ANAMORPHOSIS AS MENTAL OPTICS AND NARRATIVE MODEL: FROM VISUAL ART TO LEWIS CARROLL’S ALICE

Abstract

The article is devoted to cultural-philosophical reflections on the phenomenon of anamorphosis as a multilevel model for organizing visual, cognitive, and narrative experience, examined through the example of Lewis Carroll’s Alice duology. It is demonstrated that the concept of anamorphosis, traditionally employed to designate an artistic technique of creating optical illusions associated with perspectival distortion, has transcended the boundaries of the history and theory of visual arts within contemporary humanities, acquiring the status of a universal epistemic and cultural concept. Drawing upon the intersection of several theoretical approaches to anamorphosis – including the art-historical perspectives of Jurgis Baltrušaitis and Erwin Panofsky, the psychoanalytic reflections of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek, and the media theories of Lambert Wiesing and Dominik Finkelde – the article traces the evolution of the concept of anamorphosis from an optical illusion to a model of vision, thought, and interpretation.

The aim of the study is to identify the specific features of anamorphosis as a mode of constructing the mental optics and narrative model of Lewis Carroll’s philosophical fairy-tale duology Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. It is argued that the shift of perspective constitutes one of the fundamental principles organizing the artistic universe of the two books. The article analyzes their principal anamorphic structures and episodes: Alice’s fall down the rabbit hole as an inversion of the habitual image of reality; the heroine’s changes in size as a model of perceptual relativity; the figure of the Cheshire Cat as an example of the disruption of established cognitive schemes; the Mad Tea Party as a collision of alternative logical systems; and the opening poem in Through the Looking-Glass, which can be read only with the aid of a mirror. It is argued that anamorphosis in Carroll’s work functions not as a narrative device but rather as a mode of generating meaning through the constant displacement of interpretive coordinates. The proposed model makes it possible to establish connections between classical forms of anamorphic art and contemporary cultural-philosophical concepts. The article also outlines the reception of Carroll’s anamorphic principle of narrative construction in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s analytical philosophy of language games and in Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense. It is concluded that anamorphosis may be understood on three interconnected levels: as a visual device, as mental optics, and as a narrative model. Taken as a whole, it functions as one of the key cognitive metaphors of contemporary culture, in which the change of perspective becomes a fundamental condition for the emergence of new forms of vision, understanding, and meaning-making.