Abstract
This essay looks into the magical origin of the term imago and its problematic relation to the real and illusory within a binary and morally connoted logic. Based on Durand's image theory and benefiting from an analogy between Hal Foster's Return of the real an Euripides' Bacchae, a deeply rooted cultural fear of the image as other and schizophrenic denial of its power are revealed. An analysis of perspective as a legitimating tool follows, drawing directly from Hans Belting's Florence and Baghdad, in which the origin of this typically western stance is traced back to the medieval Arab science. The distorted theory which the Italian renaissance championed had unforeseen consequences on western thought and lead to visuality as Nicholas Mirzoeff defines it in "The right to look".
keywords:
image; magic; reality; otherness; gaze; perspective; visuality
