Le flou et la photographie

Beyond a single historical research and without limiting itself to the analysis of a photographic form, this study approaches the blur in the light of the phenomenological stakes it raises. Based on a meticulous investigation of French historical texts - from the 17th to the 20th century - on the way in which "blur" is mobilized and discussed, the study first looks at its particularities in painting, with a detour through cinema. It thus attempts to better grasp the complexity of the critical fortune of the notion in the 19th century and the history of its legitimization in the photographic field, which really blossomed in the second half of the 20th century. Torn between the primary technical error that it designates and the artistic ambitions that it promises, the blur often engages contradictory stakes: it contributes both to reinforcing the mimêsis and to destroying it; it affirms bourgeois values while also being a revolutionary agent; it is associated with amateur practice as well as with the most accomplished technical expertise. Artistic, moral, social, political, philosophical and psychoanalytical, the debates raised by the form testify to the powerful lever that the blur represents to articulate a critical reflection on the history of photography in the perspective of a philosophy of the glance.