PANG!

On Didi-Huberman’s Concept of Pan from Annunciation to Crucifixion

Abstract

Pan is Didi-Huberman’s concept for the spot where or moment when the materiality of the painting makes itself present in a way that draws away attention from what the painting represents. This article examines the concept of pan, as Didi-Huberman defines it in the appendix to Devant l’image, but also based on the analyses he presents in the book’s first and last chapters of an annunciation and a crucifixion image, respectively. I will argue that pan can be a lack of figure or an excess of matter, and that these two variants (or shifts in accent) can be linked art-historically to the motifs of the annunciation and the crucifixion respectively, both of which are decisive scenes in the central evangelical event: the incarnation, which for Didi-Huberman is also a concept for the materialisation that the painting performs. Finally, the article points to instances of pan in paintings by Anna Ancher.