| ||| | || | | | ||| || ||||| || ||||||||||||||||||||||
f i l m - p h i l o s o p h y
electronic salon
| ||| | || | | | ||| || ||||| || ||||||||||||||||||||||
Kathleen Johnson
'To See or Not To See', That Is the Question
James Elkins
On Pictures and The Words That Fail Them
Cambridge University Press, 1998
ISBN: 0521571081
326 pages
James Elkins is Associate Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism at
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the author of two other works
both dealing with the nature of seeing. In this book he attempts to argue
that there are places that our new found philosophical language of logical
objects cannot go, or indeed even name, in semiotic structures.
The very title of the book states precisely the basic thesis: that words at
some point fail the visual. The book is split into three parts: Elements,
Voyages, and lastly, 'Destructions'. The chapters flow from one to another
as Elkins logically progresses his argument, starting with the definition
of terms and a learned array of quotations from the leading philosophers
currently writing in the area of visual interpretation. E. H. Grombrich and
his theory of Naturalism are critiqued in a long and lengthy first chapter,
called 'Marks and Traces', that looks at the historical and philosophical
nature of signs or markings. Indeed, he proceeds to look at the writings in
this area, by Goran Sonesson, Jean-Marie Floch, Mieke Bal and Norman
Bryson, Charles Peirce, Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco, Nelson Goodman, to
mention but a few. Elkins takes us through the last 20 years of visual
research with an ease that shows us his ability to handle these matters and
to show us his concern for the matter at hand, naming objects and the fine
line that must be drawn when words no longer can define the object, or form.
He looks at the graphic marks and the words of Jacques Derrida in his
_Memoirs of the Blind_, and at the transcendental conditions of drawing;
and looks at his _Of Grammatology_, setting both works up to see the
'rhetoric' of the trait . . . and than leads in the wonderful story as told
by Pliny about the two Greek artists, Apelles and Protogenes, and the story
of the visits to Protogenes studio where Apelles draws a perfect line, and
so the simple story becomes an icon for perfection. Elkins leads us from
here into the 'ontology of marks' and so on.
The second Chapter of the book not surprisingly takes up 'The Common
Origins of Pictures, Writing, and Notation', and again he enlightens us
with past thoughts and looks at current philosophical theory on the
subjects.
The last Chapter of the book covers the conclusions of Elkins, in his 'Nine
Steps Down the Ladder of Disorder' he takes a point by point look at what
the book essentially says. His first point, Destroy Symmetry, the second
Destroy Orientation, and so forth, but it is in the Envoi that he concludes
what he wants us to take from the book itself: 'My central objective has
been to show that pictures are much harder to write about than they appear
to be when interpretations focus on namable symbols and stories. It is
harder still to remain alert to the temptation to separate meaning from
apparent meaninglessness.'
Elkins gives as many interpretive strategies as are out there at this time
in the realm of the visual. He insists that there are verbal definitions of
the visual object, but there is also a place where there is a silence . . .
a place were the verbal cannot go.
In summation, Elkins has given us a very well researched volume that is
basically a single argument, and, being a visualist myself, I find this
very interesting. However, the book is almost self defeating, in that we
have a visualist talking about how the verbal cannot be accurate in
defining the object, while doing all of this in long and very learned
chapters of verbal presentation, defending the right of the visual to be
beyond the verbal. I think what we have here is the dilemma of much of
modern philosophy and aesthetics. Wittgenstein opened many worlds up to
logic and in the end found places where the verbal could not go, simply by
his own definition. I am not a philosopher, so much of what he says is
beyond my ability to critique. However, as a visualist, an artist, I know
that language, and certainly this book, is basically about using words to
define what visual marks on a surface may or may not be fitted with meaning
in language.
What all of theses writers, from Elkins to Wittgenstein, to Derrida, and
Lyotard, have missed is that the first language of man 'is' the visual
language. I quote John Berger from _Ways of Seeing_: 'Seeing comes before
words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.' Language of
writing, the process of formal naming, is the secondary act to seeing
itself.
I find Elkins's book valuable in that his argument recognizes the fact that
there are some places language cannot define, particularly in the realm of
the visual. He presents a learned argument for his case. My great criticism
of the book is that it is meant for an effete audience. The book will be
important to graduate schools and scholars alike, but it is hardly in the
realm of the ordinary reader and visual artist or cinematographer. It will
remain a wonderfully written scholarly treatise that will wither as time
goes on and other aesthetic arguments are furthered. I feel this book,
although well done, is one in which Elkins furthers his ideas to his peers,
not to a general audience. There is a redeeming note, in that the book does
start to show a scholarly approach to deny, or at very least to comment on
postmodern philosophy and the lack of depth in its very shadowy tenets.
Lacan, Lyotard, Derrida have had a great impact on the intelligentsia of
the Western world and have had little if any antagonists or arguments to
contest their shallow and nihilistic bent. This book is a small offering
but an offering nonetheless, to access the truth: of language and its
limits in the presentation of the visual.
Lake Linden, Missouri, USA
December 1998
*****************
Kathleen Johnson, ''To See or Not To See', That Is the Question',
_Film-Philosophy: Electronic Salon_, 1 January 1999
<http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy/files/kjohnson.html>.
***************
Send your thoughts on this article and its subject to:
[log in to unmask]
***********************
To read previous _Film-Philosophy_ review articles, go to the salon's homepage:
http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy/files
********************************
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|
