[C] [Wittrs] reflections on the grammar of pictures pt.1
- From: "J D" <ubersicht@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:45:36 -0000
I thought I'd share with the group some of my own recent philosophical work,
whatever small value it may have. It seemed like a worthwhile alternative or
supplement to Wittgenstein exegesis or endless debates of this or that, to
provide an example of how Wittgenstein's thinking has informed my own. What
follows does not profess to represent Wittgenstein's views nor even what I
might suppose Wittgenstein would have said, but I hope that something of
Wittgenstein's approach will be recognizable. (And in more than just style,
though similarity of style seems to arise unbidden in seeking to apply his
methods.)
I'd welcome any questions, comments, corrections, or criticisms. (I might hope
for specifically Wittgensteinian perspectives, though approaches that would be
counted as Ordinary Language Philosophy generally or even classic Analytic
Philosophy in a wide sense would be more than welcome. But any sort of
feedback could be of value in some way or another, regardless of the point of
view.)
If I may, I'd also like to encourage any other participants who'd like to share
examples of Wittgenstein's influence on their thinking.
Analogies between pictures and language.
(I am using "picture" in a narrower sense than Wittgenstein's. I mean
"pictures" more as it would be used in everyday English: drawings, paintings,
photographs and the like. And specifically, those drawings and paintings that
would be called "figurative" or "pictorial".)
There are picture languages. Ideograms, pictograms, rebuses, pictorial
elements in sign(gesture)languages. Perhaps even cinematic techniques such as
montage could be usefully compared to (spoken and written) languages. Also we
might wish to compare the rules governing pictures (drawings and paintings) in
various styles to grammars.
Here I am more specifically concerned with what could be called
"representation" or "depiction", in pictures and in (spoken and written)
language. In what sense do pictures "refer"? What is the "grammar" (in the
Wittenstein's sense) of pictures' referring.
A painting of NN." "A drawing of NN." "A photograph of NN." With the
similarity of the expressions may fail to be struck by the very different rules
governing their use. It is not, as one might suppose, as if the same rules
were simply applied and the technology were a quite separate matter.
If I hire a model whose likeness is comparable to George Washington, first
President of the United States, dress him in authentic period costume, pose him
with suitable props for the place and period, and paint him, I can rightly call
this a painting of George Washington.
If I do the same, except that I then photograph the model, it is not a
photograph of George Washington!
It may be called "a photograph depicting George Washington." And where
"depicting" seems needlessly verbose in "a painting depicting George
Washington", it makes all the difference in talking of a photograph.
A child draws a stick figure we strain to recognize as a figure holding an axe
and the figure is saying to another, "I cannot tell a lie, I chopped down the
cherry tree."
Here, though we couldn't speak of a "likeness" and the story to which the
drawing alludes is apocryphal, the drawing is still very much a drawing of
George Washington.
The intention of the artist seems decisive in such a case.
But perhaps she identifies the drawing to her teacher as "Ben Franklin"?
Perhaps she also draws another stick figure flying a kite with a key attached
in a thunderstorm and calls this "George Washington"?
We can easily imagine such a mistake. But what are we to make of it?
Her teacher might well say, "That's not Ben Franklin. It's George Washington,"
rejecting the child's description of her drawing. Would he be wrong to say
that?
Here, the use of "George Washington" is something like, "the man who did, or is
commonly purported to have done, such and such".
Perhaps he'll simply explain to her that she has gotten the names and stories
mixed up and comfort her by saying that the mistake is easily rectified, say by
pinning the drawing of the figure with the axe among the drawings other
students did, which they called "George Washington". Perhaps these are also
drawings of the cherry tree story, perhaps also drawings of a figure crossing a
river in a boat, and suchlike.
And perhaps the figure flying the kite will be pinned up alongside pictures of
a round faced, balding man with spectacles, and so on, all labeled "Ben
Franklin".
Such would be the easiest way to salvage the work - and the child's feelings -
and it needn't involve a challenge to the child's intentions. That is to say,
it needn't involve a choice between ascribing to the child false beliefs about
George Washington or false beliefs about whom she drew.
If the assignment was not "draw one of the 'Founding Fathers'", but rather,
"draw George Washington", and the child presented the drawing of the figure
with the kite as "George Washington", confident in her completion of the
assignment?
If he says, "George Washington never did that. You've confused him with Ben
Franklin", that's perfectly right as far as it goes. And as a practical
matter, he may need go no further.
As part of an exercise in learning the use of names, there may not be a "right"
answer to the question, "Was she mistaken about whom she had drawn or mistaken
about whether the person she drew had done such a thing?" Perhaps she has not
yet learned enough for such a question to apply.
What else does she need to learn?
Is this painting of a woman holding a severed head a depiction of Judith with
the head of Holofernes or of Salome with the head of John the Baptist?
(Erwin Panofsky, "Iconography and Iconology" in _Meaning_in_the_Visual_Arts_ )
Here, the answer to this question is assumed to be the same as the answer to
the question, "What was the artist's intention?" But the artist's intentions
are the very question in dispute.
That the answer to the first question might also be "both" - or "neither" - is
suppressed in Panofsky. But the possibility of such ambiguity need not shift
the emphasis away from the artist's intention.
Where ambiguity in our answer to the questions posed by the child's drawing
acknowledges her lack of sophistication, ambiguity in the painter's case
involves considering greater sophistication. The painter versed in the
symbolism of his time (and symbolisms of times familiar to him) may
deliberately exploit them to make matters unclear. Or is that anachronistic
here?
