Georg Simmel Reappears: "The Aesthetic Significance of the Face"

Author(s): James T. Siegel

Source: Diacritics, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer, 1999), pp. 100-113
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1566457
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GEORG SIMMEL REAPPEARS
"THEAESTHETICSIGNIFICANCE
OF THE FACE"

JAMEST. SIEGEL

Michael Landmann,the editor of Georg Simmel's collected works, tells this anecdote
abouthim. Simmel had submitteda piece called "PsychologicalandEthnologicalStud-
ies on Music" as his doctoraldissertation.His examiningcommitteerefused to accept
it. As the Americantranslatorof the piece retells Landmann'sanecdote,they

insteadgrantedthedegreefor a previouslywrittendistinguishedstudyon Kant's

monadology.WhileZupitza[the committee'schair] wouldhave been willing to
accept this study on music, if it werefirst "clearedof the numerousmisspell-
ings and stylistic errors,"Helmholtzwas more skeptical: "Regardlessof my
other reservations,Simmelis entirelytoo confidentin his conclusions.And the
manner in which he presented the faculty with this piece which is so full of
misspellings and stylistic superficialities,which evidentlywas not proofread,
in whichsentences whichare citedfromforeign languages can hardlybe deci-
phered, does not attest to a great deal of reliability.Insofar,however,as he has
quiteafew illustriouspredecessorsfor whathe evidentlytakesto be the method
or lack of method of scientific study, he may let them serve as some kind of
personal excuse.I, however,believe thatwe will be doing hima greaterservice
if we do not encourage himfurther in this direction."[Landmann17]'

It seems it is Simmel's fate to be dismissed yet still to be recognized,if not for the work
at hand,for somethingelse. Donald Levine, for instance,notes thatin TalcottParsons's
attemptto recuperateGermanand French sociology for the English-speakingworld,
there is no mention of Simmel. He says furtherthat his studies of art "are not well
known by art historiansand critics"just as his work in the philosophy of history is
ignoredby historians.Simmel died in 1919, but thereare still recurrent"discoveries"of
Simmel, as witnessed by the sporadicburstsof translationsinto English. The Philoso-
phy of Money, for instance, published in 1900, was not translatedinto English until
1978, the famous essay "The Stranger"in 1950, and so on. Just as Simmel left no stu-
dents who workedin the way he did andno school of sociology, the revivalsof Simmel,
which usually aremarkedby a sense of anticipation("nowwe will not only learnsome-
thing;we will carryit forward"),tend to die away withoutleaving important(or at least
recognizable)effects.

1. TheAmericantranslatoradds this to the anecdote: "[a]s becomes evidentfrom our text,

Simmelmusthavepublished his study withoutpaying heed to his professors,sincefootnotes and
textualquotationsreflect the shortcomingsalready criticized. Whereit was possible to discern
Simmel'slikelysource,fuller biographicalinformationwas supplied.Wealso compileda bibliog-
raphyof the workswhich Simmelmighthave usedfor his study.(AppendixB). Hence, chaotic as
the documentationmay still appear, it is already 'improved'over Simmel's original" [Etzkorn
127-28nl].

100 diacritics 29.2: 100-13

 It is difficultto quote Simmel and to carryon his work throughthe usual modifica-
tions of somethingalreadyin place. Thereis, instead,the attemptto presenthim "none-
theless."Thus Donald Levine, to whom the English-speakingworld is much indebted
for his translationsandpresentationsof Simmel, says: "[t]hepresentationof a coherent
accountof the whole of Simmel's social thoughtis complicatedby the fact thatcoher-
ence is generallynot consideredto be one of the hallmarksof Simmel's writing"[11].
Levine writes this sentence in a piece he entitles "The Structureof Simmel's Social
Thought."There are indeed a number of attemptsto say what it is that Simmel was
trying to do, as thoughreadershad decided that Simmel is unclearbut that "nonethe-
less" we can discern somethingof greatvalue-just as his thesis committeein refusing
his dissertationdecided "nonetheless"that anotherpiece would do. If Simmel did not
deserve a degree for a piece on the ethnology and psychology of music, surely he de-
served it for a work on Kant's monadology. It seems to be Simmel's talent to divert
interest from whatever he is saying to something else-and always to something of
interestand importance.Hence the fact thathis influence is much greaterthan appears
from the relative lack of citations to him and the absence not merely of a school of
scholarshipbut of a style of writing traceableto him. His influence disappearsat the
momentit is most stronglyfelt. Andjust when he seems to be out of sight, forgotten,or
used up, he reappears.2
Max Webergives us, if not an explanation,perhapsan illustrationof the effect of
Simmel. He began a criticalassessmentof him which he never finished out of fear that
it would preventSimmel from finding an appointmentin a Germanuniversity.It starts
this way:

In evaluating the work of Georg Simmel one's responsesprove to be highly

contradictory.On the one hand, one is boundto react to Simmel'sworksfrom
a point of view that is overwhelminglyantagonistic.... Crucial aspects of his
methodologyare unacceptable.His substantiveresultsmustwith unusualfre-
quency be regardedwith reservations,and not seldom they must be rejected
outright.In addition, his mode of exposition strikes one at times as strange,
and often it is at the very least uncongenial.
On the other hand, one finds oneself absolutely compelled to affirmthat
this mode of expositionis simplybrilliantand, what is more important,attains
results that are intrinsic to it and not to be attained by any imitator.Indeed,
nearly everyone of his worksabounds in importantnew theoreticalideas and
the most subtle observations.[xlv-xlvi]

