John Dryden on the central difference of painting and poetry:
"I must say this to the advantage of Painting, even above Tragedy, that what this last represents in the space of many hours, the former shows us in one moment."
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the images.
Aristotle, 'On Interpretation'
Gotthold Eprahim Lessing
(22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature.
Lessing is important as a literary critic for his work "Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry". In this work, he argues against the tendency to take Horace's ut pictura poesis (as painting, so poetry) as prescriptive for literature. In other words, he objected to trying to write poetry using the same devices as one would in painting. Instead, poetry and painting each have its character (the former is extended in time; the latter is extended in space). This is related to Lessing's turn from French classicism to Aristotelian mimesis.
Lessing argued that although painting and poetry are similar in creating an illusion -"both are imitative arts" - painting uses completely different means or signs from poetry. This was a new view - in art theory they were considered sister arts.
Similarly to Lessing, I quote John Dewey ('Art As Experience'):
"For each art has its own medium and that medium is especially fitted for one kind of communication. Each medium says something that cannot be uttered as well or as completely in any other tongue."
In a way , I actually agree with this statement even though it almost goes against the ideas that I set out to explore in my work. Looking at mediums, there are certain limitations as to what you can do with them, but they've also got certain qualities that other mediums don't. Using those qualities of painting, I am going to try and create something that communicates (almost) like a narrative.
(22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature.
Lessing is important as a literary critic for his work "Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry". In this work, he argues against the tendency to take Horace's ut pictura poesis (as painting, so poetry) as prescriptive for literature. In other words, he objected to trying to write poetry using the same devices as one would in painting. Instead, poetry and painting each have its character (the former is extended in time; the latter is extended in space). This is related to Lessing's turn from French classicism to Aristotelian mimesis.
Lessing argued that although painting and poetry are similar in creating an illusion -"both are imitative arts" - painting uses completely different means or signs from poetry. This was a new view - in art theory they were considered sister arts.
Similarly to Lessing, I quote John Dewey ('Art As Experience'):
"For each art has its own medium and that medium is especially fitted for one kind of communication. Each medium says something that cannot be uttered as well or as completely in any other tongue."
In a way , I actually agree with this statement even though it almost goes against the ideas that I set out to explore in my work. Looking at mediums, there are certain limitations as to what you can do with them, but they've also got certain qualities that other mediums don't. Using those qualities of painting, I am going to try and create something that communicates (almost) like a narrative.
Percy Lubbock in 'The Craft of Fiction'
"As quickly as we read, it melts and shifts in the memory; even at the moment when the last page is turned, a great part of the book, its finer detail, is already vague and doubtful. A little later, after a few days or months, how much is really left of it? A cluster of impressions, some clear points emerging from a mist of uncertainty, this is all we can hope to possess, generally speaking, in the name of a book. The experience of reading it has left something behind and these relics we call by the book's name"
"As quickly as we read, it melts and shifts in the memory; even at the moment when the last page is turned, a great part of the book, its finer detail, is already vague and doubtful. A little later, after a few days or months, how much is really left of it? A cluster of impressions, some clear points emerging from a mist of uncertainty, this is all we can hope to possess, generally speaking, in the name of a book. The experience of reading it has left something behind and these relics we call by the book's name"
Timeline, plot, story and point of view
structuralists like Tzvetan Todorov and Roland Barthes have shown us ways of looking at how stories are constructed, especially across dimensions of time and narration.
In everyday life a speaker relates events according to chronology, but in complex works of fiction, there's a distinction between 'plot' and 'story'. The plot in effect reveals the story, but often rearranging the timeline of the events. This way the reader discoveres the original events that they need to know to understand the whole story during the narration.
Roland Barthes: "...the units of a squence, although forming a whole at the level of that very sequence, may be separated from one another by the insertion of units from other sequences..."
An oral tale usually consists of a speaker telling of past events either from a first person perspective (if the speaker was involved) or from a third person perspective (if the speaker was only an onlooker). Modern writing, however, is more complicated and uses devices such as narrator, voice and point of view in a more inventive manner to insert different facets of human psychology into their work.
Third person
The omniscient third-person narrator may choose to guide the reader's understanding of characters and the significance of their story. This type of narrator may be intrusive (commenting and evaluating, as in the novels of Austen, Dickens, and Tolstoy), or unintrusive (describing without much commentary, as in Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Hemingway's short stories). Another possibility is third-person limited (and with it, successive third person limited), probably the most frequently used point of view in contemporary fiction. Here the narrative voice limits itself to describing in the third-person only what is experienced by one character, or a series of characters in succession (stream-of-consciousness narration fits into this category).
