Testimonial Review Page - Excerpts from Part Two
Testimonial Review Page - Excerpts from Part Two
Topic 2.2.3: The benefits of Image & Icon
We experience a text-based story as a linear process. Its part of the nature of that kind of reading (and writing). The linearity of the spoken and written word has forced multiple conventions in narrative structure. Many of the conventions that written or spoken forms of narrative employ are efforts to utilize or circumvent this characteristic. Consider tools such as foreshortening, simulacrum, allusions (references to things in other places), foreshadowing (references to events that will happen later in the story), expositions (a brief passage that gives background information), prolepsis (a form of anachronism in which a future event is treated as having already happened), and even tools such as soliloquy (in which a character, alone, "thinks out loud"). These are all linguistic hacks. Most of these, within a context of appropriate narrative that included a different, non-linear approach, become far clearer. Even simple transitional terms (such as "meanwhile, back on the ranch") have been handily dealt with by the native capabilities of the video arts. We talk about circular arguments and intersecting paths - narrative forms that take on linear shapes. We tend to think spatially about narrative, yes, but its generally not very dimensional. Because, so far, it hasn't been. By using imagery we have increased communicative capabilities not only in terms of story structure, but also in terms of the content.
/---img - 2.2.3aa: full page spread of charles ware, jim woodring, dave mcKean, etc
In fact, in some cases, the image is able to tell a story that is worth more than a few words
/--- img - 2.2.3bb: picasso, francoise gilot painting /--- img - 2.2.3cc: francoise gilot photograph /--- img - 2.2.3dd: king louis, le poire cartoon
An Explanation of Intervention, Example 2: The annunciation
(taken from Topic 2.3.1: Principles of Narrative in Image & Icon)
Approximately 200 years after Giotto many of the stories that were familiar to the Christian Church were, of course, still in existence and it was the interpretation of these stories that lends them a sense of individual perspective and transforms the visual representations into imagery. It was a moment of tilting from a Gothic past into a Renaissance future. Originally named Guido di Pietro, Fra Angelico (formally known as Fra Angelico Giovanni da Fiesole) was a friar of the Dominican order who was born sometime around the turn of the 15th century in Tuscany. At the age of 35 he was commissioned to develop some frescoes that were painted onto plaster walls that were still wet (a relatively archival method of manufacturing a painting in those days). These were intended to be literal translations of the text of the bible, but at the same time they were also intended to inspire prayer and meditation among the clergy. One of the primary themes that Fra Angelico focused on was The Annunciation, or the moment when Mary was informed that she would be bearing the son of God. We have multiple versions of this same idea by the same painter. The changes between these images are not great. The subtleties in where the viewer is located, what is in the background (be it a room or a man), the themes that surround it (such as the garden of Eden) and the expressions and positions of the figures, tell us that Fra Angelica had a particular vision that he felt was closely communicated the first time
/--- img - 2.3.1ia: The Annunciation, c. 1430, fresco, Museo di San Marco at Florence. /--- img - 2.3.1ib: The Annunciation, 1432-43, Museo Diocesano, Cortona, Italy. /--- img - 2.3.1ic: The Annunciation, 1435-45, Museo del Prado at Madrid.
It's an old story told by many people. Before Fra Angelico there's the curious comic-like integration of text with the image in Simone Martini's 1333 version of the Annunciation (left). And at approximately the same time that Fra Angelica was painting his version, Jan Van Eyck was working on an interpretation of his own (right). /---img - 2.3.1id - Martini's annunciation (THIS HAS TO BE ON THE LEFT) /---img - 2.3.1ie - Jan Van Eyck's Annunciation from ghent altarpiece (AND THIS ON THE RIGHT)Hundreds of years after these painters were dead, Leonardo DaVinci continued to carry the torch and shed light on an otherwise mysterious subject by producing two different interpretations of the story, both from relatively early in his life.
/--- img - 2.3.1if: The Annunciation, Museo del Prado. /--- img - 2.3.1ig: The Annunciation, louvreThe similarities and the symbols of these paintings are what lend then a narrative aspect, giving a redundancy and a meaning to what the viewer sees, based on the icons and understandings of their times. This element of redundancy that was touched on in the first chapter (1.4.4) is what allows meaning to be generated. Tiny differences come to mean something with such repetition, that repeated icons (such as a lilly and an enclosed garden) come to carry their own representations (of virginity) in our culture today. The number of times this story has been repeated points to its power. A small army of painters have depicted this story, ranging from from Botticelli to Diano, Bouts, Baldovinetti, Tanner, Weyden, Daddi, Campin, Nesterov, Van Eyck, and Marmion, the illuminator of the Medieval Book of Hours. This tradition was carried on for over 1300 years. (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT) /--- img - 2.3.1ih: annunciation-botticelli.jpg /--- img - 2.3.1ii: annunciation-diano.jpg /--- img - 2.3.1ij: annunciation-bouts.jpg /--- img - 2.3.1ik: annunciation-boldovinetti.jpg /--- img - 2.3.1il: annunciation-tanner.jpg /--- img - 2.3.1im: annunciation-weyden.jpg /--- img - 2.3.1in: annunciation-daddi.jpg /--- img - 2.3.1io: annunciation-campin.jpg /--- img - 2.3.1ip: annunciation-nesterov.jpg /--- img - 2.3.1iq: annunciation-vaneyck.jpg /--- img - 2.3.1ir: annunciation-marmion.jpg
Mark Stephen Meadows // pighed