Comics, Words and Images, from Buffalmacco to Magritte a Problem of Transition

Comics became a topic for interdisciplinary academic studies besides the specialist field of non-scholar experts. Anthropology, sociology, and geography dedicated increasing attention to comics as an intriguing and dense of meaning issue. The topic is that of transition between concepts and images, namely the issue of representation, dense with epistemological difficulties. A mighty issue addressed in Michel Foucault’s Les Mots et Les Choses. The paper aims at illustrating the disrespected possible origin of an art that combines words and images. Yet comics became a genuine form of art and an occasion for a critical modern artistic discourse. For this purpose, the paper deals with the thinking of very different artists, the painters Buonamico di Martino (about 1290-1340), nicknamed Buffalmacco, and surrealist René Magritte (1898-1967). Buffalmacco made harsh fun suggesting a friend, a lesser painter, to add words to his inexpressive paintings. Magritte opened the mind to a free combination of words and images as an aware representation of the relation mind/world. Meanwhile, the world of comics did its cultural work.