images. Alternatively, I'm finding that images of flowers or gardens speak to me - I've got several of the annual 'International Garden Photographer of the Year' books (available from the wonderfully-named igpoty.com website). But photographic portraits - not so much.

Whereas when it comes to art, it's often portraits that hit me. Some of Rembrandt's, for example, or Frans Hals - I was fortunate enough to get to an exhibition of his work in London last year, possibly the biggest ever such exhibition. And some landscape art, widely-defined; for example, I found Turner's 'Fighting Temeraire', although very well known, supremely beautiful when I actually looked at it for real.

I'd like to think that I aspire to such work but I suspect that I don't, really. For example, it takes a lot of work, total knowledge of the camera, innumerable early mornings/late nights and many, many attempts before you take a breath-taking bird picture. I don't think I've got the motivation to do so.

[Rick in CO]

What is the point of a photograph, or any work of art? There are works pleasing in their execution they seduce, others that graphically provoke, but then there are those that strike you to your core, such that you can't ignore them or escape their impact on your psyche. This can vary among viewers, and so becomes problematic when some other person attempts classification. Simplistically, but brutally true, "Art is in the Eye of the Beholder".

[Gar]

Mike, you have nicely distilled the concepts of punctum and studium (I think; not having read the original). I suspect, however, that there is a way to say what Barthes wanted to say, without the "tortuous" and "inscrutable" language (to use your words). But clear language might not seem as profound.

[ugo bessi]

I don't understand why the Americans like Barthes so much. It's typical French "philosophy": big-mouthed phrases which at the end mean nothing;"faire des phrases", as they say. His only decent book is Incidents, which I once peeped into at Joseph Gibert, when there was still a Joseph Gibert bookstore in Paris; at least there are no phrases there, but it casts a rather disgusting shade on his personality.

[Dave_lumb]

What's needed when it comes to making pictures is a little less conversation and a bit more action.

[Well, the conversation part is the part we do here.

Along these lines, my former teacher Mark L. Power described the working process as, "Think, shoot, think." The shooting part is important, but so is the thinking part. --Mike]

[Speed]

Reading this post, I thought instantly of the famous photo often referred to as the "Kent State Massacre."

Wikipedia

Searching for it now, I see that many different versions (crops) have been published over the years and many leave out bystanders appearing to casually walk past the scene -- not important for a front page perhaps but certainly important for a complete telling of the tragedy.

[Thomas Rink]

tl;dr - nobody knows why certain pictures work, whereas others don't. Corollary: It is impossible, as a conscious and planned effort, to take a picture that works. If you happen to succeed, be grateful for the gift that's been given to you. Don't question your success - "warranty void if seal is broken".

[Mark Sampson]

Photographs are mysterious things. One can sympathize with an intellectual like Barthes trying understand them verbally; even though he knew that he was doomed to fail, he gave it a good try.
But words are the wrong tool to comprehend the mystery... what is the right tool? I don't know- which is probably one reason that I continue to make photographs.

[Joe]

Another, albeit completely antithetical, approach was exemplified by Minor White, Wynn Bullock, and others - developing one’s own depth and insight and then letting images happen spontaneously. Of course, that also imposes pretty strict post hoc curation to weed out the images that don’t quite make it.

After reading Barthes and Sontag, I had the sense that both strained to impose an intellectualized theoretical system upon what is essentially an intuitive, non-verbal medium. That can be a useful adjunct to serious image-making and art, but it is untenable as the foundational guide, tending ultimately toward the formulaic and constraining. To me, it is the modern equivalent of the French Academy in the 1800s, which suppressed the “unorthodoxies” of the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, etc. whom we now value much more.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

I tend to grouse about weird made-up terminology (when we all still know who made it up!), but for doing difficult thinking, there's something to be said for making up your own term. It helps keep you from being sucked into the vortex around standard terms!

Of course, both people whose ideas turn out to be of interest, and those who don't, are likely to make up terms, either for the reason above or just because they think that's how you're successful as a modern philosopher. Doesn't help to sort the two types out, sadly!

[Moose]

”Society is concerned to tame the Photograph, to temper the madness which keeps threatening to explode in the face of whoever looks at it.”

Substitute Roland Barthes for Society in this start of his final chapter and it becomes more accurate.

As it happens, I ran across a free used copy of Camera Lucida in New England last Fall. I’d always, in a very low key way, felt I was failing in some way as a photographer by not reading it. Fate then stepped in a second time, landing us in an AirB&B at the end of a road in rural Maine, as we self quarantined; one may hardly stay with friends when COVID positive.

I read Camera Lucida in a very leisurely way, mostly sitting on a deck looking out over woods and meadows, with a distant view of the Penobscot River. I interspersed reading it with The Pocket Book of American Painting a rather good book from 1950 and a book on drawing.

This may be significant, reading Barthes out in sun and open air, his photos interspersed with other forms of visual art and vistas of nature.

I came to the concusion that this book is much more about Roland Barthes than about photography. As I read, I found my self more and more thinking it must be so, that he was projecting his own inner material on images, then acting as through it was external. So, I looked him up. Indeed, as I suspected, he was gay and lived with his mother for 60 years. In addition, he was very sickly in youth and early adulthood, which dovetails nicely with some of his image choices.

There are, of course, many ways to understand this book. For me, I was a public exposition of his on going struggle to understand himself, although apparently not particularly effective.

Virtually all the photos in the book are of people, and either portraits or posed, in the sense that the subjects are interacting with camera/photographer. I thought at first one photo was strangely missig people. Look closely at CHARLES CLIFFORD: THE ALHAMBRA (GRENADA). 1854-1856. There is a small person (child?), alone, outside the fancy abode. His comment is "I want to live there ...", the inner feeling of one who is an outsider.

This was his last book. He died shortly after in a traffic accident. Suicide by vehicle is a possibility that seems not unlikely, after reading the book, especially in his mood after his mother’s death.

[David Comdico]

Barthes’ punctum is a kind of Bloomian misprision, a creative misreading. It is a term that is also, like much of Barthes, sexually charged. It always causes me to think of The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Both works play by a different set of rules than what they describe (the title, for example, is more studium then punctum). Barthes’ writing is playful and his many double meanings is what makes him an interesting read.