The character who fills the role of filtering the events of the story to the reader is sometimes called a "focalizer"-he or she provides the focus for the story. This kind of narration is also referred to as selective omniscience and multiple selective omniscience - the story is told as if it is coming directly from the minds of the characters, but the narrative voice has access to some of those minds and is thus "selectively omniscient."
First person
The first-person narrator is generally a character within the story and therefore limited in understanding. He or she might be an observer who happens to see the events of the story or play a minor role in the action ("I" as witness as in Melville's Moby-Dick [1851]), or might be the main character ("I" as protagonist as in J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye [1951]).
This is the most common way of looking at point of view--but it isn't the only way. The narratologist Wayne C. Booth, for example, (The Rhetoric of Fiction [1961]) uses as his main distinction whether a narrator is dramatized or impersonal. According to this scheme, the intrusive, authorial narrator telling a story in the third person is in the same category as the first person narrator because both are dramatized. The emphasis here is on the way the narrator appears to the reader, the effect the narrative voice has on the reading experience.
You, "the author," and authorial voice
Your characters are not the only ones that end up having a voice in your fiction. Surveys of readers have shown that the impression they have of the "author," the teller of the tale, also influences their experience of the story. For this reason, a distinction is sometimes made also between the narrator, the author, and the implied author; the implied author is a presence inferred by the reader as the guiding personality behind the work, not necessarily synonymous with the actual author, who may have written other books with a different "voice," thus creating different implied authors.
Voice refers to the controlling presence or "authorial voice" behind the characters, narrators, and personae of literature. It is also described as the implied author. The particular qualities of the author's voice are manifested by her or his method of expression (an ironic narrator, a lyric persona), specific language, and so forth.
There are a few other interesting terms to know when considering the many possibilities of point of view beyond first person and third person limited:
Velasquez "Las Meninas"
the viewer being the person (The King and Queen [in the mirror on the back wall]) who is being painted whilst the overall painting looks like it's about the girls on the painting.
Mark Tansey "Forward retreat"
at first sight this painting looks upside down, but it is actually the reflection in the water. The reflection of the backwards horsemen as well as the items you can see sticking out of the surface of the water make me wonder about the events possibly taking place.
Norman Rockwell "Triple self-portrait"
this is another good example of play with point of view in a painting.
structuralists like Tzvetan Todorov and Roland Barthes have shown us ways of looking at how stories are constructed, especially across dimensions of time and narration.
In everyday life a speaker relates events according to chronology, but in complex works of fiction, there's a distinction between 'plot' and 'story'. The plot in effect reveals the story, but often rearranging the timeline of the events. This way the reader discoveres the original events that they need to know to understand the whole story during the narration.
Roland Barthes: "...the units of a squence, although forming a whole at the level of that very sequence, may be separated from one another by the insertion of units from other sequences..."
An oral tale usually consists of a speaker telling of past events either from a first person perspective (if the speaker was involved) or from a third person perspective (if the speaker was only an onlooker). Modern writing, however, is more complicated and uses devices such as narrator, voice and point of view in a more inventive manner to insert different facets of human psychology into their work.
Third person
The omniscient third-person narrator may choose to guide the reader's understanding of characters and the significance of their story. This type of narrator may be intrusive (commenting and evaluating, as in the novels of Austen, Dickens, and Tolstoy), or unintrusive (describing without much commentary, as in Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Hemingway's short stories). Another possibility is third-person limited (and with it, successive third person limited), probably the most frequently used point of view in contemporary fiction. Here the narrative voice limits itself to describing in the third-person only what is experienced by one character, or a series of characters in succession (stream-of-consciousness narration fits into this category).
The character who fills the role of filtering the events of the story to the reader is sometimes called a "focalizer"-he or she provides the focus for the story. This kind of narration is also referred to as selective omniscience and multiple selective omniscience - the story is told as if it is coming directly from the minds of the characters, but the narrative voice has access to some of those minds and is thus "selectively omniscient."
First person
The first-person narrator is generally a character within the story and therefore limited in understanding. He or she might be an observer who happens to see the events of the story or play a minor role in the action ("I" as witness as in Melville's Moby-Dick [1851]), or might be the main character ("I" as protagonist as in J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye [1951]).
This is the most common way of looking at point of view--but it isn't the only way. The narratologist Wayne C. Booth, for example, (The Rhetoric of Fiction [1961]) uses as his main distinction whether a narrator is dramatized or impersonal. According to this scheme, the intrusive, authorial narrator telling a story in the third person is in the same category as the first person narrator because both are dramatized. The emphasis here is on the way the narrator appears to the reader, the effect the narrative voice has on the reading experience.
