a photograph’s imaginary power

“…though I do not reject the power of magic, the object of the act of photography is something greater and higher.  It consists in raising the real object to a new power — the imaginary power.  A photographic image, which is indisputably an emanation of reality, is at the same time consubstantial with my fantasies and on a level with my imaginary universe.  Photography promotes reality to the plane of dream; it metamorphoses a real object into its own myth. The lens is the narrow gate through which the elect, those called to become gods and heroes possessed, make their secret entry into my inner Pantheon.”  Michel Tournier, The Erl-King, London: Methuen, 1972, 93-4.

The image is Moritz von Schwind’s 1917 illustration of Goethe’s poem Der Erlkönig of 1815.

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