It is, of course, a questionhow workwhose methodologyis suspectcan at the same time

be said to be brilliantand to "attainresults . . . intrinsicto it." It is not a question of
separatingout the fallacious andusing the remainder.It is ratherthatSimmel somehow
stimulates thinking even when he is wrong. Weberuses the verb "stimulate"several
times and insists that it applies to the false as well as the true:Simmel's books, Weber
says, belong to a specialcategory,one thatincludesfallaciousargumentsthathelppeople
to think. "Simmel,"according to Weber,"even when he is on the wrong path, fully
deserves his reputationas one of the foremost of thinkers,a first rate stimulatorof
academicyouth and academiccolleagues."3
2. It may be thatJapan is an exceptionto my characterizationsof the treatmentof Simmel.
Yonedaand especially Takata'ssystematizationsof Simmelare not matchedin the Anglophone
world, or so I learnfrom readingMasamichiShimmei[ "GeorgSimmel'sInfluenceon Japanese
Thought"],not having access myself to the Japanese texts.
3. Qtd. in Levine, Introductionto Georg Simmel: On Individualityand Social Formsxlvi.
Weber'sassessmentof Simmelseems validatedeven in some of his translations.Thefirst transla-

diacritics / summer 1999 101

 In my own experience, I turnto Simmel not for explanationbut because, when I
don't know what to make of something,I thinkthat Simmel must have alreadythought
aboutit. "Simmel"comes to designatea set of readingsone turnsto for theircapacityto
suggest. Once the suggestions have been made, it is difficult to see how one actually
uses them. Simmel is the sociologist of modernity (though maybe that is true of all
sociologists). Modernitytoday is not modernitythen."Nonetheless,"whatSimmel says
abouta subjecthas set me thinking,even if he has led me to conclusions thathe might
well disagreewith were he given a chance. How, indeed, one can be misled into a right
conclusion, which means led to a conclusion where one disagreeswith whomeverone
has been led by, is the subjectof this piece. Perhapsit is just for his capacityto mislead
us to a point wherewe wantto go thatSimmel dropsout of sight-not to say,"is forgot-
ten"-so often.
If the tracesof Simmel disappearas his influenceis felt, it is unlikelythatone could
reconstructthem from the final text. I am obliged, therefore,to give an example from
my experienceandto tell you aboutrethinking"TheAesthetic Significanceof the Face"
andhow it led me to leave Simmel behind,all the while being heavily in his debt.I read
many of Simmel's essays in the 1960s. I often thought about them and occasionally
rereadthem.The translationof ThePhilosophyof Moneyinto English was the occasion
for me to give a seminaron the book in the early 1980s, on the first occasion with the
critic Richard Klein. Aside from that, Simmel disappearedfor me until I arrivedin
Japanin 1997. Then, lacking Japaneseand relying all the more on what I could see, I
noticed a discrepancybetween the representationof faces in Japanand the appearance
of Japanesefacial expressionsin actuallife. I thoughtof Simmel's essay "TheAesthetic
Significance of the Face."
I had seen billboardsin the Tokyo subway,ads that announced"Mr.D," with the
face of a middle-agedman, apparentlyJapanese,wearing an expression of confident
satisfactionthatI had seen in Americanot only in advertisementsbut also in life. In my
five monthsin Tokyo,on the contrary,I had never seen a Japanesewith this expression
on his face. I began to look for otherexamples both of representationsof the face that
never appearedin life and of facial expressions that seemed to be importedfrom else-

tion in English is entitled "MoralDeficiencies as DeterminingIntellectual Functions" and is

noted in the bibliographyto Wolff,ed., Georg Simmel, 1858-1918, on whose authorityI relyfor
the citation. Wolffincludes the anonymoustranslator'snote: "[t]his article is part of the second
volumeof the author'sEinleitungin die Moralwissenschaft[sic].... Thereaderfindshere hardly
more than a general outline of the original article. Fromwant of space it has been considerably
shortenedwithoutbeing able to consult the author" [379]. David Frisbypoints out that more of
Simmel'sworkswerepublished in the UnitedStates at the beginningof the centurythan those of
any other Germansociologist. Yet,of course, Simmelfaded from view,only to be revivedseveral
times.
Ambivalenceabout Simmel extended even to his appearance. Someone who attended his
lecturesin 1910 felt that "[w]hen he began to speak he wasfascinating and repellentalike, as if
surroundedby a halo of solitude and disgust."Albert Salomon describes listening to Simmel
speak as an experiencein the hearing of writing:

Hereallydidnotaddresstheaudienceinthereciprocal giveandtakeof a goodteacher;

he was talkingin a monologue.His wordscamefromsomewhere,froman opaque
experiencelikelightning,shockingandfascinatingalike.He seemedto be a stranger,
anadventurer in ideasandanactorwhosegestures,of his handsin particular,
feigned
thespontaneityof histhinkinginclass,whilehe probably
performed thesamegestures
everytimehe gavethecourse.Throughout my readingof Simmel'sworksandlaterin
my teaching Simmel, I never got rid of the ambivalentreactionof fascinationand re-
pulsion. [93]

