Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that surrealism has had a profound impact on postmodern philosophy. The skepticism that surrealism brought to bear on rationality and its revisionist influence on theories of the subject have been received in philosophical literature through writings such as those of Bataille or Artaud. However, current discourse has largely failed to recognize the wider influence surrealism has exerted on the theoretical study of the image. This essay aims to show the relevance of a surrealistic understanding of the image for contemporary French philosophy, and to argue that it is most of all the substantial contribution surrealist painting has made in pointing up the obsessive character of the image that is in fact a major influence on the debate concerning the crisis of and in pictorial representation.