The operation of looking. Forms of the visual in Calvino

It is generally agreed that visibility, understood as both the state of being able to see and be seen, plays a crucial role in Calvino’s work. This article surveys a series of visual representations, thereby highlighting two elements. The first is the tendency to emphasize movements: dynamic features always prevail, even in descriptions – if that is the case, depending on the observer’s view. The second aspect is concerned with a change that ap-pears at some stage of Calvino’s work: the initial balance between the observer and the objects which are represented breaks down, reality and discourse struggling to match. A new possible equilibrium seems to reside in extending the attitude to reading: legibility becomes a condition for visibility.