The Pictorial Turn

Pictorial turn in its simplistic way can be defined as a turn towards pictures. Pictorial as the name suggests is something relating to pictures and the term turn here, suggests a new dimension or a development in the earlier understanding , therefore, pictorial turn in Humanities and contemporary culture registers a renewed interest in pictures and images, their growing power and realm of visual being recognised as important and worthy as the realm of language. Our culture is more a product of what we watch rather than what we read, images can be seen as a medium distinct from print . We live in a culture dominated by images, simulations, copies. This turn, hence, focuses on changing modes of representation. And when we talk about a culture of reading and a cultural of spectatorship , the difference is not just the mode of representation, but as a result, different forms of individuals and institutions are formed by culture e.g. the culture of reading is an elite culture of proffesionals whereas the culture of spectatorship is a culture of masses, a public culture so to say. This essay Pictorial turn is from the book entitled Picture theory written by William John Thomas Mitchell. He is a professor of English and Art History at the university of Chicago and the editor of Critical Inquiry. In his book Picture theory , Mitchell argues that there has been a basic problem with the thoeries of pictures as such, because, theories master visual representation with a verbal discourse. So, what is required now is to revert these power relations and to attempt at picture theory and not a theory of pictures. #Mitchell starts his essay with the mention of Richard Rorty , who in his book Philosophy and the Mirror of nature, characterized the history of philosophy as a series of turns in which new set of problems will emerge and the old ones begin to fade away and the final stage is what he calls the lnguistic turnin which philosophy was concerned with words. So, now, Mitchell questions this Almighy power of the linguistic turn and argues that another shift is taking place, now, in the disciplines of Human sciences and in contemporary culture and calls this shift the pictorial turn. He traced the variations and developments of this turn in both Anglo American philosophy and In European context as well. In Anglo American philosophy, he mentions Charles Peirces Semiotics and Nelson Goodmans Languages of art. He writes that these two works explore nonlinguistic symbols and do not fall in the assumption of language being the ultimate paradigm for meaning. These two earlier works suggested the possibilty of other symbolic forms as well other than language that can represent reality for us. Then, in Europe , there is Derrida who de-centres the phonocentric model of language , Frankfurt school concerned with mass culture and visual media. And Foucault who claimed that every strata or historial formation is a combination of ways of seeing and ways of sayings , that is the visible and the articulable. Other than these traces that suggests a turn from language towards visual representation , there can be traced an anxiety about images , a kind of iconophobia . Ludwig Wittgenstein whose career began with a picture theory ends with a critique of the same and to quote ludwig A picture held us captive . Similar kind of anxiety can be seen in Rortys determination to get the visual out of our speech altogether . Although, Mitchell claims that all these encounters can not be reduced to one single point , but still this discomfort and anxiety and a need to defend our speech against the visual and then, pictures emerging as a central topic of discussion is a sure sign that a pictorial turn is at hand now. But what still remains unanswered is what exactly the pictures are . Their relation with the text and how they operate and what to do about them .We encounter a paradox when we talk about pictorial turn happening in this Postmodern era. On the one hand, this is an era of video and cybernetic techonology, the age of electronic reproduction, visual simultaions and on the other hand, there is this anxiety and fear of images that the images have a potential of destroying even their own creators.To explain the manipulative power of images, Mitchell gives a brilliant example . He highlights the power of media , epecially the CNN , in the time of Gulf war. Gulf war was declared by a coalition of 34 nations led by US against Iraq in response to its invasion into Kuwait. This was the first war when a live telecast of the bombing and destuction was broadcasted on TV channels And amazingly, the whole of America witnessed the mass destruction of Arab nation as a TV melodrama, with a simple narrative in their mind of good winning over the bad. It shows that how strategic use of images could convert a skeptical and resistant public into a compliant spectators. In fact, this misrepresentation not only made Americans to accept all this destruction but also erased all the gulit that was due to the Vietnam war in which as well US bombed the North Vietnam as being its savior agaisnt the communist take over. Vietnam war was a war of bodies . As George Bush claimed in his controversial interview with journalist Dan Rather The specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert lands of Arabian peninsula. The aim of Gulf war, thus, to erase the body from the picture Media coverage of funerals and flagdraped caskets was strictly censored. Since, it was a belief that Vietnam war was lost because it lost the support of American public, this war was presented as an antidote to Vietnam war. Rather, on the other hand, juxtaposed file footage of last US helicopter in Vietnam with a live footage of a helicopter landing at embassy in Kuwait. And interestingly, there is an altogether different argument by Baudillard , who claimes that Gulf war never took place, that it was just a media construct war by US to emphasise its superimacy on the rest of the world. And the images being used were the replay of images from WW2 fulfilling the fantasy of victory.So, Rather would say An image doesnt tell us everthing. In his book, Ways of seeing , John Berger explained that how with the use of photographic images, publicity is done. Images are depicted of things one aspire for and they manipulate us to buy them in order to become wanted. These images portray the idealised potential of a viewer and the inner desires being achieved through images. Berger says that without publicity , capitalism cant survive. These advertisements impose a false notion of what is desirable and hance, create a need.

