Book Review: Visual Narrative and Lacanian Psychoanalysis by Efrat Biberman

Abstract

The review examines Efrat Biberman’s Visual Narrative and Lacanian Psychoanalysis, a study that challenges the assumption that pictorial works operate according to literary models of narrativity. Biberman argues that narrative meaning is not simply inscribed in images but emerges from the distinct logic of the visual field, which has often been misread through linguistic frameworks. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis, the book situates visual narrativity in relation to the unconscious, desire, temporality, and the dynamics of the gaze. Through close engagement with theoretical debates and analyses of works by artists such as Rembrandt, Courbet, and Velázquez, Biberman foregrounds the heterogeneity and layered structure of visual storytelling.  The study makes a significant contribution to debates in visual culture, art history, and psychoanalytic theory concerning how images generate meaning beyond narrative transcription.