The dogs and the magic of the doubles: a review of the posthumous work of Mauricio Lissovsky

Abstract

The posthumous work of Brazilian researcher Mauricio Lissovsky, "A Fotografia e Seus Duplos" (Photography and Its Doubles), is a foundational work for image theory. The result of a decade of research, the book applies a method inspired by Walter Benjamin to analyze photography as a "machine of similarities" that operates through "doubles"—images that echo, contradict, or dialogue throughout history. Lissovsky's analysis intertwines two main threads: the magical character of photography and the figure of the dog as a philosophical double. The medium's magic is traced to its invention, described alternately as a divine "miracle" or a sorcerer's "spell." Lissovsky argues that photography functions as "sympathetic magic," whose power of "contagion" is activated by ritualistic doubles, such as in the photos of Ibeji twins. The dog, however, emerges as the work's central "magical operator," a liminal being that exposes the fissures of the "anthropological machine" that separates human from animal. Its presence in images is analyzed in various contexts. In courtly painting, the proximity between dogs and dwarfs reveals their ambiguous status; in a Robert Capa photograph, a soldier inverts power dynamics by assuming the posture of a "hunting dog." The dog's connection to power also extends to its relationship with death and the beyond; it acts as a guardian of the dead, a modern Anubis in mourning portraits, and its accidental appearance in photography's history is treated as an eschatological event. Furthermore, the dog is a double for desire and transgression, as seen in its association with female lasciviousness and in the enigma of identity it becomes in portraits of Kafka. For Lissovsky, photography is haunted by ghosts and omens, and the dog is the privileged guide through this universe, revealing that a powerful mythical dimension persists behind the photographic technique. Lissovsky's work is presented as a legacy that has "barely begun to be read," destined to "haunt" and inspire future generations of image researchers.