Plowing through the tough terrain laid out by Roland Barthes[1],
two concepts caught my attention: the difference between the photograph as an
uncoded object and the drawing as a coded one; and the linguistic connotation
of most of the images.
I am troubled with this differentiation that Barthes makes between
photographs and illustrations, because in a world with Photoshop and the
marvels of computer graphics the distinction sounds artificial. Surely we
should bear in mind that Barthes, writing in 1986, had not yet experienced the
new technological marvels in the world of the image, but even only considering the
analogic photograph, with the strong mediation of the composition, which was sometimes
“artificially posed”, the choice of exposure, the modifications in developing
the negative, and the opportunities that the photographer had in printing the
photograph the borders between uncoded and coded become at more fuzzy. Yet
perhaps I understand the direction of his meaning in that he was trying to
separate the two mediums and consider the aspects that part the producer from
the represented object. With this perspective the separation becomes more a
distinction between the hand of the artist and the mechanical shutter of the
camera.
The second consideration, the observation that most of the
images that surround us are not pure images, but have a component of writing
that is fundamental in communicating the message, caught my attention. If
anyone looks at a photograph of Tokyo, it is difficult to understand the
message of the colored advertising on the streets without reading Japanese. Images
are direct, less mediated than words perhaps, but at the same time if they
convey the message in a strong and fast way they miss the precision of the
written word, the capacity to describe concepts that need a certain finesse.
In the pages of La Domenica del Corriere there is a clear
mistrust of the image in this regard: the captions are long and descriptive. While
the images brought the atmosphere, the adventure, and the action, the text
supported them strongly with the context. The world in 1916 was a different
one: few people traveled, even outside of their city (moreover in Italy), and
there was no internet to provide a window to the world. Your room was your room
only, and even if books could provide the exotic travel that most people could
not afford, they did not provide the mental elasticity that we have in
recognizing the context of a photo (which surely is still limited).
The illusions, deceptions, and trompe l’oeil that Wendy
Bellion describes in her book[2]
did not want captions. The solution of the mystery, the precise moment when the
eye of the observer realized with marvel the trick of the artist was the final
goal of the piece of art. A caption would have spoiled the whole experience.
The eye was supposed to be confused and reader of the book looking at the
images without captions can enjoy a little bit of what the viewer in real life
would experience; when the mind of the observer does not understand the reality
yet, the image becomes part of the tridimensional world: part of the
architecture, of a landscape, or even convincing —allegedly— the cunning
Washington to politely bow in front of a painting, thinking that it was a
person.
Bellion
builds up a very interesting analysis of the illusions that early-republic
citizen enjoyed, but still indulges perhaps a little bit too much in the
“American bubble”, forgetting sometimes to connect well these illusions to the
most likely sources of their inspiration in the old, dusty Europe.
 |
| Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts -Trompe-l'œil with letters and pens (1660-1683). |
No comments:
Post a Comment