Ernesto De Martino and the Culture of the Image

This article discusses Ernesto de Martino's complex relationship with photography, images and visual culture over time. I will present my arguments in three distinct paragraphs. In the first, I will focus on the use of images within the ethnographic framework promoted by the scholar. This approach highlights a set of cultural coordinates that are of great significance for the overall development of his research and theoretical reflections. In the second paragraph, I will give attention to the Atlante figurato del pianto, a chapter included in the book Morte e pianto rituale. Dal lamento funebre antico al pianto di Maria (de Martino, 1975, 373-416). This chapter reveals the ethnologist’s deep and complex theoretical and methodological fluctuations regarding the topic. Finally, in the third paragraph, I will discuss in an introductory way de Martino's perspectives on visual culture, figurative art, and the image, in relation to his evolving (and prematurely interrupted) engagement with existentialism and phenomenological thought, as mainly documented in the notes of La fine del mondo. Contributo all'analisi delle apocalissi culturali (de Martino, 1977).