642
memory becomes progressively de–
personalized , and assumes the form
of contact with a cultural code ,
which signifies what Roland
Barthes has called "the already
written ." Duras produces an in–
tensely emotional relationship to
the dawning recognition of this
code, which is simply there to be re–
experienced and to be acknowl –
edged as the foundations of experi–
ence itself. On reading these texts
one is gripped by the procedures of
Duras and the kind of abstractness
towards which they lead .
The Image ofthe People
and
The
Absolute Bourgeois ,
both by T .].
Clark (New York Graphic Society) .
Insofar as recent developments in
contemporary art are forcing a re–
examination of the conceptual basis
of realism ,
T.].
Clark's new work
has a powerful imponance for me as
a critic . His two volumes on the
decisive moment in the formation
of Nineteenth Century French Re–
alism-The Image of the People
and
The Absolute Bourgeois–
come as an impressive expansion of
art-historical method , at the same
time as they are extraordinarily en–
lightening about the careers of
Courbet , Daumier, and Millet .
More light is thrown, on the ques–
tions raised by this period , by
Walter Benjamin's brilliant studies
of Second Empire Paris, which have
recently been translated and issued
as
Charles Baudelaire : A Lyric Poet
in the Era of High Capitalism
(London : NlB) .
Th~Sm~H.
~all
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