Therefore, Pictorial turn is not just a return to nave mimesis or copy or representation, but rather it is a postlingual, postsemiotics, rediscovery of picture as a complex interplay between visuality, apparatus, institutions , discourses. Pictorial turn,thus, is the realization that spectatorship involves as deep a problem as readership does. And that all the experiences with visuality cant be explained on the models of texuality, and since, problem of pictorial representation seems inescapable now , in this Postmodern world where pictures have penetreated in almost all the spheres of life, we have an urgent need of a global critique of visual culture. >>In his essay Perspective as a symbolic form , Erwin Panofsky, a German art historian provides a synthetic history of space, visual perception and pictorial constuction. Perspective is an art of representing a three dimensional object on a two dimensional surface. He tells the multidimensional story around the figure of picture which is a concrete symbol of complex cultural field. As Foucault claimed that any historial formation is a combination of what is seeable and what is sayable , perspective hence is also an expression of the culture that produced it. Perspective is used as a model that link the social, psychological , cognitive practices of a given culture , and since each epoch of history is different each gives rise to a different vision of world. So, he explored the different spatial systems characterizing the culture in which they arose. Therefore, perceptive, is not only an indicative of an artworks value, but rather of a style, period and region. Greek perspective depicts the subjective worldview of the people and the Renaissance perspective portrays the objective worldview. In antiquity, there was a finite space represented in a perspective where the depth was indicated by overlapping of figures whereas the concept of infinity was brought in the renaissance times. Infinity as a new conception of space came in Renaissance . It represented an imagined space on canvas and infiniteness and continuity of space. Not just seeing into it but beyond it as well What remained unfinished in his essay is the question of spectator , that who is the subject of history. Panofsky discussed at large the ways in which these forms of visual arts were conceived but he never discussed about the ways in which these art forms were perceived in different times. He mentioned no spectator , no observer. Mitchell claims that vision, space , art pictures and other symbolic forms synthesize the kunstwollen (artistic will or prevailing structural principals of an artistic phenomena) of each historial era and now, we need to unweave these symbols, this tapestry of all the symbolic forms of each historical period. A notable attempt to disentangle the spectatorial thread is offered by Crary s Tehinques of the observer . Mitchell says that he wants to discuss this book at large for several reasons. First, Crary as Panofsky takes visual experience as a psychophysiological account . that is as a bodily and mental activity. And second, that it focuses on spectator and placed it in the centre. This book considers the problem of visuality by analyzing the historical construction of the observer. The central argument of his book is that a new observer has taken place in Europe with the arrival of new forms of optical devices in 19th century. In the 17th and 18th century , there was a disembodied observer with an objective approach . Camera obscura as the optical techonology embodies this model . Camera obscura, literally means a dark chamber and signifies an optical device that projects the image of its surrounding on a screen. He used Camera obscura more as a metaphor for objective vision detach from the body. But in the 19th century , with the outset of new optical devices like stereoscope and phenakistoscope this observer was given a body. These devices involve physiological principals governing the human eye and they produced a subjective and autonomous observer. Hence, there was a shift in the understanding of visual experience. And these devices are used a mataphor of subjective vision. These new devices deals with the techiques working with Retinal Afterimage. An afterimage is the presence of sensation in the absence of a stimulus. So, the image produced by and within the subject. In these devices, the mind extracts the collision and merging of images. Hence, there was not actually any image but an effect of observers experience, the illusion . And the observer was the agent of this synthesis. The two devices he described at large were Phenakistiscope and Stereoscope . In 1830s, Phenakistiscope came into play . There was a disc divided into few sagments with a slight opening . When this disc turned in front of a viewer standing before mirror , a series of images result in a continuous motion appearance. So, hence it was only the effect. And in the stereoscope , the two slightly different images were displayed and the impression of 3-Dimensional solidity was created. Therefore, these devices functioned based on the interaction of body and machine , and hence, transformed each observer into a magician and deceivedCrary wrote about the rupture between the classical vision and the modern vision. Earlier, the presence of observer was thought to be not affecting the representation . Object and subject were different but now,the boundaries between them have been blurred. He highlights the corporeal subjectivity in 19th century observer . With the focus on the body in general, the human body also became an active producer of optical experience. The visual perception became a bodily and a mental activity. Mitchell finds faults with Crarys overgeneralization in which he shows absolutely no interest in the emphirical history of spectatorship, in the observers body maked by gender, class and ethinity. He reduced the all the spectators to the same level and in his effort of avoiding homogeneity and totality he actually ends up doing the same. He has adopted the well worn paths of idealist history where he absorbs all possible theories and histories of observer into a single minded and nonempirical account of a purely hypothetical observer. He showed no interest in visuality as a cultural practice of everyday life. What became problematize with Crary is his claim there was no single 19th century observer, no example that can be located emphirically . so, in response to this claim , Mitchell says we do have an access at what people liked to looked at , how different people perceive different pictures differently. What crary has done then is a rhetoric of spectatorship and not a true history. Although, in Crarys defense, Mitchell writes that any account of history will surely involve some forms of absractions and generality. But even then, it would not be fair to compare Crarys book with that of Panofskys. Because Panofsky s book consists of all eras of history from the antiquity to modern , whereas , Crarys book deals with only two models of Romanticism and modernity. And there, he rejects Crarys attempt and didnt take it further.Coming to the general discussion of iconology, he says as Christopher Wood has suggested that iconology has not proved to be useful hermeneutic of culture precisely because its object entraps its discourse. Pictures are incapable of registering the faults in the culture and the resistance of spectators. And this reductionist and totalized conclusion by images is the problem here. We need here a critique which will question this homogeneity.

