The psychologically (and art-historically) interesting phenomenon of the interchange, the reciprocally-defining relationship, between visual art (including photography and film) and reality can be exemplified in such phrases as: 'picture perfect', 'it looks just like a postcard', 'as pretty as a picture', and the related 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. Such relationships and statements go as far back as the writings of the Roman historian Pliny the Elder. And a, so to say, verso of this coin is our propensity to identify the personages in figurative art as though they were real people: when looking at or talking about, for example, Christian religious art, we happily refer to the representations of Biblical figures as 'he', or 'she', or by their proper names, as in Jesus, Mary or John the Baptist; as for instance, when describing an image of the Baptism of Jesus: 'Jesus is looking down while John the Baptist, standing to His left, is pouring the water over His head'.
This circumstance suggests that images have become so much a part of our consciousness that we no longer feel the need to give the primacy to our own observations, to physical reality, at least in everyday life, but are happy to describe that reality itself in terms of its representations in visual art: that is, so to speak, to see reality through pictures - or, as though it were a picture! Ancient historians, like Pliny, told stories of how the fruit depicted in certain pictures was so real-looking that (real) birds would come and attempt to eat it; this is not too far removed from modern people coming across a beautiful view while on a drive in the countryside, and describing it (the real view) as "pretty as a picture", or "just like a painting"; presumably, a non-specific picture of an unspecified view, but one rendered so well and so convincingly - and so memorably - that it may be used as a yardstick for the beauty of actual country views!
Why would adult people make such an analogy, that is, of life itself to visual representations of life? The reverse is not nearly so puzzling, that when admiring works of figurative art, people might comment that the image is "just like the real thing", or "it looks just like him, her, it, etc." After all, physical reality existed first, before art existed, and an artist's ability to imitate reality is worthy of comment, one way or another. However, although 'reality' has existed, let's say, for ever, we have not! Is it possible that it is through images that we actually begin to perceive the reality around us; that we (now) grow up so surrounded with images of one sort or another, that our initial confrontation with certain aspects of reality can only be 'interpreted' by way of pre-existing visual images?
And I suppose that, stranger than all this, is the fact that we humans even want to represent our world - to ourselves - and, in addition, that we have the ability to do it, convincingly, on a flat surface! This raises the question incidentally, of whether or not all people have this urge or whether, as previously, it is restricted to a certain class of individuals within society: the artists. I would have thought this to be the case, seeing that even today, most people, that is other than artists, do not produce man-made images; and here I stress 'man-made' as, since the advent of the mobile phone (or rather, a camera which comes with a phone) many, many people are now photographically recording every aspect of daily life. But in essence, this is really just an updated version of what has occurred for thousands of years; except that now, even the most trivial (not to say private) aspect of reality apparently requires the validation of an image! Related to this is the long-standing custom (a tautology?) of placing photographs of loved ones around our homes, as well as having one or two at work. Having images nearby of those emotionally close to us also goes back to antiquity, although nowadays it is a lot more democratic, given that, until relatively recently, only the wealthy could afford to commission a portrait from an artist.
Another interesting aspect of images is that frequently, both in times gone by and now, whether painted or sculpted, they are accompanied by words. I am not referring to illustrations of text, to pictures which accompany written narrative, but to 'independent' images which happen to have some kind of text attached to them. Often these words are explanatory and tell us exactly who or what the image represents; sometimes they are in the form of a eulogy which may or may not contain the name of the person being referred to; similarly, images may be accompanied by poetry (as in Chinese and Japanese painting), thereby adding words as art - a verbal art form - to a visual one. However, literary and verbal histories, and their associated images, have been with us for so long that, very often, there is no need for words to accompany an image: since the image and its content are so familiar to us, the image alone is enough, enough to bring into our minds the event depicted. Images of the Buddha for instance, are so familiar that, when we see such an image, be it Indian, Chinese or Thai, we instantly 'recognise' who the image is supposed to represent - even though there are marked differences between one representation and style and another. In an exquisite late-medieval Sienese altarpiece by Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi, although the theme of the painting is one of the best-known in Christian art - the Annunciation - the artists have actually placed the words of the Angel's greeting as coming out of his mouth and travelling in the direction of the Blessed Virgin! To state the obvious, it's a case of stating the obvious! 1
Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi, The Annunciation (detail), 1333, tempera and gold leaf on wood
The Uffizi, Florence (Photo: the author)
Note the Latin words, rendered in raised stucco, issuing from Gabriel's mouth: 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.' (the name 'Mary' is not included)
In this case, the 'event' was so well and widely known at the time (1333) that one wonders why on earth the two painters felt it necessary to add the equally well-known words of greeting; after all, those same words were even to be turned into a prayer, the 'Hail Mary' 2.
One explanation may be that the inclusion of the words in the image itself reflects a medieval illuminated manuscript tradition, a tradition which insinuated itself into contemporary fresco and panel painting. In fact, the inclusion of phrases 'spoken' by participants in a painted narrative scene, whether within the scene or placed below it, goes back many hundreds of years. In the marvellous Roman church of San Clemente, on the walls of its second level, the paleo-Christian level (below the current street level there are several accessible earlier strata), there is a medieval fresco (c.1080s) illustrating the removal of a stone column being directed by a certain Sisinnius who addresses by name the servants doing the heavy lifting: he urges them quite crudely (with words written on the image) - in what is regarded as one of the very earliest written records of the nascent Italian language - to get a move on!
More contemporary examples today would be the written words inserted into early silent movies, both as explanations of the plot and as limited dialogue; the indications of sounds (Bang, Crash, etc.), and the verbal exchanges between characters, in comic books; and the sub-titles which appear on the screen when watching foreign-language films.
