Summary of Michel Foucault's The Order of Things

By IRB Media

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#1 The painter is standing a little back from his canvas. He is glancing at his model, and perhaps considering whether to add some finishing touch. The arm holding the brush is motionless between canvas and paints. The skilled hand is suspended in mid-air, waiting on the painter’s gaze.

#2 The painting is a representation of the invisible space behind the painting. It is the space in which we are, and which we are. The painter is looking at us, and his face is turned toward one shoulder. The spectators can easily assign an object to the point he is staring at because it is they themselves who are that point.

#3 The painter's gaze is a simple matter of pure reciprocity. We are looking at a picture in which the painter is looking out at us. However, this slender line of reciprocal visibility encompasses a whole complex network of uncertainties, exchanges, and feints.

#4 The painter’s eyes seize hold of the spectator, force him to enter the picture, and assign him a place at once privileged and inescapable. The painter then projects his luminous tribute onto the inaccessible surface of the canvas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822502963

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

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Insights on Michel Foucault's The Order of Things

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The painter is standing a little back from his canvas. He is glancing at his model, and perhaps considering whether to add some finishing touch. The arm holding the brush is motionless between canvas and paints. The skilled hand is suspended in mid-air, waiting on the painter’s gaze.

#2

The painting is a representation of the invisible space behind the painting. It is the space in which we are, and which we are. The painter is looking at us, and his face is turned toward one shoulder. The spectators can easily assign an object to the point he is staring at because it is they themselves who are that point.

#3

The painter's gaze is a simple matter of pure reciprocity. We are looking at a picture in which the painter is looking out at us. However, this slender line of reciprocal visibility encompasses a whole complex network of uncertainties, exchanges, and feints.

#4

The painter’s eyes seize hold of the spectator, force him to enter the picture, and assign him a place at once privileged and inescapable. The painter then projects his luminous tribute onto the inaccessible surface of the canvas.

#5

The painting is a mirror that reflects the spectators themselves, who are the only ones able to see it. It is a representation of a room full of paintings, but it is the only one that is visible. It is a representation of the double that has been denied us up to this point.

#6

The mirror is not reflecting anything of what is there in the same space as itself. It is not reflecting the visible, but rather the invisible. It is not reflecting the same things as the painting, but it is still a duplication.

#7

The mirror reflects what is invisible both because of the picture’s structure and because of its existence as painting. It reflects what all the figures in the painting are looking at so intensely, or at least those who are looking straight ahead.

#8

We must pretend not to know who is reflected in the depths of the mirror, and interrogate that reflection in its own terms. We must erase those proper names and preserve the infinity of the task.

#9

The mirror functions as a tracer line that connects the reflection to what is being reflected. It stands adjacent to a doorway that forms an opening in the far wall of the room. The man in the doorway is an emissary from the evident yet hidden space.

#10

The entire cycle of representation is presented to us in the spiral shell: the gaze, the palette and brush, the canvas innocent of signs, the paintings, the reflections, and the real man. Then the representation dissolves again: we can only see the frames and the light that is flooding the pictures from outside.

#11

The painting is the principal theme of the composition. The object of this painting is the Infanta, with her flared pink and grey dress. The princess is looking straight out at the spectator, and her attendant is looking at her.

#12

There are two centers around which the picture may be organized, according to whether the fluttering attention of the spectator decides to settle in this place or in that. The princess is standing upright in the center of a St Andrew's cross, which is revolving around her with its eddies of courtiers, maids of honor, animals, and fools. But this pivoting movement is frozen by a spectacle that would be absolutely invisible if those same characters were not offering us a mirror image.

#13

The painting is a spectacle because of the two sovereigns. They are the most unreal, and most compromised, of all the painting’s images. They provide the center around which the entire representation is ordered.

#14

The great volute that surrounds the perimeter of the studio is a reflection of the painter's gaze, which projects right round to the finished paintings. But the lines that run through the depth of the picture are not complete; they lack a segment of their trajectories because the king is absent.

#15

The space that representation opens up is the space of classical representation. It represents itself in all its elements, with its images, eyes, faces, and gestures. But there is an essential void: the necessary disappearance of that which is its foundation.

#16

The sixteenth century was a period of great intellectual activity, and the concept of resemblance was extremely rich. It was resemblance that guided exegesis and the interpretation of texts, and it was resemblance that organized the play of symbols.

#17

Convenience is