102
where. I found the first in Japaneseart.The second I found while watchingtelevision,
most notablybaseball,but also on varietyshows. Broadcastsof baseballgames in Japan
have a rhetoricalform differentfrom those in America.In Japan,aftereach significant
action, the cameraturnsto the manager.He is calm, assured,waitingwith confidence to
see what will happen next. It is perhapsthe face of a benevolent father,judging but
forgiving. But it is quintessentiallythe face of the Americanbaseballmanager;at least
in part.The JapanesemanagersI saw on television did not change their expressions;
this is not the usual case in America.Japanesemanagershad takenone expressionfrom
the repertoireof Americanbaseball facial expressionswithout the others and, holding
onto it, impressedon me a sense of deja vu.
The manager'sexpressionis imported,as indeed are many gesturesof the players.
This, I thought,was possible because,unless thereare seriousdisruptionsof the game-
as when, for instance,a pitcherhits a batterwith a wild ball-no one in baseballbows.
The defining gestureof Japanesehierarchyis absent.The constantreturnto the face of
the managerassures viewers that hierarchicalauthorityis nonethelesspresent.An ex-
pression of benevolentshrewdnessis called for, and the Americanrepertoireoffers one
in the absence of a Japaneseversion.
However,even if one can say thatthe usual gesturesthatgovern social interaction
do not apply, leaving open the possibility of using expressions that otherwise would
have no place, it is still difficultto know how facial expressionscan be translatedfrom
one cultureto another.Ordinarilythese are takenas the display of interiorstatesand a
means of supplementingthe communicationthatoccursthroughlanguage.To transfera
facial expressionimplies thatone adds somethingto the repertoryavailable,a little like
borrowinga wordfrom a foreign language.But it also raises the questionof whether,as
in the case of the word, the expressionis given sense. Is it inhabitedby its wearer,as it
were? Does it, in other words, express the sentimentsthat I for one seemed to think it
did; or,for thatmatter,any sentimentsat all? And if so, how can one explainthe circum-
stances in which facial expressions might be more than part of a culturalstorehouse?
How can they become expressionsof the individual,as Simmel might well have put it?
We learn our facial expressions throughimitation,mainly without the awareness
thatwe aredoing so. They are confirmedfor us by the responsethatthey elicit. Simmel,
in his essay on the face, says, "[a]esthetically,there is no otherpartof the body whose
wholeness can as easily be destroyedby the disfigurementof only one of its elements"
[276]. To take on a new facial expressionalways risks disruptingthe "absoluteunity of
the meaning"the humanface displays.To take on a foreign expression,takenout of the
context of the back and forthof immediateexchange of looks, meansone might appear
to lack such unity.In effect, one risks appearingderanged.Yet theAmericanexpression
is worn by a Japaneseand given the place of authority.
I turnedback to Simmel on the "aestheticsignificance of the face." Simmel, typi-
cally enough for him, notices something no one else had, something that is, at first,
quiteordinary."Thehumanface is of uniqueimportancein the fine arts"[276]. He then
asks a questionno one else had ever posed, at least to my knowledge:"Whatis it about
the humanface that makes this possible?" [276]. He adds anotherquestion alongside
this one: "Does the face have certain intrinsic aesthetic qualities that account for its
significance as a subjectin art?"[276].
His answer to the latter question is yes. He delineates what one might call the
reasonthatthe face is able to signify as no otherpartof the body can. In askingwhy the
face appearsas the preferredsubjectof the fine arts,Simmel in effect asks why the face
is the preeminenthumansite of signification,because in his essay it is for that reason
that it is so often depicted in art. He speaks of the "aesthetics"of the face even apart
from painting,in life. The face has a certainunity thatnot only otherpartsof the body

