Preface Humanities and the Image: a Relationship Path
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Preface Humanities and the Image: A Relationship Path Marta Cabrera PhD. In Communication and Cultural studies. Director of the Master in Cultural studies, and head of the Department of Cul- tural studies at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Email: marta. [email protected]. Oscar Guarín PhD. Student of Humanities at Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil. Assistant Professor at the History De- partment in the Humanities Faculty at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Email: [email protected]. This text is intended to offer a fundamental and and theoretical advances, the image is still seen comprehensive outlook of the image, and the way under suspicion —and even with hesitation— it has become a main analytic subject in Human when used as a starting point to analyze the past. studies. More than a balance, what is presented Taking away the debates regarding images to be- here is a guideline to identify processes, problems long to the exclusive Art History sphere or not, and approaches done by other disciplines which this section is aimed at offering a holistic view of have approached it, such as History, Anthropo- how this historic discipline, in general, has inclu- logy, Sociology and the newborn Visual studies. ded images to the research field. The image has had a relegated place in History. In ge- 1. Image: a representation or a testimony. neral terms, this subject has been elusive regarding History confronts the image the conundrum represented by image themselves – as a cultural product or as a social elaboration. The burst of History studies towards the image in It has limited their references to the problem they the last couples of years has evidently separated put out when being a document source when in- from the Art History and its field of debate, to- cluded in a historical analysis, questioning the gether with a series of reflections surrounding truth and certainty of the past spirit. Before being the visual extension and dimensions as a cultural epistemological, the questions that History for- phenomenon1 that has been generated. There is mulated and asked to the image had been on the wider concern of the image in History discipline methodological order. The 1734 Authorities Dic- today judging from the bibliographical produc- tionary pointed out that image is “a things figure, tion that talks about it in some way or another. representation, similitude, and appearance”, but Nevertheless, and apart from the recent analytic not the thing in itself, if you may say so. This re- presentation quality was the one that established a 1 These debates are formulated because of Cultural History, and deep untrusty seal towards the truthiness and ve- also due to the surface of Visual studies. They both fight the racity of the image as a source. main object of Art History, at the same time that they unchecked Since then the image carries a suspicious burden from it due to the condemnation of the close relationship with Institutions (such as Galleries, Art Dealers, and Art Critics), that and its introduction in History was done in a defined the field and make it even more restrictive or close. tangential manner that subsided with textual The debate generated surrounding the Visual studies surface and the reaction from Art History can be notice in Matthew sources in its relationship. The image in itself did Rampley: “The phantom menace: Visual Culture as the End of Art not say anything, or almost anything to the his- History? In: Estudios visuales: la epistemología de la visualidad en torian. In a paradoxical outcome, while in the la era de la globalización, José Luis Brea (2005.) Preface / 23 memoria33.indb 23 19/12/12 12:37 last fifty years the historical discipline advanced image usage to found the most wanderous regis- in new approaches of new sources and problems try of mentalities, and used the later with means both in theoretical and methodological fields, to “decipher the unconscious expression of a co- the images stayed under a suspicious shadow. It llective sensibility or to found again a collective was expected from it to offer a series of data and representation of deepest banality that was sha- information that combined with written texts red in a spontaneous and universal way”4. could be able to support a critic answer and data Aside this advances, image maintains its quality of confrontation. Finally, it was expected from the being an accessory source and it wasn’t proble- image to throw positive data, treating it like if it matize or analyzed in a more deep significant where the exact reality. form. Still, the image was thought exclusively in It was the Annales School the first one to take the relation with painting, and in a more generalized image as a source in itself in a systematic stance. way, to European painting and in a specific way Positivism have had declared before its interest to its “Universal” Art