One way of dealing with this problem of this reductionist conclusion by images would be to give up the notion of metalanguage, metapictures, pictures representing pictures which Mitchell explored in the next chapter of the book. And the other way to deal with this problem is to move for a revised iconology in which there is a mutual encounter of iconology with ideology. Mitchell proposed a revised iconology , on the foundations of Science put down by Panofsky, in which a valid picture theory could be established. Panofsky has given us a primal scene in his Studies in Iconology . The scene is an acquaintance greeting on the street by removing his hat. Here, Panofsky gives his three- dimensional model of interpretation. The first is the primary or natural subject matter which involves factual and expressional meanings . That is the change in formal point of view. Noticing the gentleman removing his hat then in its second level, of conventional meaning is the realization that removing a hat stands for a greeting . This realization hence will take us to another level of interpretation. And in its final and third level, the isolated action of greeting reaches the level of being a global cultural symbol and tells us about the nationality, cultural background of the gentleman. This third level is of synthetic intuition which provides us with instrinsic meanings. Where the first two levels were perceptible by sense ,this one also includes an intelligent knowledge as well .Besides being a natural event in time and space , besides conveying a conventional greeting, this action of acquaintance revealed to an experienced observer as a symbolic value of his national, social and educational background. The movement is from surface to depth, immediate particulars to the insights. But now, Mitchell finds it limiting -The fact that we grasp these qualities almost automatically should not make us believe that we will always give a correct pre iconological description. -The privileging of the paintings that have images of human body and gestures as bearers of meanings and marginalising of other forms of painting such as the landscape painting, still life. No mention of abstract art forms in which there is no conventional meaning. So, then revisit this scene with postmodern iconology or critical iconologyNow, Mitchell subject this scene with ideological analysis, to treat it as an allegory of burgeois civility, built upon a residue of medieval chivalry in which armed men used to remove their helmets to make their peaceful intentions clear. So, the encounter of this iconological scene with ideological analysis broaden our understanding. Now, there is another scene in which somebody knocks at your door and you ask who is this. He/she replied its me and you recognised who he/she is and you open the door to see you were right. This scene is coupled with another one. In which you are going on a street and when you recognized an acquaintance of yours, you greet him by saying hello and shaking hands with him. This, therefore, is a process of ideological recognition. Lets compare these scene with Panofskys scene. 1. This is more concrete and intimate social encounter. 2. This one is a prelude to a dramatic encounter for which hello is just the opening word. 3. It brackets the visual and priviliges the oral exchange while panofskys was purely visual encounter. These are thus two secens of two sciences , science of images and science of consciousness. Now, he staged a recognition scene as a link between the two by asking each other to recognize each other. The greeting between subjects speaking subject, the ideologist and the seeing subject ,the iconologist. Because, as Mitchell claims, the notion of ideology is rooted in the concept of imagery; These two sciences work simultaneously and we cannot distinguish the two.. Althusser reminds us that Panofskys relation to pictures begins with an encounter with an Other and that iconology is a science for the absorption of that other into a homogeneous unifies perspective. And Panofsky reminds us that Althussers greeting of subjects with subjects is also staged within a hall of mirrors constructed by the sovereign Subject. That is the subjects are subjected to the Subject. However, he realized by the end of the essay that greeting of Panofsky and Althusser , perhaps , is not possible to stage. And the importance of linking ideology and iconology is that it shifts both sciences from an epistemological and cognitive grounds to an ethical, political and hermeneutic grounds. That is from a position where the knowledge of object was taken up by subjects, we have now moved to a knowledge of subjects by subjects or rather Subjects by Subjects. This position obviously is more liberating and democratic where no knowledge is depicted as the ultimate . Everyone has their say and there is no hierarchy . These categories of judgement shift our position from terms of cognition to terms of Re-cognition. We practice our pre acquired knowledge now. We have moved from epistemological categories of knowledge to the social acknowledgement.So, he ends his essay by claiming that these reminders wont take us out of the problem but they may help us to recognize it when we see it. This understanding will give a better way to Picture theory a different lens through which to seek objects and subjects engaging with each other