diacritics / summer 1999 103

lack but that cannot be found anywhereelse in the "perceptibleworld":"[w]ithinthe
perceptibleworld, there is no other structurelike the humanface which merges such a
great variety of shapes and surfaces into an absolute unity of meaning" [277]. What
connects the parts of the face is, on the one hand, their physical setting, the fact that
facial featuresare manifoldand set near one another,and on the otherhand,the "soul"
(the word in Germanis Seele, and it is sometimes translated"psyche"):"... the soul,
lying behind the features of the face and yet visible in them, is the interaction,the
referenceof one to the other,of these separatefeatures"[277]. The soul is "visible"in
the face; it furnishesthe assumptionof the linkage of its features. Simmel furnishes
several clues as to why such unity exists and why, then, the face makes soul visible.
Thereis firsthis assumptionof the aesthetic.The face is an aestheticstructurefrom the
beginning."Foraestheticeffect, a form must embraceits partsand hold them together.
Any stretchingand spreadingof its extremitiesis ugly because it interruptsand weak-
ens theirconnectionwith the centerof the phenomenon;thatis, it weakensthe perceiv-
able dominationof the mind over the circumferenceof our being" [277]. Simmel's
phenomenology ends in the revelation of the mind's control over the boundariesof
being. It is an aestheticproblemfrom the beginning.The ugliness of certaingesturesis
not a questionof taste. It is ratherthatthe aestheticdetermineswhetherone thinksthat
thereis or is not controlof the face. "Thelargegesturesof baroquefigures,whose limbs
appearto be in danger of breakingoff, are repugnantbecause they disavow what is
properlyhuman-the absoluteencompassmentof each detail by the power of the cen-
tralego" [277]. One might readthis thinkingthatthe gesturesof the baroquecannotgo
beyond certain limits. Should they do so, the result is a representationof something
inhuman.Simmel slides between art and life throughoutthe essay. Should one exceed
the limits of facial gesture,as when one gapes or stares,thereis the "indication"of "'the
loss of senses,' the spiritualparalysis,the momentaryabsenceof spiritualcontrol"[278].
Shifting between artisticrepresentationsand actualgesturesraises the questionof
Simmel's aesthetics.We know well thatin certainculturesgaping and staringarepartof
the culturalrepertoire;they are not indicationsof loss of control by the ego. Simmel,
whose examples referto Westernrepresentation,thoughhe names no particularartists,
here imposes a particularaestheticcontent.
But his category of the aesthetic is largerand more general.The aesthetics of the
face refersto more thanpaintingand sculpture.It governsthe use of the face itself. The
"properlyhuman,"the person-centeredcontrol of facial features,is made known aes-
thetically.The Kantianaesthetic,and Kantalong with Schopenhaueris the philosopher
to whom Simmel is closest, is markedby its divorce from usefulness. It is not that the
face, fromthis perspective,signals particularmeanings,but thatit is, first of all, merely
pleasing. When it is so, when it has an aestheticcharacter,one assumes there is some-
thing thatcontrolsthe unity which Simmel assertsis at the basis of its aestheticquality.
The "soul,"the "ego"areinferredfromthe aesthetic,whetherin paintingor in actuality.
Certainfacial gestures,which stretchthe "circumference"of being, put one outside
the "properlyhuman."But this movementis characteristicof modem life, accordingto
Simmel. In his famous essay "The Conflict of Modem Culture,"he explains how it is
that life in modem times continuallyexceeds its forms. "Life" in that sense is larger
thanthe "properlyhuman"as it is defined in particulartimes and places.
Simmel's aestheticanalyses indeedoften revolve arounda notion of symmetry."In
the symmetricalstructure,eitherof the two partscan be inferredfromthe otherandeach
points towarda higherprinciplewhich governs them both. In all situations,rationalism
strivesfor symmetry"[279]. Symmetry,the expressionof rationality,is "anti-individu-
alistic."On the one hand, the face is inherentlysymmetrical.The manipulationof its
symmetryand,indeed,its unity is at the heartof its capacityto convey impressions.The

104
features of the face are integratedwith each other. Only a slight change of position
causes "the impressionof intense modifications."
These changes are, it seems, largelywithin the boundsof establishedform. But the
face, as Simmel presentsit, impressesone as having a fragile stability.The very sensi-
tivity of the face to slight changes invokes, for Simmel, the "ideal of conservationof
energy."Which implies that there is much more energy to be used than is normallyat
use. And, further,that one sees in the face an explosive power precisely in the refined
qualityof facial expressions.The less motion it takesto alterfacial expression,the more
power is left to breakthroughforms.The breakingof form is inherentin the logic of the
face; the very aesthetic characterof the face carries with it the implication-and the
actuality-of disruptionas the behindof the face becomes not only a locationof control
but a repositoryof energy.
To this point, Simmel explains how the face, considered as an aesthetic object,
operates.He gives us somethinglike the rhetoricalbasis or the technology of the face.
The face, as an aestheticobject, is unified andgives the impressionof somethingbehind
it responsiblefor its unity. Beyond its unity, however, or, in my estimation,before it,
thereis anotherfactorwhich makesone thinkthatthe face is the site "of the veiling and
unveilingof the soul."Veiling and unveilingare first of all an effect of the paintedeye.
The eye is differentfrom other facial features.It is, says Simmel, importantnot only
because of its relationto the totalityof facial characteristics,butbecause of "theimpor-
tanceof the gaze of the personsportrayedin interpretingand structuringthe space in the
pictureitself' [281]. Whatthe paintedgaze takes in affects the way a viewer interprets
the space of a painting. It is, again, a formal characteristicof the eye that allows this
structuring.As I understandSimmel's remark,it does not matter,for instance, whose
gaze it is in the paintinginsofar as the gaze affects spatial structure.The eye sees ap-
pearancesbefore they are subjectto interpretation.The eye, he says:

... accomplishes its finest, purelyformal end as the interpreterof mere ap-
pearance, which knows no going back to any pure intellectualitybehind the
appearance.It is precisely this achievementwith which the eye, like theface
generally,gives us the intimation,indeed the guarantee,that the artisticprob-
lems of pure perceptionand of thepure, sensory image of things-if perfectly
solved-would lead to the solution of those otherproblemswhich involvesoul
and appearance.Appearancewould then become the veiling and unveilingof
the soul. [281, emphasis in original]

It is precisely because the eye sees only appearancesand does not refer "behind"itself
that appearance,says Simmel, leads to the veiling and unveiling of the soul.
The eye in painting"sees"only appearances.By contrastour experience of vision
in life makes it difficult to separatewhat we see from a synthesis, if not of interpreta-
tion, at least of contextualizationand of elementarysense. But the eye in paintinghas a
formal role. It merely sees appearances:"the eye penetrates,it withdraws,it circles a
room, it wanders, it reaches as though behind the wanted object and pulls it toward
itself' [281]. The eye structurespaintedspace by registeringwhat thereis to registerin
the painting.It divorces this registrationfrom interpretation,making no referencebe-
yond or "behind"appearances.Appearancesare thus left in a merely formalrelationto
one another.This, as I readthese sentences at least, forms the painting'sspace.
In life we cannotsee as the paintedeye "sees."We imbuewhat we see with signifi-
cance. But we see the possibilityof such seeing throughlooking at the paintedeye. This
eye is not the eye of the otherwhich, for instance,sees us, reflects us back to ourselves,
and causes us to see in the other somethingbehindhis gaze. No matterwhose eye it is

