W.J.T. Mitchell, excerpt from chapter “What Is An Image?”, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986, pp. 40-46.
Mitchell, a professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago, explores the idea of imagery by questioning what an image is and what is the difference between image and word. The main idea from this article is showing the tension and struggle between image and word caused by varying arguments including the idea that image and word are fundamentally different in nature.
As a student studying contemporary art, I see image as visual language and word as symbol disregarding the context of being classified and categorised. I agree with Mitchell’s view, image and word immersed in each other, and his argument about the pictorial expression is capable to form an act of ventriloquism (41). In Renaissance art and religious iconography as examples, each artwork acts as visual language by creating a specific mood or feelings that allow viewers to form a narrative. Formal aspects like facial expression, gesture, composition, colour, and subject matter are functioning as hidden clues from the artist. In addition, in prehistoric times, people could not read or write. They used symbols and images as a form of writing system functioning as transmitting information.
Image may function as visual language, however like in Mitchell’s purpose of questioning how much the label would be worth without the picture and how much the picture would be worth without the label, both image and word are only capable of constituting part of thoughts. Each person sees an image differently and read and understands the word differently because of our prior knowledge and our independent experience.
Additionally, through studying contemporary art, I learned that communicating through artwork today could be considered limited to those who have a lack of knowledge about contemporary art theory. In American criticism Tom Wolfe’s book The Painted Word, he questions how Modern art could be literary. This is because art theory of Modern art is complex. Modern movements from approximately twentieth century began with the rejection of the literary nature of arts like nineteenth century and Renaissance paintings which painted scenes straight from literature to form a visual language.[1] In conclusion, I like to argue the relationship between image and word that can be seen as parallel to the relationship of the Egyptian Plover bird with a crocodile.
[1] Wolfe, Tom. “Tom Wolfe." The Painted Word. Picador. 19 March 2009 http://www.tomwolfe.com/PaintedWordExcerpt.html.