Or the design possibilities and visceral appeal of the image may hold such
primacy for the artist, as to leave the "subject" (Judith or Salome) undecided
even in his own mind.
Where we can turn to secondary documentation (etymologically-speaking, a
pleonasm, as Panofsky notes elsewhere) - contemporary correspondence,
commissions, and such - to settle matters, the competence of the artist (and
others) in using the names appropriately is presupposed. The very thing we
cannot presuppose in the child's case.
But in some cases, historical scholarship might call into question the
availability to artists and others of the period of religious, historical, and
other literature. Whether "so and so did this and that" would be part of their
standards for the correct use of "so and so" might be a matter for further
inquiry.
Where such documents as correspondence and the like are unavailable for
interpreting the painting in question, where we must turn to methods such as
Panofsky's of comparing the use of various symbols across depictions of various
subjects in various works of a given period and region, we are also addressing
some of the same questions as historical scholarship concerning literary
sources would address. That paintings (recognized as being) of NN in a given
period portray NN as such and such, as doing this and that, give us criteria
for recognizing other portrayals of NN.
But ambiguity is a clear possibility here, and Panofsky's work famously answers
this ambiguity positing a previously unrecognized type of Judith image. The
suppressed possibility of deliberate ambiguity on the artist's part turns on
the same possibility of conflicting symbolism.
What if the child had drawn a figure standing in a rowboat crossing a river
during an electrical storm holding a kite?
Jastrow's duck-rabbit. We can imagine an artist creating such an ambiguous
drawing without intending to draw anything other than a duck. And the
possibility that it could also be seen as a rabbit might not occur to her.
Suppose she has made a series of illustrations for a children's book. Through
miscommunication, the editor has the duck drawing placed as an illustration of
a chapter about a rabbit. Perhaps he even places the same drawing as well in
the chapter about a duck, where it was intended to go. We can imagine him not
even realizing that the same drawing has been used twice. (Astute children
might notice and perhaps attentive parents will credit the artist with a clever
joke.)
Has the editor made a mistake in taking the drawing for a drawing of a rabbit?
Certainly, he has mistaken the artist's intentions, used her work in a manner
other than she intended.
I want to say: his mistake is not like the mistake of taking the drawing for an
elephant. But what would such a mistake be like? How do we imagine that?
The drawing could be used to illustrate a rabbit or to illustrate a duck. And
if we set the artist's intentions to one side, we might be tempted to say, "The
subject of the drawing is the use to which it is put." But how would we use
this drawing as an illustration of an elephant? How is it like an elephant?
According to what system of projection?
Perhaps someone could imagine some system of projection according to which it
would make perfect sense to say it is picture of an elephant.
(In Tim Hawkinson "Self-Portrait (Height Determined by Weight)", the system of
projection is the artist's own invention.)
A military historian analyzing movements in Revolutionary battles may use an
arbitrary mark to represent General Washington's position. But we would not
call such a mark a "picture" - though we may call it a "picture-element".
The drawings and paintings we have of Mozart agree on very little regarding the
composer's appearance. Contrast to pictures of his contemporaries (Think of
Haydn. Or later, Beethoven or Schubert) - where they may be recognized across
different portraits as well as from their written descriptions. With pictures
of Mozart, we accept the title of the work. Or we recognize the young man
performing with his sister and father or other elements of Mozart's story. In
this respect, Mozart could be compared to a figure of mythology.
(This somehow seems appropriate.)
Could there be no photographs of George Washington?
Very far-fetched scenarios could be imagined. Extra-terrestrials visited the
Earth during the 18th century and took photographs. Some genius invented the
camera but the invention and all records of it were lost to history. Quite by
accident, appropriate chemical are spilled onto a piece of paper and Washington
sits in an adjacent room. A tiny hole in the wall between the rooms functions
as a camera's aperture...
Suppose Washington's remains were photographed. (The controversy over moving
his remains preceded the invention of photography by less than a decade.)
Would we call this "a photograph of George Washington"?
A clone is made from a sample of Washington's DNA. A photograph of such a
clone would no more be a photograph of Washington than a photograph of one
identical twin is actually a photograph of the other.
But we could easily imagine mistaking a photograph of one identical twin for a
photograph of another. Or any doppelganger.
If a man's twin shows up at the photographer's studio, the photographer's
intentions have no bearing on whether the photograph taken is a photograph of
the man or his twin.
The man goes missing and a photograph of his twin is used by searchers to
identify him. Such a use does not make the photograph into a photograph of him.
But we can say that the photograph in this case "represents" the man. And a
"photograph representing Washington" is entirely possible.
Photographs can be "altered" or "doctored". So can drawings and paintings.
But how different are the uses of these expressions in the different cases!
A photograph can be discovered to be "a fake", as can a painting, but the cases
are quite distinct.
A photograph can be "staged". Can a painting? Certainly, it makes sense to
say that Leonardo's "The Last Supper" looks staged - in contrast to, say a
Dutch genre painting.
But note that "looks" is not used as when one might say, "That looks blue, but
I'd have to see it in a better light." What further evidence might one await?
Nor yet is "looks" being used to acknowledge a contrast between appearance and
reality.
Should we say that all (figurative) paintings are "staged" but that only some
look it? I wouldn't say that...
(to be continued, work in progress)
JPDeMouy
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