diacritics / summer 1999 105

said to be, it is still the paintedeye, and as such it is an element of the painting.The
paintedeye "sees,"butit sees only formally.In paintingwe see the eye registeringwhat
we cannotregistersimply because it sees purely.It is a formalattributeof paintingand
a self-reflectionof form at the same time.
In life we can not see pure appearance,but when we are shown it throughthe
structureof painting and the use of the representedgaze, the difference between our
seeing and the formalgaze impressesitself on us. To see as the eye in the paintingsees,
we would have to see only with the retina.We would have to clear our eyes-and our
minds-of any attemptto synthesize our impressions.We cannot do this, and so we
learnthat somethingdoes not registerwith us thatnonethelessregisterson the painted
eye. We see thatwe see withoutregisteringwhatwe have looked at, partof what is seen
being lost in synthesis. We are blind, but at the moment of our blindness comes our
unveiling.
We cannotsee pureform;ourcapacityto synthesizeis a source of blindness.But if
we were to see pureform, were we to so perceive, we would live in anotherworld, not
human.We could imagine we would be overwhelmedby the numberof our impres-
sions. But even if we were not, we would not be in the social world, our impressions
neverleadingus to distinguishhumansfromtables, for instance.And we would haveno
controlof our eyes as they took in everythingthereis to see. It is in the rejectionof the
painted gaze and our own that we appropriateour facial expressions, choosing to be
endowed with control of them, endowed with soul, at the expense of a more powerful
vision which in its autonomyis too powerful.

Such a thoughtleads us to thinkwhat the face might be. The hand is the site of signifi-
cation in certainJapaneseart-in sculpturesof Buddha, for instance, who surpassed
desire. His face, suggestingthis lack of impulse in its perfect symmetry,signifies noth-
ing. His face is complete because he lacks the desire to signify. "I have told you every-
thing,"Buddhasaid. "Thereis no secret."When significationis necessarynonetheless,
the handssignal while the symmetryof the face rests undisturbed.The Buddha'swrists
are often held at an angle to his armthatis difficult for even the most supplejoint. The
Buddha'shandsnonetheless articulate.But the controllingcenterof this articulationis
in question. His hands are not controlled by the personality of the Buddha, located
conventionallyin the body-the head,the heart,the liver,and so forth.They refer"else-
where,"as the disjunctionbetween head and hands indicates.
In some figures, the Buddha'seyes are mobile. They seem, however,disconnected
from any expressive possibility. Because of the immobility of the rest of his face, his
eyes are not connected to a center of intelligence marked,imaginativelyof course, by
the intersectionof two lines receding behind the eyes. The Buddha'seyes thus seem
separatefrom his face, as thoughthey were organsaddedfrom anothercreaturewhich
continues to control them, in the same manneras his hands. His eyes are incapableof
both the structuringfunctionthey have in some paintingsand the disruptionnecessary
for it to be the site of veiling and unveiling. And when his eyes appear,they do not
organizethe space of representation.
The face becomes the face, the perimeterof being, once it is the site of veiling and
unveiling.Any otherpartof the body would serve the same functionwere the eye situ-
ated, for instance,on the hand ratherthan the head. The hand would then be the face.
Perhapsthe handsof the Buddhaare alreadyon the way to becoming his face.
The Buddha'shead is a ritual object which has also become an aesthetic object.
However,even as aestheticobject, it does not define the humanface in moderntimes, as
Simmel suggests happensin painting.Lackingdisruptionof form, it cannotreferto the

