“[…] symbolism is a perceptual relation that already contains within itself an expressive phenomenon: a thing is symbolic insofar as it expresses something other than itself, insofar as it relates to something other than itself.”
Marie Testu*
– What is particularly interesting about this sentence is that it overturns the usual conception of the symbol.
– Explain that to me!
– Here, the symbol is no longer a sign that we decipher after the fact. It already belongs to perception itself. We never perceive a thing in isolation...
– What, then, do we perceive?
– We perceive a thing that overflows toward something other than itself.
– In other words... perception would already be a form of expression....
– Who is that?
– It is the Moon Child...
– What is he doing?
– He is dreaming that he is waking up...
– Do you think this idea would resonate very directly with Félix's reflections on Igniatius's drawings?
– You can imagine... perhaps it may be that, for him, those drawings do not represent a world...
– What do they do, then?
– They allow it to emerge.
– So... what Félix gradually discovers is not a hidden meaning concealed behind the images...
– No, but rather that the image is already a living relation to something other than itself. That is why it can continue to generate reality within the reader long after it has been seen.
– Like an enigma...
– It is not an enigma to be solved...
– Then what is it?
– It is an expressive phenomenon that remains active. It is precisely what certain authors** sometimes call an institutionof meaning...
– Which means... pray tell me...
– ...a meaning that does not close upon itself once it appears, but continues to unfold within the one who receives it.
*
This passage is taken from Marie Testu's Master's thesis (Master 2). It appears in the section where she develops the notion of bodily symbolism in the thought of Merleau-Ponty.
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