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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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 19 th 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

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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 deceived

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Crary 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

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them have been blurred. He highlights the corporeal subjectivity in 19 th 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 threedimensional model of interpretation.

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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 iconology
Now, 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.

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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