106
life processes located beyondrepresentationexcept by inversion.It retainsthe power of
some ritualmasks to referbeyonditself. Thereare,for instance,Eskimo masksno more
than two inches in length, sometimes attachedas apotropaicdevices to ropes on boats.
They make one ask who wears such a mask. It is clearly not a human.They raise the
question that the impassive face of the Buddha does for those who view it from the
standpointof metaphysics:why is there something ratherthan nothing?They answer
the question, of course, from a nonhumanisticstandpoint.
Other masks have a power of reference that is more complicated.Take, for ex-
ample, the mask of Usofuki from the MuromachiPeriod in Nikko. The surfaceis plas-
tic. It is twisted both left and right and it has swellings, for instance in the area of the
cheeks, which cannot,however,be the mere filling of the hollow of the mouthwith air.
It is an autonomousmotion of the skin. Such distortionsof the face, because they are
energized, somehow expressive, and associatedwith a religious or mythologicalchar-
acter, are not taken as illness. They are expressive, but of what? Instead of "spiritual
paralysis,the momentaryabsence of spiritualcontrol,"such masks by their excessive-
ness indicate a differentrealm of the spiritual.Of course, their excessiveness can only
be measuredagainsta standardwhich one takes to be the face at rest, minus its distor-
tions, its symmetriesrestored.But, though we reach for it, no such representationis
given to us. Perhapsas a result, it seems not as though something speaks throughthe
mask but ratherthat the mask itself speaks out of its surfaces, its plasticity, divorced
from any controllingpoint behindit.
One can comparethis mask with certainprintsof KobayashiKiyochika,one of the
artists of the Ukiyo-e. One set is called "32 Physionomic Types: 100 Facial Expres-
sions."The supplementto these comical printsincludes one of a fat woman puttingon
face powder.The powdermarksa tee, the base being her nose and the barher forehead.
Thereareothermarkson her cheeks. The powderis not at all integratedinto her expres-
sion. The printis amusing not because she is inept but because the putting on of this
mask is made to seem inherentlyimpossible. Even when she finishes, there will be a
gap between her face and her cosmetically inflected expression.The same gap appears
in a portraitof a grimacingman in the same series. His featuresare twisted in a gro-
tesque and againcomical way. But his teeth are shown nearlyin theirentirety.They are
partof an unyielding structureon which the face is merely motion. This motion indi-
cates nothing.The expressionsof these people remaindivorcedfrom any point of refer-
ence. It is not that there is no interiorresonance,but that it is a negative one. What is
revealedis merely the physical supportof a face thatlacks mental unity.
If one follows the gaze of the actorsof Kabukiin the woodblocks from the Ukiyo-
e, one sees thattheireyes arenot organsof sight, looking as they do out of the cornersof
the eyes to some place incomprehensibleor being crossed in an apparentexpressionof
ferocity.Eyes in this case are merely signs; they are expressionsof characteristicemo-
tions but not sensory organs.They disruptthe space of the engravingratherthan orga-
nize it. In doing so they refer behind the mask, not to the actor but to the character
portrayed.But at the same time, divorcingexpressionfrom context,they,like the comic
etchings I have mentioned, show that the possibility of delineatingthe face makes it
transferableand that in the delineation of the expression there is already a power of
reference,thoughthe question,always, is "to whom"or "to what."
It is a question of techniqueand even of technology,if one can thinkof cosmetics
andmasks as technological.This is the case for the face on the posterI saw in the Tokyo
subway,the Japanesewith the Americanexpression. Can we locate the control of the
man's expression, and if so, where? Is it in America, perhaps,in the studio where the
photographwas takenor perhapsin the computerprogramthatgeneratedhis image? Or
is it in Japan?In the lattercase, one needs to know its context to know if the image fits

diacritics / summer 1999 107

the person wearing it. What, for instance, happenedafter the photographwas taken?
What was the transitionbetween expressions like? Did this expressionhave to be ex-
plained, exemplified; were there instructionsabout positioning the lips, the eyebrows
and formingthe gaze? One sees here the past beforethese people as the mask or stereo-
typed expressionis given in advanceof wearingit.
The power of the face to cause referencebeyond itself and to be the centralsite of
significationis put into questiononce one interrogatescontemporaryformsin the wake
of Simmel. One then wants to ask not only why the face retainsits place but whetherit
always does so. The Buddha'shands are his face, as it were, both aestheticobjects and
instrumentsof signification.Withwhat resulton the place of the face in cultureswhere
Buddhismis the primaryreligion?Here, however,thereis an obstacle. Simmel did not
regardBuddhismas a religion. "It is a doctrineof salvationthat can be attainedby the
seekerentirely on his own. .. ."4The Buddhais outside of social life.
Are thereculturesor societies whose membershave no face? One can turnto ani-
mal societies. There is, we know, communicationbetween animals and between ani-
mals andhumans;animals,we thinktoday,sufferemotions.Nonethelessit is difficultto
say thatthe face is centralto their expression.The illustrationsof animalsin Darwin's
interestingstudy The Expressionof the Emotionsin Man and Animals are generallyof
the whole body of the animal.To show a dog expressingaffection,for instance,Darwin
reproducesan engravingof the animalrubbinghimself againsta man's leg. The impli-
cation is thatfor most animalcommunicationthe entirebody is necessary.The nonhu-
man animal presumablydoes not learn his signals; their conventionalityis rooted in
natureratherthan culture.Whateversignals animals might acquire are not passed on
from one generationto the next. As a resulttheremay be differentcat "languages,"one
for each animal,but thereis no cat culture.
Withoutthe impressionof ourselvesin the face of the other,one lacks the dialecti-
cal setting in which languages evolve. The excited cat wags its tail. It can see itself
doing so if it turnsits head, but at thatmoment, one cannot say which is the front and
which the back of the cat. It lacks a face, even if it signals; which means it lacks the
orientationto the otherthathaving a face implies. The face, Simmel shows, is an aes-
thetic object before it is set in opposition to a second face; the dialectical opposition
dependson it. Merelyputtinga cat enface with a humanor anothercat will not by itself
establish a necessary orientation,one retainedeven after the confrontationhas ended,
because the cat's face is not an aestheticobject in Simmel's sense. One can protestthat
the cat or dog still has a frontand a back. His eyes, especially, which tell it whereto go,
are located in front.But the primacyof smell in such animalscomplicatesthe question.
The dog moves with its nose to the ground,sniffing its way. Its muzzle is in front, of
course.But in humansthe distancefromthe ground,the need for balancingon two legs,
the specializationof the hands as prototoolsratherthanmeans of locomotion and par-

4. Therest of Simmel'scharacterizationcontinuesas follows: "byhis own desire and reflec-

tion, a salvation that will come upon him readily if he fulfills conditions that are situated only
withinthe dispositionof his soul. ... [It] requiresno transcendentpower,no divinemercy,and no
mediator;it is not achieved by the individualbut comes to pass as the logical resultof the soul's
renunciationof all will to live .... [I]t does not contain social norms nor is it a religion. In all
other cases ... religious obligation . .. is not a personal matterbut is imposedon the individual
as a memberof a particulargroup."In religions,particularlyin ancient societies, "[t]hatsocial
requirementsare expressedin religious terms, and that the relationshipof the individualto the
group is classified as a duty to god, is simply an outwardillustrationor objectificationof the
inner,emotionalmotivationalreadyrootedin the social relationships.... " ["Religion" 160]. It
follows that the representationsof Buddha'sface should be expressionless,encased in theperfect
symmetrywhich was the subjectof so manyof Simmel'scontemplations.