I digress! The main question concerns why we relate - virtually as a condition of the reality of our perception - our natural, normal experiences to pre-existing experiences of man-made visual representation; and, in particular, to two-dimensional representations. Studies of earlier societies in different parts of the world have suggested that it is not only modern (European) peoples who do this; it seems that 'real' experiences of all kinds of phenomena are, or have been, interpreted by the peoples concerned through the use of, or through reference to, their art forms. Until the modern concept of scientific enquiry was developed, western societies also interpreted their 'real' worlds in the light of their religious beliefs, and by extension, through the visual arts associated with those beliefs. I have no idea what percentage of modern people still interpret natural phenomena in that way but it remains true that contemporary people do refer to works of art as, so to speak, validations of their visual experiences - quite independently of any religious association I mean. The expression mentioned in the first paragraph, 'A picture is worth a thousand words', is related to this general idea, in the sense that a picture is said to express reality better, or more succinctly, than verbal description can. A seemingly odd contradiction of this is the 'industry' of art explication, a verbal 'translation' of the visual back into the intellectual (one hopes!) - as it were, from whence it came! If it is true that 'a picture is worth a thousand words', the frequently confusing, not to say inept, verbiage which accompanies art works in exhibitions would seem to be therefore redundant! I don't however actually believe this, as intelligent observations about works of art (figurative and non-figurative alike) can obviously aid one's understanding; the objection arises of course, when verbiage becomes a 'career choice', aimed more at the writer's future than at enlightening the hapless observer!
It goes without saying that this very blog is an example of this link between the visual (arts) and the verbal; however, I hope that with most of the articles I write, the result is one of further clarity and not one of obfuscation! While to the layman a figurative image, a realistic representation, may seem self-explanatory - and often they are - many are not and require some sort of verbal aid to the comprehension of their more recondite aspects; often though, the generalised 'setting of the scene', the placement of a given work in its historical and social ambience, is all that words need to do.
W. C. Piguenit (1836-1914), A Winter Evening, Lane Cove (Sydney, Australia), 1888,
oil on canvas. National Gallery of Victoria (Photo: the author)
I have included the photo above as an example - a particularly beautiful one - of the kind of landscape painting through which I imagine some people might interpret a similar scene in real life. It is an extremely skilful instance of the representation of a real place in particular atmospheric and light conditions; it 'captures' those conditions, which are incidentally, what gives the ordinary scene its 'poetic' qualities: so remarkably well that, to my mind, it is no surprise that, in the first place, some people might describe a similar real scene in terms of such a painting; and secondly, that the painting is judged as successful owing to its similarity to real life experience - its verisimilitude. When I said just now that certain natural elements give the painting its 'poetic' quality, this is of course 'after the fact': what really gave the painting its poetic qualities was the artist! The artist, apparently moved by what was in front of him, thought to 'capture' the scene and its mood in a picture; it was he nevertheless who made the decisions, both formal and poetical, about what should go where, the colours to use, and so on. But he by this time (1888) already had a visual 'library' so to speak, a mental store-house of pre-existing visual references and stimuli, which may or may not have contributed to the choices he made when making his painting. Now again we have the reciprocity mentioned at the beginning: something - art or nature - feeds the artist's imagination and the result of that - a painting, a drawing, etc. - stimulates in others, through the medium of the poetry of that imagination, a certain appreciation of real life experiences.
'Poetry' as used here is a vague term, no longer in vogue I think 3, previously utilised as a kind of 'catch-all' expression to refer to an otherwise indefinable sensation experienced when looking at certain images. I like the word because of that very vagueness, due in part to the fact that, in many cases, it is impossible to define in words what we seem to see in some pictures (and sculptures, etc.): the 'quality' which makes them more than simply an illustration of some aspect of reality, the quality which makes the experience of looking at them one which is not otherwise accessible, that is, than through the contemplation of visual images. Perhaps it is that very 'poetry' which people experience in real life, an indefinable experience which is sometimes best described with reference to another, similarly indefinable one, the one had when looking at pictures. 4
1 This same phenomenon can also be seen in Annunciations by two of the most important (later) 'northern' artists: in the
Ghent Altarpiece (on the exterior of the wings), completed 1432, by Hubert and Jan van Eyck; and in the
St. Columba Altarpiece of c.1455 (Munich) by Rogier van der Weyden.
2 It seems to be unclear exactly when the Hail Mary became an official prayer in the western Catholic church; some sources say that it was in the 13th century, therefore already extant when Simone and Lippo were alive. In any case, the greeting itself - minus the word 'Mary' - comes directly from the Bible (Luke:1, 28) and was obviously known to every Catholic.
3 This is possibly because of its 'romantic' overtones, associated in their turn with a sort of contrived view of the world, one which, at least initially, exalted the power of God as (subjectively) perceived through majestic natural phenomena. W. C. Piguenit's pictures fall very definitely into that (romantic) category although, it could equally be argued that the image above is in fact a description of a real life circumstance. I have myself seen such real scenes and, apart from the indefinable (and undeniable) 'poetry' of this image, it is otherwise a transcription of reality, of nature. One sometimes wonders whether such romantic attitudes in art, which included beauty, would not be today preferable to quite a lot of what is offered in their place!
4
It might be remarked by the way, that this type of experience is not restricted simply to 'pleasant' images; all kinds of subject matter in art can provoke the kinds of emotion, whether poetical or not, being discussed here. Interestingly, images (of horror), even if not experienced in the real life of the viewer, can be so powerful as to, so to speak, conceptually 'substitute' for the real thing. However, to my knowledge, people do not usually claim that an actual scene of horror is 'just like a painting'!
