This wasn’t for me a
useful read because if anything it reinforced a strong message in this section
of the course that image research is ultimately a means of modernising Panofsky’s
iconographical project. It may be that the course is actually saying that.
There appear throughout it hints of the best option for a safe way forward, particularly
ones which make you think you are dealing with theory whilst actually
reproducing the hoariest of approaches to imagery and the image.
Reading Brandhorst
feels like reading Frances Yates except for the sense you need to devote your
life to projects in Yates is missing in Brandhorst, who is described as an ‘independent
researcher’. In a sense this essay is really just a version of debates about
metadata in digital technological circles – the words, phrases and other signs
used to store, categorise and connect data in a knowledge web. Inevitably, even
for images, these have to be words and subject to linguistic disciplines of a
kind. Hence the act of storing is always already an act of interpretation, as
it was for Warburg and Panofsky if in different ways, since the former
embraced, even if sometimes reluctantly, the subjectivity and potential to
mania involved in the project.
There is a sense in
which all research is like that from George Eliot’s Casaubon onwards – from pigeonholes
to connectionist webs. Like them connections can often depend entirely on how
you write the categories used for storage. Like Dorothea most of us, really,
can’t wait for the Casaubon in us to kick the bucket in order to make our
connectionism more visceral and organic.
For me, looking for
the category of ‘nude male groups’ (nude AND male AND groups in Boolean terms) is
anyway a way of connecting Bruno Latour’s views of the relationship between
assemblies and representation to concerns with bodies arranged in and as part
of the total space that makes up an artistic composition. But once you create
such a category you are dependent on others having done so too if your search
is to have many hits.
However. I’m left
here I a kind of quandary. What does the discussion say?
Discussion
Brandhorst’s article
reveals the ways in which a fairly simple image – a man carrying another – can
actually be linked to a variety of themes (moral and religious) and
iconographic meanings. His article reveals a very crucial part of art historical
investigation, ‘the associative links that connect visual and textual images,
motifs, and themes’ (Brandhorst, 2013, p. 73).
Even if you don’t
subscribe to the iconographical approach as articulated by Panofsky, the
ability to interpret images and understand their meaning is a crucial part of
art history. The ways a motif might be copied, and how its meaning changes in
that process, is again something art historians are particularly attentive to.
You will recall from A843, Block 3, that the practice of iconography emerged
from a text-based approach to images; however, there is also a fundamental
visual element to the way meaning is made through mapping images and bringing
together different types of image.
Most importantly,
Brandhorst articulates the difficulty in using language for images,
particularly in terms of categorising them in databases or collections.
Gathering information about images, and, in particular, historical images or
ones that are removed from our own cultural and social understanding, involves
a complex process. That is, we can’t expect digital databases or photographic
collections to necessarily give us answers; they are tools by which we build up
knowledge to eventually make connections that can construct an understanding.
The digitisation of images is thus not only about making more images available,
but needs to be thought of in terms of how we do art history,
and how we approach images and texts and the relationship between the two.
Back to me
Well! I was convinced
before that the project ‘involves a complex process’. In the end research
involves a dialectic where struggle with the materials is still the main point.
That is what I gained at the end – as well as an irritation with the digressive
return to iconography which certainly doesn’t help me, given the latter's focus not only
text and image but on image as one element of a whole composition we
recognise s a picture. My interest isn't in one configuration of the 'figures' available to painting from the visual world – whether ‘man
carrying another’ or ‘woman as gift-bearer’.
Using digital searches in a art-history dissertation. Exercise Block 2 Sec. 4.3.2
Using digital searches in a art-history dissertation. Exercise Block 2 Sec. 4.3.2
Now read H. Brandhorst, ‘Aby Warburg’s wildest dreams come true?’ (2013) and consider the pros and cons of digital databases, particularly for your own research.
This wasn’t for me a useful read because if anything it reinforced a strong message in this section of the course that image research is ultimately a means of modernising Panofsky’s iconographical project. It may be that the course is actually saying that. There appear throughout it hints of the best option for a safe way forward, particularly ones which make you think you are dealing with theory whilst actually reproducing the hoariest of approaches to imagery and the image.
Reading Brandhorst feels like reading Frances Yates except for the sense you need to devote your life to projects in Yates is missing in Brandhorst, who is described as an ‘independent researcher’. In a sense this essay is really just a version of debates about metadata in digital technological circles – the words, phrases and other signs used to store, categorise and connect data in a knowledge web. Inevitably, even for images, these have to be words and subject to linguistic disciplines of a kind. Hence the act of storing is always already an act of interpretation, as it was for Warburg and Panofsky if in different ways, since the former embraced, even if sometimes reluctantly, the subjectivity and potential to mania involved in the project.
There is a sense in which all research is like that from George Eliot’s Casaubon onwards – from pigeonholes to connectionist webs. Like them connections can often depend entirely on how you write the categories used for storage. Like Dorothea most of us, really, can’t wait for the Casaubon in us to kick the bucket in order to make our connectionism more visceral and organic.
For me, looking for the category of ‘nude male groups’ (nude AND male AND groups in Boolean terms) is anyway a way of connecting Bruno Latour’s views of the relationship between assemblies and representation to concerns with bodies arranged in and as part of the total space that makes up an artistic composition. But once you create such a category you are dependent on others having done so too if your search is to have many hits.
However. I’m left here I a kind of quandary. What does the discussion say?
Discussion
Brandhorst’s article reveals the ways in which a fairly simple image – a man carrying another – can actually be linked to a variety of themes (moral and religious) and iconographic meanings. His article reveals a very crucial part of art historical investigation, ‘the associative links that connect visual and textual images, motifs, and themes’ (Brandhorst, 2013, p. 73).
Even if you don’t subscribe to the iconographical approach as articulated by Panofsky, the ability to interpret images and understand their meaning is a crucial part of art history. The ways a motif might be copied, and how its meaning changes in that process, is again something art historians are particularly attentive to. You will recall from A843, Block 3, that the practice of iconography emerged from a text-based approach to images; however, there is also a fundamental visual element to the way meaning is made through mapping images and bringing together different types of image.
Most importantly, Brandhorst articulates the difficulty in using language for images, particularly in terms of categorising them in databases or collections. Gathering information about images, and, in particular, historical images or ones that are removed from our own cultural and social understanding, involves a complex process. That is, we can’t expect digital databases or photographic collections to necessarily give us answers; they are tools by which we build up knowledge to eventually make connections that can construct an understanding. The digitisation of images is thus not only about making more images available, but needs to be thought of in terms of how we do art history, and how we approach images and texts and the relationship between the two.
Back to me
Well! I was convinced before that the project ‘involves a complex process’. In the end research involves a dialectic where struggle with the materials is still the main point. That is what I gained at the end – as well as an irritation with the digressive return to iconography which certainly doesn’t help me, given the latter's focus not only text and image but on image as one element of a whole composition we recognise s a picture. My interest isn't in one configuration of the 'figures' available to painting from the visual world – whether ‘man carrying another’ or ‘woman as gift-bearer’.