Image is dialectics at a standstill

It is not that what is past which casts its light on what is present, or what is present its light on what is past; rather, an image is that wherein what has been comes together in a flash with the now to form a constellation. In other words: image is dialectics at a standstill. 
For while the relation of the present to the past is purely temporal, 

the relation of what-has-been to the now is dialectical: not temporal in nature but figural. 

Only dialectical images are genuinely historical