Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual RepresentationWhat precisely, W. J. T. Mitchell asks, are pictures (and theories of pictures) doing now, in the late twentieth century, when the power of the visual is said to be greater than ever before, and the "pictorial turn" supplants the "linguistic turn" in the study of culture? This book by one of America's leading theorists of visual representation offers a rich account of the interplay between the visible and the readable across culture, from literature to visual art to the mass media. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Picture Theory | 9 |
The Pictorial Turn | 11 |
Metapictures | 35 |
Beyond Comparison Picture Text and Method | 81 |
Textual Pictures | 107 |
Visible Language Blakes Art of Writing | 109 |
Ekphrasis and the Other | 149 |
Word Image and Object Wall Labels for Robert Morris | 239 |
The Photographic Essay Four Case Studies | 279 |
Pictures and Power | 321 |
Illusion Looking at Animals Looking | 327 |
Realism Irrealism and Ideology After Nelson Goodman | 343 |
Pictures and the Pub Sphere | 361 |
The Violence of Public Art Do the Right Thing | 369 |
From CNN to JFK | 395 |
Narrative Memory and Slavery | 181 |
Pictorial Texts | 207 |
Ut Pictura Theoria Abstract Painting and Language | 211 |
Some Pictures of Representation | 415 |
Index | 425 |
Common terms and phrases
abstract actual aesthetic American animal answer artist associated become Blake body called Chicago claim concept course critical culture described discourse discussion distinction drawing edited effect ekphrasis essay experience expression fact figure formal give human iconology ideology illusion illustrate imagination kind label language less literal literary look material meaning medium memory Morris narrative nature never notes notion object painting perhaps photograph pictorial political position possible practice present Press problem provides question reading realism references reflection relation represent representation resistance response rhetoric Robert scene seems seen sense shows simply slave social sort space speak specific sphere story structure suggests symbolic textual theory things tion tradition turn University University Press verbal violence visible vision visual voice writing York