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<blockquote>My fundamental connection with the Other-as-subject must be able to be referred back to my permanent possibility of ''being seen'' by the Other.<ref>[[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartre, Jean-Paul]]. ''[[Jean-Paul Sartre|Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology]]'', trans. Hazel E. Barnes, London, Methuen, 1958 [1943]. p. 256</ref></blockquote>

When the [[subject]] is surprised by the [[gaze]] of the [[Other]], the [[subject]] is reduced to shame.<ref>[[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartre, Jean-Paul]]. ''[[Jean-Paul Sartre|Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology]]'', trans. Hazel E. Barnes, London, Methuen, 1958 [1943]. p. 261</ref> [[Lacan]] does not, at this point, develop his own concept of the [[gaze]], and seems to be in general agreement with [[Sartre]]'s views on the [[subject]].<ref>{{S1}} p. 215</ref> [[Lacan]] is especially taken with [[Sartre]]'s view that the [[gaze]] does not necessarily concern the organ of sight:

<blockquote>Of course what ''most often'' manifests a look is the convergence of two ocular globes in my direction. But the look will be given just as well on occasion when there is a rustling of branches, or the sound of a footstep followed by silence, or the slight opening of a shutter, or a light movement of a curtain.<ref>[[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartre, Jean-Paul]]. ''[[Jean-Paul Sartre|Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology]]'', trans. Hazel E. Barnes, London, Methuen, 1958 [1943]. p. 257</ref></blockquote>

It is only in 1964, with the development of the concept of ''[[objet petit a]]'' as the [[cause]] of [[desire]], that [[Lacan]] devlops his own theory of the [[gaze]], a theory which is quite distinct from [[Sartre]]'s.<ref>{{S11}}</ref> Whereas [[Sartre]] had conflated the [[gaze]] with the [[gaze|act of looking]], [[Lacan]] now separates the two; the [[gaze]] becomes the [[object]] of the [[gaze|act of looking]], or, to be more precise, the [[object]] of the [[drive|scopic drive]]. The [[gaze]] is therefore, in [[Lacan]]'s account, no longer on the side of the [[subject]]; it is the [[gaze]] of the [[Other]].

And whereas [[Sartre]] had conceived of an essential reciprocity between seeing the [[Other]] and being-seen-by-him, [[Lacan]] now conceives of an antinomic relation between the [[gaze]] and the [[gaze|eye]]: the [[gaze|eye]] which looks is that of the [[subject]], while the [[gaze]] is on the side of the [[object]], and there is no coincidence between the two, since "You never look at me from the place at which I see you."<ref>{{S11}} p. 103</ref> When the [[subject]] looks at an [[object]], the [[object]] is always already gazing back at the [[subject]], but from point at which the [[subject]] cannot see it. This [[split]] between the [[gaze|eye]] and the [[gaze]] is nothing other than the [[split|subjective division]] itself, expressed in the field of vision.

The concept of the [[gaze]] was waken up by [[psychoanalytic]] [[art|film criticism]] in the 1970s, especially by [[feminist]] [[art|film criticism|film critics]]. However, many of these critics have conflated [[Lacan]]'s concept of the [[gaze]] with the [[Sartre]]an concept of the [[gaze]] and other ideas on vision such as [[Foucault]]'s account of [[Foucault|panopticism]]. Much of so-called "[[Lacan]]ian [[art|film theory]]" is thus the site of great conceptual confusion.

{{See}}

* [[Desire]]

{{Also}}

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