Visitation (of christian painting)

Nancy proposes a detailed analysis of a painting by Pontormo and discusses the echoes of this representation in contemporary art. His philosophical reading of Christian paining is part of his project to ‘deconstruct Christianity’ - a project whose theoretical foundations are the studies Déclosion: Déconstruction du christianisme 1 [Dis-Enclosure: The Deconstruction of Christianity I] and Adoration: Déconstruction du christianisme 2 [Adoration: The Deconstruction of Christianity II]. Nancy’s goal is to ‘take apart’ the metaphysical foundations of representation - not only in painting but also in the sense of questioning the very principle of representation in Western culture. The philosopher’s critical look at the painting allows him to bring to the surface its singular materiality, which is the suppressed element of religious, theological and metaphysical thought. But at the same time, this kind of thinking does not cease to trouble us, that is to say to ‘haunt’ us like a spectre of ourselves, immersed as we are in the post-metaphysical world.