Georges Didi-Huberman's 'L'Image ouverte' explores incarnation in images

Georges Didi-Huberman's book 'L'Image ouverte' (Gallimard) collects studies from 1984-1990 examining incarnation in paganism and Christianity, covering Pliny, Tertullian, the Shroud of Turin, hysteria, and Bataille. The work rejects panoramic art history, instead focusing on singular images that generate paradoxes. Didi-Huberman emphasizes anachronism and 'survivals' (after Warburg), arguing that images engage the body through openings, wounds, and empathy. He contrasts his approach with Alberti's window metaphor, proposing images as doors or wombs. The book also addresses the photographic cult of the Shroud and the persistence of empathetic responses in modernity, referencing Baudelaire, Artaud, and Bataille. Didi-Huberman advocates for a symptom-based method (after Freud) to uncover long-term movements beneath stylistic history.