History. on images although in a very restricted way — In recent years, this kind of postures had been over- mostly, it was about some specifics relating ico- come and new theoretical elements have araised nography, heraldry, and other more general and together with new kinds of problems and ques- closer to Art History, like European Medieval tions about the past have broadened the frontiers Art. The Annales School took into account that of the image possibilities. In this sense, Cultural in order to achieve their long howl goal that was History has been the visible head in this docu- total History, sources most been broaden fur- mental and historiographical revolution, and its thermore to those applied traditionally by the approach to other disciplines and fields, inclu- historian. Although specifically did not relate to ding Art History, has offered new possibilities the problem of the image itself, at least it was on dealing with this subject. considered as a possibility among many others. Nevertheless, paradoxically this renewal has been Was Lucien Febvre who —following his teacher oriented in taking into account a series of wri- Émile Malé— included the pictoric iconogra- ters that were isolated on their time and under phic analysis in his studio about Disbelieve in the shadow of historiography, criticized because the Sixteenth Century2. March Bloch did the or their unorthodox use of sources, and to their same, particularly when he wrote his study on unattachment to the imposed aesthetic tradition. Thaumaturgy Kings3. Although these works in- This is the case of Walter Benjamin5 and its reflec- cluded the image in a historical analysis, it was tions surrounding the images nature that trespas- done only in a tangential and as a complement sed their merely visual characteristic, and started of other information. So, more than an object in to install in the genesis of the world apprehension. itself, the image end up constituting a link that Benjamin considered images in relationship with confirmed written text. Michel Volvelle work on society and contemporary massive character of dead, done from the representation of the French culture. The same importance had had the re- Medieval ex votes, included the analysis of image trieval of the work by Aby Warburg —only until as social representations and put them in an im- 1998 his work was reprinted for the first time— portant place as the sources of historians. and that has opened even more the limits traced Even if the image was limited to bee an illustrati- between Art History and general History, pro- ve indicator of a series of cultural manifestations, ducing a field that the same author named: “the also comprises and validated the register on the science of Culture.” image susceptibility by giving historical infor- mation. History of Mentality took advantage of 4 Roger Chartier, —¿Existe una nueva historia cultural?— En Formas de Historia Cultural, ed. Por Marta Madero y Sandra Gayol, 1ª ed. (Buenos Aires: Prometeo Libros/Los Polvorines/Universidad 2 Lucien Febvre, El problema de la incredulidad en el siglo XVI: la Nacional General Sarmiento, 2007.) religion de Rabelais (México, Uteha, 1959.) 5 Walter Benjamin, La obra de arte en la época de su reproducti- 3 March Bloch, Los reyes taumaturgos (México, Publications de la bilidad técnica (México: Editorial Itaca, 2003); Walter Benjamin, Faculté des Lettres de Satrsbourg, 1924.) Discursos interrumpidos (Buenos Aires: Taurus, 1989.) 24 / Vol. 16 / Nº 33 / julio-diciembre de 2012 memoria33.indb 24 19/12/12 12:37 His analysis about the nature of the image had a A local example, in this kind of takes, has been deep impact in the image re value and re signi- done in the Argentinean historical field, having fication as a cultural phenomenon6. Something important developments in the relation bet- similar has happened with the second readings ween memory and photography, and even if it of Jacob Burckhardt work and his interpretation started as a civil response in order to rescue the between art and culture relation, and the search Dictatorship memory, soon enough it began to of zeitgeist that was able to figure out the rela- spread to other settings and historic contexts: tions between cultural productions, historic con- Worker History, Migration Urban Memory, the text and viewpoints7. Pampa Expansive Colonization, Gender His- tory, and so on10. The image at the historian workshop: the photo- In a similar stake, some Brazilian works based of fa- graphy miliar photo albums, useful elements in migra- tion and colonization memory rebuilding, and in The appearance of the re actualization of the men- spatial and geographical narratives11 stands out. tioned perspectives has strengthen the historical analysis surrounding the image, wouldn’t be possi- Moving image, history through representation ble in the most traditional and conservative stan- dards of this discipline, that even today are fought If photography itself has been included as a visual for the means to detached completely from them.