French Literature Reviews - 2026

B. Lahire, Ceci n'est pas qu'un tableau. Essai sur l'art, la domination, la magie et le sacré
Art and Visual Culture

Ceci n'est pas qu'un tableau - Essai sur l'art, la domination, la magie et le sacré
Bernard Lahire

Publication date: 15/01/2015 Publisher: La Découverte Collection: Laboratoire sciences sociales ISBN: 978-2-7071-8521-1 EAN: 9782707185211 Format: Paperback No. of pages: 597 p.

In 1657, Nicolas Poussin painted The Flight into Egypt with a Landscape with a Traveller Resting, a canvas that subsequently vanished for several centuries. In the 1980s, multiple versions of the painting resurfaced. World-renowned experts clashed, analytical laboratories and courts intervened, and numerous individuals—gallery owners, experts, museum directors, curators, etc.—sought to authenticate one or another of the canvases and claim ownership of the designated masterpiece.

One of the versions was ultimately acquired for 17 million euros by the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon. What is this story, with its all-too-familiar air of a detective mystery, really about? Why such an immense expenditure of energy, controversy, and money over so many years? What constitutes the economic and aesthetic value of a work of art? And where does this aura attached to creators and their works originate? Bernard Lahire’s striking investigation highlights the fact that the sacred has never disappeared from our modern world, but has merely transformed to the point of becoming invisible.

Social magic is as omnipresent in the fields of economics, politics, law, science, and art as it is in mythology or religion, for it is the enchantment produced by power over those who tacitly acknowledge its authority. It is this enchantment that transforms an animal carving into a totem, a piece of metal into currency, a sheet of paper into a title deed, or ordinary water into holy water; and it is this same social magic that elevates a painting from the status of a mere copy to that of a masterpiece. Drawing eruditely upon the vast domains of anthropological, historical, and sociological knowledge, Ceci n'est pas qu'un tableau interrogates, through a series of historical regressions, the foundational beliefs upon which our institutions and perceptions rest.

By radically questioning art and its emancipatory ambitions, the book uncovers the forms of domination lurking behind the admiration of works of art.

Bernard Lahire, professor of sociology at the École normale supérieure de Lyon, has published some twenty books, including L'Homme pluriel (Nathan, 1998), La Culture des individus (La Découverte, 2004), Franz Kafka. Éléments pour une théorie de la création littéraire (La Découverte, 2010), and Monde pluriel : penser l'unité des sciences sociales (Seuil, 2012).

View on the publisher's website...

Two articles on this work can be read on nonfiction.fr:

"The Sociology of Art After Bourdieu".

"The Factories of Cultural Objects", by B. Auger.

And on laviedesidees.fr:

"The Consecration of Poussin", by C. Guichard.

*

Complete Table of Contents:

Introduction: Pulling the Thread from a Canvas
Flights into Egypt: Trajectories, Rivalries, and Controversies
Breaking with the Logic of Fabulous Narratives – Qualified and Classified Paintings and Retrospective Illusions
Reality: Between Material Continuity and Social Discontinuity
The Objects of Research: Statuses, Values, and Modes of Behavior
Pulling the Thread
Coda

Book 1: History, Domination, and Social Magic
1. States of Affairs and Foundations of Belief
2. Domination and Social Magic
The Objective Forms of Domination
A Problem Concealed Beneath Fragmented Perspectives
Capital or Symbolic Effects?
Outline of a General Theory of the Magic of Power
3. The Articulation of Oppositions: Dominant/Dominated and Sacred/Profane
History of the Joint Transformations of Power and the Sacred
Magic and Power in Stateless Societies
Magic and Power in State Societies
The High and the Low
Political Fictions, or How Man Created God in His Own Image
Struggles for the Appropriation of the Sacred
Secularization, Transfers of Sacrality, and the Sacred Foundations of All Society

Book 2: Art, Domination, Sacralization
4. The Expansion of the Domain of the Sacred: The Emergence of Art as an Autonomous Domain Separated from the Profane
Poets and Artists, Sovereigns or Demiurges
The History of a Collective Sacralization
From Relics to Works of Art
The Separation of Art and Life
Admiring Before Interpreting
Beneath Admiration, Domination
The Magic of Paintings
Fabulous Narratives and Mystifications
Copies and Forgeries

5. Authentication, Attribution
Where to Seek Scientific Truths?
Being an Expert: Doing Things with Words
Performative Act I: The Catalogue Raisonné
Performative Act II: The Exhibition
Attributions and Deattributions: Controversies and Changes of Mind
History and Logic of Attributionism
Science in the Service of the Sacred
Unsettling the Evidentiary Status of the Authentic

Book 3: On Poussin and Some Flights into Egypt
6. Sublime Poussin: Master of French Classicism
The Journey of an Artist Against the Grain and Out of Step: Independence and Creative Freedom
Painter-Philosopher and Artist
On Poussin's Fortunes
To Art, a Grateful Nation
7. The Fabulous Destiny of Paintings Attributed to Nicolas Poussin
Connections, Associations, and Object Statuses
A History of Canvases
The Painting of a Great Painter in Declining Talent
The Traces of an Admirable Painting
Three Appearances – The Rise of a Controversy – The Test of Confrontation – The Underground Work of Gallery Owners – The First Public Recognition of the "Pardo" Version
Twist: The Request to Annul the 1986 Sale
The Acquisition of a National Treasure
In Search of Patrons
The Magic of a Masterpiece
Closing a Controversy
The Conditions of Encasement and Disenchantment
A Version Without an Expert
8. Poussin, Science, Law, and the Market
Poussin in the Laboratory
Analyses of the "Piasecka-Johnson" Version – Analyses of the "Pardo-MBA de Lyon" Version
Poussin in Court
Error Regarding Substance – A Decisive Precedent: The Case of Olympus and Marsyas or the "Saint-Arroman Affair" – The Trial of the "Other Poussin Affair"
The Price of a Painting
9. How Everyone Plays Their Game
Art Historians: Who Has the Eye?
Sir Anthony Blunt (1907-1983) – Sir Denis Mahon (1910-2011) – Jacques Thuillier (1928-2011) – Pierre Rosenberg (1936-)
Gallery Owners: Playing (and Losing) Their Game
A Museum Director: Playing (and Winning) Her Game

Conclusion
Remaining on This Side of Fields
At the Root of Beliefs
Exposing the Invisible Monster
A Fragile Scholarly Game
Postscript: The Conditions of Scientific Creation
Acknowledgments
Summary List of Analyzed Data
Bibliographical Elements
Documentary Bibliography
Index of Author Names
Thematic and Conceptual Index.

Bernard Lahire explores the complex mechanisms behind the economic and aesthetic value of art by examining controversies surrounding Nicolas Poussin's painting The Flight into Egypt. Drawing upon anthropological, historical, and sociological knowledge, the book investigates how modern institutions and perceptions remain grounded in the sacred and in social magic. The study highlights how power and belief operate across various fields, transforming ordinary objects into masterpieces while uncovering the forms of domination that lurk behind public admiration for works of art.

This investigation extends broader sociological and anthropological inquiries into the persistence of the sacred and the enchantment produced by power in contemporary societies. By analyzing the roles of experts, laboratories, courts, and market actors in authenticating cultural artifacts, the text interrogates foundational beliefs regarding creativity, authorship, and institutional authority. Readers interested in the sociology of art, cultural production, and the intersection of power with aesthetic value may find this volume relevant.