You, "the author," and authorial voice
Your characters are not the only ones that end up having a voice in your fiction. Surveys of readers have shown that the impression they have of the "author," the teller of the tale, also influences their experience of the story. For this reason, a distinction is sometimes made also between the narrator, the author, and the implied author; the implied author is a presence inferred by the reader as the guiding personality behind the work, not necessarily synonymous with the actual author, who may have written other books with a different "voice," thus creating different implied authors.
Voice refers to the controlling presence or "authorial voice" behind the characters, narrators, and personae of literature. It is also described as the implied author. The particular qualities of the author's voice are manifested by her or his method of expression (an ironic narrator, a lyric persona), specific language, and so forth.
There are a few other interesting terms to know when considering the many possibilities of point of view beyond first person and third person limited:
- The self-conscious narrative, which draws attention to its own fictional nature
The self-reflexive narrative, which describes an act of fictional composition within its story (like a play-within-a-play) - The fallible or unreliable narrator, as in Henry James' The Turn of the Screw (1898)
- Editorial omniscience--Narrative dominated by authorial voice, speaking as "I" or "we"; the tendency is away from scene and towards summary narrative. (Henry Fielding's Tom Jones).
- Neutral omniscience--No direct comments by the author, but the scene is rendered as the author sees it and not as any individual character sees it.
http://www.ruthnestvold.com/narratology.htm
Reading and thinking about the point of view in literature makes me think about hte point of view in painting:
Velasquez "Las Meninas"
the viewer being the person (The King and Queen [in the mirror on the back wall]) who is being painted whilst the overall painting looks like it's about the girls on the painting.
Mark Tansey "Forward retreat"
at first sight this painting looks upside down, but it is actually the reflection in the water. The reflection of the backwards horsemen as well as the items you can see sticking out of the surface of the water make me wonder about the events possibly taking place.
Norman Rockwell "Triple self-portrait"
this is another good example of play with point of view in a painting.
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Narratology is both the theory and the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect our perception. Modern narratology is thought to have begun with Vladimir Propp and the Russian formalists.
Vladimir Propp, in his book Morphology of the Folk Tale (1928), analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folktales and identified the simplest irreducible narrative elements in them.
He identified a sequence of 31 functions and 7 broad character types which can be applied to all of the stories he analyzed. This kind of structural analysis has uncovered that these recurring narrative elements are based on the basic socio-psychological tasks that people confront during their lives, such as issues of dependence and independence, selfishness and sacrifice, birth and death.
Russian Formalism is distinctive for its emphasis on the functional role of literary devices and its original conception of literary history. Russian Formalism also has strong associations with the structuralist quest for a formal system of useful descriptions applicable to any narrative content. The structuralists seek to understand how recurrent elements, themes and patterns yield a set of universals that determine the make up of a story.
Vladimir Propp, in his book Morphology of the Folk Tale (1928), analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folktales and identified the simplest irreducible narrative elements in them.
He identified a sequence of 31 functions and 7 broad character types which can be applied to all of the stories he analyzed. This kind of structural analysis has uncovered that these recurring narrative elements are based on the basic socio-psychological tasks that people confront during their lives, such as issues of dependence and independence, selfishness and sacrifice, birth and death.
Russian Formalism is distinctive for its emphasis on the functional role of literary devices and its original conception of literary history. Russian Formalism also has strong associations with the structuralist quest for a formal system of useful descriptions applicable to any narrative content. The structuralists seek to understand how recurrent elements, themes and patterns yield a set of universals that determine the make up of a story.
Formalism
In general, the term formalism describes the critical position that the most important aspect of a work of art is its form, that is, the way it is made and its purely visual aspects, rather than its narrative content or its relationship to the visible world. In painting therefore, a formalist critic would focus exclusively on the qualities of colour, brushwork, form, line and composition. Formalism as a critical stance came into being in response to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism (especially the painting of Cézanne) in which unprecedented emphasis was placed on the purely visual aspects of the work. In 1890 the Post-Impressionist painter and writer on art, Maurice Denis, published a manifesto titled Definition of Neo-Traditionism. The opening sentence of this is one of the most widely quoted texts in the history of modern art: 'Remember, that a picture, before it is a picture of a battle horse, a nude woman, or some story, is essentially a flat surface covered in colours arranged in a certain order.' Denis emphasised that aesthetic pleasure was to be found in the painting itself not its subject. In Britain formalist art theory was developed by the Bloomsbury painter and critic Roger Fry and the Bloomsbury writer Clive Bell. In his 1914 book Art, Bell formulated the notion of significant form, that form itself can convey feeling. All this led quickly to abstract art, an art of pure form. Formalism dominated the development of modern art until the 1960s when it reached its peak in the so-called New Criticism of the American critic Clement Greenberg and others, particularly in their writings on Colour Field painting and Post Painterly Abstraction. It was precisely at that time that formalism began to be challenged by Postmodernism.
the definition of formalism from the Tate Glossary accessible at http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=109
In art, formalists believe that everything needed for understanding a work of art is contained in that work of art - its colours, lines, texture, medium, composition, etc.
