Abstract

Understanding the narrative form of static images means shedding light on the thesis according to which paintings and photographs somehow represent movement. In a reflection that calls into question the eighteenth-century debate on narrative images, the paper proposes an analysis of the depiction of motion that takes into account the reasons why movement and time are grasped beyond the limits of figurative content. These considerations finally lead to a delimitation of the specificity of pictorial narrative, which is by its nature anchored to an immovable present