The strange, puzzling scenes in Pierre Klossowski’s drawings recall the old-fashioned pastime of the tableau vivant. The curiously timeless space of such tableaux evokes the story of Pygmalion—the wonderful transformation of the lifeless statue into the living love object, the transformation of the vision of life into the live vision. The tableau vivant is a kind of ritual, a conjuration of gestures and postures made symbols. That the deception may at any moment be released into movement sensitizes the viewer, concentrating his or her attention on the details of the whole.

A similar heightened