As fromalists consider the narrative content of the work to be of secondary or no importance at all, then it seems as if Formalism is opposing the ideas that I am exploring, but I think that the form* of the painting has actually quite an important role to play in the process of interpretation.
*by form, I mean the qualities that formalists consider to be of importance - colour, line, shape, form, texture, medium, composition, brushwork and so on.
FOR EXAMPLE:
Composition (painting)
The impact of "composition" in a painting (that is, its overall arrangement of parts) can perhaps be most strikingly demonstrated by comparing the pyramidal composition of Renaissance painting with the diagonal composition of the Baroque.
The figures in Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks are arranged such that the "pinnacle" of the painting (Mary's head) is flanked by descending figures to either side and to the fore. A sense of stability is achieved from this symmetry and balance, and the eye is naturally drawn upward to Mary's face.
Ruben's Raising of the Cross, on the other hand, features diagonal arrangements of figures. A strong sense of movement results as the eye is drawn restlessly along each line.
taken from http://essentialhumanities.net/s_art_paint_composition.html
also look at http://www.henningludvigsen.com/index.php/main/tutorial_text/049_ifx_tutorial_composition for ideas on composition and balance in a painting.
In general, the term formalism describes the critical position that the most important aspect of a work of art is its form, that is, the way it is made and its purely visual aspects, rather than its narrative content or its relationship to the visible world. In painting therefore, a formalist critic would focus exclusively on the qualities of colour, brushwork, form, line and composition. Formalism as a critical stance came into being in response to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism (especially the painting of Cézanne) in which unprecedented emphasis was placed on the purely visual aspects of the work. In 1890 the Post-Impressionist painter and writer on art, Maurice Denis, published a manifesto titled Definition of Neo-Traditionism. The opening sentence of this is one of the most widely quoted texts in the history of modern art: 'Remember, that a picture, before it is a picture of a battle horse, a nude woman, or some story, is essentially a flat surface covered in colours arranged in a certain order.' Denis emphasised that aesthetic pleasure was to be found in the painting itself not its subject. In Britain formalist art theory was developed by the Bloomsbury painter and critic Roger Fry and the Bloomsbury writer Clive Bell. In his 1914 book Art, Bell formulated the notion of significant form, that form itself can convey feeling. All this led quickly to abstract art, an art of pure form. Formalism dominated the development of modern art until the 1960s when it reached its peak in the so-called New Criticism of the American critic Clement Greenberg and others, particularly in their writings on Colour Field painting and Post Painterly Abstraction. It was precisely at that time that formalism began to be challenged by Postmodernism.
the definition of formalism from the Tate Glossary accessible at http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=109
In art, formalists believe that everything needed for understanding a work of art is contained in that work of art - its colours, lines, texture, medium, composition, etc.
As fromalists consider the narrative content of the work to be of secondary or no importance at all, then it seems as if Formalism is opposing the ideas that I am exploring, but I think that the form* of the painting has actually quite an important role to play in the process of interpretation.
*by form, I mean the qualities that formalists consider to be of importance - colour, line, shape, form, texture, medium, composition, brushwork and so on.
FOR EXAMPLE:
Composition (painting)
The impact of "composition" in a painting (that is, its overall arrangement of parts) can perhaps be most strikingly demonstrated by comparing the pyramidal composition of Renaissance painting with the diagonal composition of the Baroque.
The figures in Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks are arranged such that the "pinnacle" of the painting (Mary's head) is flanked by descending figures to either side and to the fore. A sense of stability is achieved from this symmetry and balance, and the eye is naturally drawn upward to Mary's face.
Ruben's Raising of the Cross, on the other hand, features diagonal arrangements of figures. A strong sense of movement results as the eye is drawn restlessly along each line.
taken from http://essentialhumanities.net/s_art_paint_composition.html
also look at http://www.henningludvigsen.com/index.php/main/tutorial_text/049_ifx_tutorial_composition for ideas on composition and balance in a painting.
Narrative painting, for me, is not the same as illustration. Illustration requires the written source or the specific story it is depicting, whereas narrative painting doesn't. Narrative painting can have quite random images in it without any intended connections or meanings by the artist and still every viewer could invent a story to goalong with the painting in an attempt to explain it.
