Pictures as Fiction

[caronbot]

If I was doing the Ryan reading correctly, on page 36 when she was discussing fiction as a transmedial concept, Walton's counter-point to pictures being capable of inducing belief was that "in order to recognize a picture as representing something--lets say, a cow--we must imagine ourselves facing and seeing a cow.  Since what we are actually

Comments

[se101]

You might be confusing the term "picture" here. Picture could mean a hand drawing or painting or it could mean a photograph. I completely agree that a photograph would not be an act of make believe since whatever the image on the photograph would have had to existed in order to be availible for a picture.(This is all assuming that it was not a digitally rendered or constructed photograph)

However, Walton is correct when he says that when we look at a painting of an image we are in a way make believing. The image drawn by the artist is an act of representation, and we are in fact visualizing what we see through our interpretive lenses. This is why some paintings spark debate on what is really there or what the overall meaning of the painting is. Visual interpretation is just as ambigous as literary interpretation.

Think about the images that have two images instead of one, such as the beautiful women and old hag trick. You have to visualize what you want to see in those pictures and you therefore have used your imagination. In all truth there really is neither an old women or a beautiful lady; there is only a bunch of black blobs of ink.

-Ross

David and the Glorification of War

[ammamc]

How interesting that your userpic shows David's "The Intervention of the Sabine Women." Did this event actually take place? It is based on the myth of the the rape of the Sabine women, and is taken to be a representation of a certain event in Roman history, but this version by the French painter David is his own representation, an image from his mind, and no other's. Therefore, I agree with you that whenever we look at an image, we are make-believing.
Does this image show war as it truly is? I don't think so--it is highly romanticized--this is the late 18th century. War, and revolution for that matter, is something glorified, revered. In this painting, I see more of an emphasis on the body and its beauty in motion than on the horrors of battle. Perhaps we can go further to say that images and all works of art in society really portray the society it was created in. Though David's painting was meant to enlighten its audience about the history of Rome, it reveals more about David's own world than represents in a true light the beginnings of Rome.
Also, it shows what the artist wanted to see--he manipulates the narrative to fit his own ideals. David's own time saw the progression of the Enlightenment and hopes of equality among men. It was an age of romantic hopes, of a better future. And this is what is seen in his paintings, which glorify war. However, the Age of Reason was also a time of great chaos and bloodshed, a time when reason and order gave way to the Reign of Terror and Robespierre. Despite what the artist's world was truly like, many artists of this time glorified the French Revolution. Perhaps this shows that art can never be a true reflection of life, but shows only what the artist or narrator wants us to see.

Re: David and the Glorification of War

[se101]

To be honest, I never thought of this painting in this way, I just always had a quirky love for mythical art. But your discussion is extremely thought provoking.
Your absolutely right in saying that the artist shows us what he wants us to see. "The Intervention of the Sabine Women" is a myth, which might have some truth in it, but is probably highly fictionalized(I'm wary of using this term after reading Ryan)
But at the same time, this painting is a myth and as Ryan says the myth is different from fiction since often the myth is meant to impart practical knowlege or a significant message to the viewer.
I always felt that David showed the futility of war and the passions of love with the mother and her baby standing between two warriors. In the end both myths and art show us or tell us what we want to read or see.

-Ross

[caronbot]

If the book didn't distinguish that difference, I wouldn't put it past myself to confuse the term, Ross. The book did say "in the pictorial domain, no such distinction obtain: all representational pictures--all pictures that depict--are inherently fictional"..."the global fictionality of pictures thus implies the global fictionality of all media using a visual channel" (Ryan 36). The instance that Walton was counter-pointing was in fact, a photograph, and that is what I was addressing.

I certainly agree that we make believe when we look at a painting, but that is not what I was pointing out as absurd. I apologize for my lack of specificity. I was talking, specifically, about a photograph.

-Matt