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[[Lacan]]'s first comments on the [[gaze]] appear in the first year of his [[seminar]], in reference to [[Jean-Paul Sartre]]'s [[phenomenology|phenomenological analysis]] of "[[gaze|the look]]."<ref>The fact that the [[English ]] translators of [[Sartre]] and [[Lacan]] have used different [[terms ]] obscures the fact that both use the same term in [[French]] - ''[[gaze|le regard]]''.</ref> For [[Sartre]], the [[gaze]] is that which permits the [[subject]] to realize that the [[Other]] is also a [[subject]].

<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>

==Subject==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 develops 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 a 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 taken up by [[psychoanalytic]] [[art|film criticism]] in the 1970s, especially by [[feminist]] [[art|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.

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