108
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ticularlythe repressionof smell andthe dominanceof sight all favora tendencyto mark
the front, as "facingthe world,"in a strongermannerthan with other animals.And all
the more so since only with the dominanceof sight is therea horizon,a boundaryto that
worldon the otherside of which is somethingunknown.Manyanimalshave boundaries
to theirterritoriesmarkedby scent; the territoryof an animalis not its complete world.
The dog, like the cat, has a world,butit is not clear whetherthatworldhas a horizon.Its
orientationto us, its master,is clear.The dog's worldcentersaroundus, butuntil we can
say thatwe form the horizonof thatworld we cannotbe sure thatthe dog has a face in
the Simmeliansense.
Whenone is in communicationwith an animal,it is often not becauseof the signals
it makeswith its body,but simply throughlooking at its eyes. At thatmoment,one feels
thatthe animaldoes have a frontand a back and a face as well. It is the animal'seyes as
one looks at them,combinedwith the manufactureof signals, thatlets one thinkit might
have an orientation.One sees oneself in the animal'sresponsesand thereforeallots the
animala face. If there is a face, hence a front, it is because one senses something"be-
hind"the face that one perceives.And one momentarilyat least grantsthe animal the
same thoughtabout oneself. But if one looks as the thirdpartyat animalcommunica-
tion, one loses such a sense as one sees the lack of primacyof the head or its partsas the
animal signals.
One can ask whetherthe face could be the centerof expressionif it were deprived
of any reflectionof itself eitherin life or in art.Are therecultureswhere the face is not
the centerof expression?Perhaps.In the early 1960s I lived in a remotepartof Sumatra
wheretherewere not yet photosexcept in the city, andtherewere practicallyno pictures
of any kind; the few cameraswere owned by professionalphotographers.When I saw
the photos I took therewith my own cameraof people I knew well, I was uneasy.Light
conditionsmade it difficultto see whatthe cameracould record.At nighttherewas only
the dim light of kerosenelanternsor candles. Duringthe day, the intense glare and heat
of the tropical sun meant that one saw details only in shadow. When one looked at
someone the lines of his face were usually bleachedout in the daytimeand only dimly
visible at night. In the sunlightone tendedto look down, even in the shade,to avoid the
pervasiveglare. Consequentlymy impressionsof people dependedlittle on theirfaces.
The camera,however, showed their faces, with their expressions and lines, and intro-
duced them to me as beings I had never adequatelyseen. The charactersetched on their
faces were not the ones I had known.
On the other hand, these photos were adequateto my experience in anotherway.
The pictureswere black and white. Withoutcolor, people blendedwith their surround-
ings. The full-length photos in the setting of the village matched my impressions of
them. It was a questionof theirvoices in particular.Theirvoices were not, in my expe-
rience, associatedwith theirmouthsor theirfacial expressions.Wordsandpeople were,
for me, not conjoined.The people I knew spoke "Acehnese";for me they were vehicles
of thatlanguage,points wherethe languageemergedinto the world.Thoughof course I
knew and appreciatedthem individually,nonetheless,languageand face were not fully
conjoined.In theirphotographs,I seemed to be able to hearthe names of the people and
the Acehnese words for the objects with which they were pictured.The surroundings
spoke as much as the people themselves.
It is a little like Musil's YoungTarless, where, in this philosophicalnovel, descrip-
tionsof negativenumbersandthe openingsof sexualityandimaginationthisidea aroused
could not be precisely situatedwithin the heads of particularcharactersor narrators.
Photography,however,locates speech within the head. In VolkerSchlindorff's film of
the novel, heads speak,andthe philosophicaldiscoursesof the novel, which perhapsby
definitionlack spontaneity,arenecessarilytruncatedas the film presentspeople at cer-