Here is a quote from Peter Heehs to illustrate my point:
"Narrative, indispensable for ordering events in time, can also be used to give unified meaning to forms in space. Most people shown a figurative* picture can without difficulty invent a story, often elaborate and original, about what is happening (often with reference to what has happened and will happen) to the figures. ... Adults looking at a painting in a book or museum frequently invent narratives of this sort to explain to themselves or others what the painting is about. ... ...it can also be done when the painting has no obvious narrative intent. Whatever the subject of painting, viewers make use of plotted language to explain its meaning to themselves and others."
1995. “Narrative Painting and Narratives about Paintings: Poussin among the Philosophers.” Narrative, vol. 3, no. 3, 211–231.
*by Heehs' quote it seems to me as if the only restriction on this idea is the fact that the picture has to be FIGURATIVE - in some way present images that are comprehensible to the viewer.
Here is a quote from Peter Heehs to illustrate my point:
"Narrative, indispensable for ordering events in time, can also be used to give unified meaning to forms in space. Most people shown a figurative* picture can without difficulty invent a story, often elaborate and original, about what is happening (often with reference to what has happened and will happen) to the figures. ... Adults looking at a painting in a book or museum frequently invent narratives of this sort to explain to themselves or others what the painting is about. ... ...it can also be done when the painting has no obvious narrative intent. Whatever the subject of painting, viewers make use of plotted language to explain its meaning to themselves and others."
1995. “Narrative Painting and Narratives about Paintings: Poussin among the Philosophers.” Narrative, vol. 3, no. 3, 211–231.
*by Heehs' quote it seems to me as if the only restriction on this idea is the fact that the picture has to be FIGURATIVE - in some way present images that are comprehensible to the viewer.
Friday, 5 February 2010
Narrative art is art which represents elements of a story.
Genre and history painting are types of narrative painting.
Genre paintings depict events of an everyday sort,
like Jan Steen's "The Marriage"
does,
whilst history paintings depict famous events,
like "The Raft of Medusa" by Theodore Gericault does.
In my opinion, though, present day art world is not constrained to these two types of narrative painting anymore.
Michael Hussar "Gummer"
Aung Kyaw Htet "Red afternoon"
Norman Rockwell "Gossips"
Keith West "Salome with the head of the Baptist"
Cecily Brown "Teenage Wildlife"
Genre and history painting are types of narrative painting.
Genre paintings depict events of an everyday sort,
like Jan Steen's "The Marriage"
does,
like "The Raft of Medusa" by Theodore Gericault does.
In my opinion, though, present day art world is not constrained to these two types of narrative painting anymore.
Michael Hussar "Gummer"
Aung Kyaw Htet "Red afternoon"
Norman Rockwell "Gossips"
Keith West "Salome with the head of the Baptist"
Cecily Brown "Teenage Wildlife"
A LIST OF KEY TERMS:
narrative
story
account of events or experiences
narration
chronicle
tale
recital
history
documentary
fiction
fairytale
folklore
interchange of thoughts, opinions or information
allegory
narratology
narreme
legend
myth
narrator
point of view
first person
third person
voice of the author
communication
Russian Formalism
Structuralism
Romanticism
literary devices
narrative painting
history painting
illustration
adaptation from literary source
transmissive media
implied narrative
semiotic media
temporal/temporality
depiction of time
non-verbal media
snapshot
moment
linear
non-linear
multi-path
spatial
chronological
plot
event
script
characters
composition
construction
genre
substance
colour
meaning
intermediality
interpretation
representation
suggestion
constraints of the medium
literature
symbolism
interaction
gesture
expression
emotion
abstract narrative
visual perspective
cinematic
contonuous
sequence
fragmentation
triptych
narrative
story
account of events or experiences
narration
chronicle
tale
recital
history
documentary
fiction
fairytale
folklore
interchange of thoughts, opinions or information
allegory
narratology
narreme
legend
myth
narrator
point of view
first person
third person
voice of the author
communication
Russian Formalism
Structuralism
Romanticism
literary devices
narrative painting
history painting
illustration
adaptation from literary source
transmissive media
implied narrative
semiotic media
temporal/temporality
depiction of time
non-verbal media
snapshot
moment
linear
non-linear
multi-path
spatial
chronological
plot
event
script
characters
composition
construction
genre
substance
colour
meaning
intermediality
interpretation
representation
suggestion
constraints of the medium
literature
symbolism
interaction
gesture
expression
emotion
abstract narrative
visual perspective
cinematic
contonuous
sequence
fragmentation
triptych
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