In his Pensées, 40–134, Pascal states:
What vanity is painting, which attracts admiration by the resemblance of things, whose originals are not admired!
The pictorial representation is thus for Pascal a degraded object. It would be possible to generalize to representations in general, notably in the field of art.
“Vanity” at that time, and the meaning lasted, meant uselessness and little solidity.
Pascal – Science endangered by imagination
Pascal – We will never be happy
