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Minor preoccupations, major endeavors: The community of poets and painters

In Au fond des images (2003), Jean-Luc Nancy introduces concepts about the image, pertinent to understanding the minor genre of poets’ writings on painting. Nancy begins by stating that the image is sacred, clarifying that the sacred should not be confused with the religious, which is based on rituals. The sacred signifies that which is separated, excluded, distanced. The image’s attraction is derived from this, from its untouchable nature. Because of its separation from the viewer, the image inspires a desire for intimacy, and draws the spectator to it. Poets’ texts on painting constitute minor forms: prefaces to catalogs, criticism, or poems that are verbal transpositions of visual objects (ekphrasis). These minor forms often express major preoccupations. In this essay, we address Mark Strand, Michel Deguy, Nicolas Pesquès, Yves Bonnefoy, and T. Alan Broughton from this perspective of a desire for contact in their efforts to develop their aesthetic and ethical principles through the gaze.