The deserted cathedral of Turin in front of the chapel where the shroud of Christ is kept with the tortured imprint of His body two nuns are discussing. The older one explains to the younger one the scientific phenomenon of this imprint. Beside him a young man on his knees weeps silently. This scene has often come to my mind when I have been faced with an audience or students and someone in the audience in front of a picture I supported as good blurted out the inevitable yat as an expression of discomfort rather than curiosity about the mysterious and inexplicable function of the work of art.
Equally inexplicable as that of faith. Photography causes even more discomfort e-commerce photo editing than the other arts since the veridical reality it depicts is even further from the inexplicable while at the same time it gives the critic maniacs an opportunity to assign it interpret it and finally devour it. Helpless and at the same time arrogant viewers of the image draw what the surface of the photograph offers them and instead of meaning that these constitute an entrance for a pleasure they take them as the final content and prefer the analysis to the pleasure. They call to their aid symbols allusions and allusions and all sorts of their doubts and caress their audience since the acceptance of the inexplicable eludes their prejudices.
However photography like all art impresses them with the obvious subversion of the depicted. Death is not depicted in the photograph so that it can be referred to and interpreted from there. The photograph itself becomes death. Photography like any art does not move by referring to reality. The photo itself creates the emotion. The photographer and every artist utters a poetic speech which does not prove but hints. The discourse approach to art cannot ignore that art begins where discourse ends. That is why it is necessary for the latter to wander in the area of abstraction where the interpretations are negated. The illfated nuns were trying to approach faith from the wrong entrance.