110
tain momentsin time. The exteriorizedqualityof thought,its arrivalto us from outside
of ourselves, ratherthan as the productsof particularsubjectivities,impressesitself on
us in the novel but not in the film. It is exactly this disjunctionof exteriorand interior
that Simmel points to as a leading characteristicof modernityandthatis, today,techno-
logically modified.
When photos-and cameras-became easily available in Indonesia,Indonesians
were eager to have them andto use them.Todayone sees Indonesiantouristsmarching
up the Borobodur,scarcely looking left or right,takingeach other'spicturesat the top,
anddirectlyafterwardsdescending.They arenot memorializingtheirvisit, if thatmeans
savingup an experience,becausethereis at thatpointnot yet an experience.Thatcomes
later,when they look at the picturesand see themselves next to the greataesthetic(and
formerly ritual) objects of their nation. They recognize themselves then and see that
they arepartof theirnation,associatedas they are with one of its majoremblems.They
link themselves with the Boroboduras I associatedAcehnese with their surroundings.
They use the cameranot to see the possibilities of theirfaces, not to reveal unexpected
turns of their characters,but to discover themselves with the objects that symbolize
theirnation for them. They become nationalistsof today,not by their subjectivebeliefs
but by the possibility of being themselves objectified.
Before the camera,one might arguethat they did not yet have faces, or that their
face was not the front partof their skulls. The eagerness to have the camerafrom the
momentit became available,however,shows thatthe possibility of the face was already
present within them. They knew, somehow,that the contemporaryform of representa-
tion of themselves was inherentin themselves. They needed only to make this state
objective. But if they "knew"this, it is because they had seen photographsand wanted
themselves to be partof the picture.Which is to say thatthe possibility of the face as the
centerof expressiveness,even when it may not (yet) be realized,seems in retrospectto
be alreadypresentafterthe photographappearson the scene. Whatis needed is a means
to show one one's own face in an authoritativeway so that,seeing it, one is surethatone
recognizes "oneself."What one expects to be necessarily primaryto what is repre-
sented, the face as site of expressiveness, is really secondaryto its representation,as
Simmel suggested.
Face to the camera,Indonesianstransmitthemselves to themselves. "I recognize
myself' is the responseI assume these photographsin effect provoke.It is a recognition
whose authoritycomes not from previous knowledge of how one looks but from the
constitutionof the face as it passes throughthe cameraonto the film, to appearalong-
side objects of undoubtedaestheticvalue. Face simply to the mirror,one's recognition
would lack certainty.It is the (aesthetic)representationof the face thatmattersin giving
themselves a face. But this is far from assuredby its technological transmission.The
photographreveals what no one can see. Or, rather,what one has seen, perhapsin the
mirror,but not registered.To recognize that one has not registered(Simmel would say
"synthesized")what one saw and thatit is "oneself' one has missed is to find a face for
oneself. There is more to oneself than one thought,and one cannotquite graspit.
The aestheticin my storyof the presentis no longerto be foundin the fine arts.It is
discoveredon television andon postersin the subway.If the Japanesebaseballmanager
appears with an American expression, it may not be because baseball originatedin
Americaor because the managersimply adoptedhis expressionthroughhabituationto
his job. Habit is one form of accommodation,to be sure. It may have begun that way.
But the manager'sability to inhabithis expression could also have come when he saw
himself on the replays.It would thenbe the resultof wantingto be the point of reference
of the televised version of his face as he becomes its addressee.He is already,as I have
said, the formalpoint of referenceof the televised game. His eye, shown on tape, pen-

diacritics / summer 1999 111

etrates,circles, pulls in what it sees towardhimself. He is the formalrepresentationof
himself in relationto all other televised forms. As such, he sees what the managerin
person could never have seen. His authoritycomes from his omniscience.And he bor-
rows his omnisciencefromthe camera,fromthe differencebetween his eye andits lens.
But this omniscience is defective; it comprises only appearances,because the camera
sees only appearances.There is something more behind the eyes which is not in the
camera.It is not merely when the manager,seeing himself on film, imagines he can
indeed see everythingthathe adoptshis expressionas his own. In that momenthe sees
also that, on television, he sees without comprehension.His photographicimage re-
veals a disability.It is only when he takes on his image for his own thathe adds what is
lacking in the image. He obscureshow it is thathe becomes omniscient in orderto be
"the manager"and not merely the camera.
The televised face of the managerdoes not indicate a place behind it from which
facial featuresare synthesized.It does, however,indicate a place of manufacture:it is
the camera and its relatedpieces of apparatus.The manager'sface gains an aesthetic
quality;it appealsto the senses andbecomes "pleasing"and"useless"when, confronted
with the possibility of the disfigurementthatcomes with the receptionof mere appear-
ances technologically communicated,it is not equated with a camera. The manager
evades the power of the camerato take in "everything"even while that possibility is
acknowledged.The photographicimage thus develops into "his"face, as it were, even
when it wears an expression from acrossthe ocean, which, till the momenthe makes it
his own, is senseless. Which is to say thatthe unveilingof the power of the cameraas it
producesimages, appearances,as it governsthe face unaesthetically,is veiled again;it
becomes "aesthetic"and is humanized.At that point it is, after all, himself that the
managersees.
Veilingandunveilinghererevealandobscurethe powerof the eye as lens. Simmel's
notion, extendedto the conditionsthatprevailtoday,is close to Benjamin'sidea of the
"opticalunconscious":the power of the camerato reveal what the eye sees but we do
not register.As such, Simmel's Kantianismis surpassed.The camera,like the painted
eye, sees mere appearance.The "unveilingof the soul" that results from the consider-
ation of pure appearancedoes not open onto intimationsof noumena nor the mental
structuresin which appearancesareembedded.It is ratheran effect of knowing thatwe
see more than we take in. It is the falling back onto human-centerednotions necessary
to have a face: "I am not a camera"is the response when "appearancebecome[s] the
veiling and unveiling of the soul." One might instead conflate the viewpoints of the
person and the camera,as Benjaminalso suggested in anotherplace. But this formula-
tion reduceswhatthe camerasees to whatthe eye sees and so ends up in the sameplace.
Appearancesthat escape humanregistrationhave the indefinite reference of some of
the masks I have discussed. The humanface is founded on the refusal to consider ap-
pearancesthatcannotbe takenin.

The power of the cameraavoided, Simmel's humanisticversion of modernityendures

in this story of mine. But it does so, I am afraid,at the expense of the disappearanceof
the tracesof his thinking.By thinkingout loud, as it were, as I have triedto do here, one
sees thathe surviveseven as he vanishes, only, I am sure, to reappearlater,when once
again I am sure he saw somethingI missed.5

5. I want to thankSakikoKitagawafor our discussions of Simmel.I dedicate this piece to

her.

112
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