DOI Artikel:
Holly, Michael Ann: Iconology’s shadow
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.59426#0097
96
I am looking. “We must ‘look’ in order to see?’34 “The hall-
mark of the visible is to have a lining of invisibility in the
strict sense, which it makes present as a certain absence”.
The act of unveiling, of course, is reminiscent of Hei-
degger’s desire for “unconcealedness”. The artist gently en-
courages objects to un-hide themselves. How? By letting
them be; by “becoming conscious of them poetically}35
a deliberate act that abjures any objective or iconologica!
point of view. “My dealings with them are guided by the
way the things solicit and give themselves to me”.36 And
the objects of which the world is populated seem to vi-
brate in the artistic imagination, causing many painters to
say “that things look at them”.37
A provocative paradox ensues. “Unconcealing” or un-
veiling an object in the world metamorphoses into the
mysteries of invisibility. When one fixes one’s gaze upon
it, this beckoning thing (especially a work of art) issues
a double, even duplicitous, invitation: to see it first in its
“brute” material existence, its “carnal” essence, and then
be seduced into looking beyond it, past its defining edg-
es, and imagining what yet lies farther beyond or behind.
Merleau-Ponty recognizes this as “two inseparable aspects
of transcendence”: the work of art’s “irrecusable presence
and the perpetual absence into which it withdraws”.38 Alas,
this is only a momentary process, a hiccup in the lived ex-
perience of the perceptual world, for the object, like a wild
animal, will suddenly “pull back toward a certain place in
the world, and [be] absorbed into the world just as ghosts
return through the fissures of the earth from which they
came when day breaks”.39 A poetics of the phenomeno-
logical imagination with slight resonances to Panofsky’s
pre-iconographic level? Perhaps, for as Merleau-Ponty de-
scribes the advantages of reflective judgment, the viewer
takes in the strangeness of the object before him and re-
gards it as though he had no idea what it is, or what it
represents.
Tet artists such as Cézanne guide us into the wonders
of the unknown. Ordinary mortals can only follow. The
painter performs like a tuning fork, registering vibrations
from the world around (not in front of) us. Not every-
one, of course, is nearly as attuned to the thickness, tex-
ture, and presence of his or her surround as the artist.
Why not? Perhaps because we, unlike Cézanne “ruminat-
ing” on Mont Sainte-Victoire, do not tarry long enough to
heed the questions posed to us by the visible world:
It is the mountain itself which from out there makes it-
self seen by the painter; it is the mountain that he inter-
rogates with his gaze. What exactly does he ask of it? To
34 Ibidem, p. 241.
35 S. Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apri-
cot Cocktails, New York, 2016, p. 185.
36 J.D. Parry, M. Wrathall [introduction to] Art and Phenomenol-
ogy, p. 3 (as in note 11).
37 M. Merleau-Ponty, ‘Eye and Mind’, p. 129 (as in note 24).
38 Idem, Phenomenology of Perception, p. 242 (as in note 26).
39 Ibidem, p. 242.
unveil the means, visible and not otherwise, by which it
makes itself mountain before our eyes. Light, lighting,
shadows, reflections, color [are all] objects of his quest.40
And where are we, the spectators, in this process? As
Paul Crowther, a contemporary philosopher, puts it: “we
somehow feel that an aesthetic object is important, and,
as it were, trying to tell us something, even if we cannot
put it into words”.41 To be more precise, it is not the artist,
but the art that engages us in this magical quest. Certain
works, be they visual or verbal, Renaissance or modern,
representational or abstract, mesmerize. In the process
they “liberate the phantoms captive” within that arise to
hold us in their grip.42 Showing rather than saying. Un-
concealing rather than arguing.
A thought experiment by way of a conclusion: here’s
Gadamer in a court of interpretation summarily challeng-
ing Panofsky. The phenomenologist would combatively
assert [and I quote him here] that it is “an objectivist prej-
udice of astonishing naïveté for our first question to be,
‘what does this picture represent?”’43 Panofsky, humor-
ously proud because he was born with one far-sighted and
one near-sighted eye, counters with his oft-quoted rejoin-
der: “archaeological research is blind and empty without
aesthetic recreation, and aesthetic re-creation is irrational
and often misguided without archaeological [i.e., icono-
logica!] research”.44 The result? A hung jury that ends with
a riddle: has phenomenology been shadowing iconology
all along OR has phenomenology’s shadow actually been
iconology throughout the twentieth century? Certain tell-
ing initiatives in twenty-first critical art history - such as
those that address issues concerning the agency, animism,
and affect of images - it seems to me, have issued some-
thing of a verdict, at least for the time being.
40 Idem, ‘Eye and Mind’, p. 128 (as in note 24).
41 P. Crowther, Phenomenology of the Visual Arts (even the frame),
Stanford, 2009, p. 31.
42 M. Merleau-Ponty, ‘Eye and Mind’, p. 128 (as in note 24).
43 H.-G. Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful, p. 38 (as in note
И)-
44 E. Panofsky, ‘The History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline’, p. 19
(as in note 16). To be fair, Panofsky was sensitive to the tug of phe-
nomenology (‘Only he who simply and wholly abandons him-
self to the object of his perception will experience it aesthetical-
ly’, p. 11), but his interest and critical methods lay elsewhere. See
idem, ‘On the Problem of Describing and Interpreting Works of
Visual Art’, trans, ƒ. Elsner, K. Lorenz, Critical Inquiry 38 (Spring
2012).
I am looking. “We must ‘look’ in order to see?’34 “The hall-
mark of the visible is to have a lining of invisibility in the
strict sense, which it makes present as a certain absence”.
The act of unveiling, of course, is reminiscent of Hei-
degger’s desire for “unconcealedness”. The artist gently en-
courages objects to un-hide themselves. How? By letting
them be; by “becoming conscious of them poetically}35
a deliberate act that abjures any objective or iconologica!
point of view. “My dealings with them are guided by the
way the things solicit and give themselves to me”.36 And
the objects of which the world is populated seem to vi-
brate in the artistic imagination, causing many painters to
say “that things look at them”.37
A provocative paradox ensues. “Unconcealing” or un-
veiling an object in the world metamorphoses into the
mysteries of invisibility. When one fixes one’s gaze upon
it, this beckoning thing (especially a work of art) issues
a double, even duplicitous, invitation: to see it first in its
“brute” material existence, its “carnal” essence, and then
be seduced into looking beyond it, past its defining edg-
es, and imagining what yet lies farther beyond or behind.
Merleau-Ponty recognizes this as “two inseparable aspects
of transcendence”: the work of art’s “irrecusable presence
and the perpetual absence into which it withdraws”.38 Alas,
this is only a momentary process, a hiccup in the lived ex-
perience of the perceptual world, for the object, like a wild
animal, will suddenly “pull back toward a certain place in
the world, and [be] absorbed into the world just as ghosts
return through the fissures of the earth from which they
came when day breaks”.39 A poetics of the phenomeno-
logical imagination with slight resonances to Panofsky’s
pre-iconographic level? Perhaps, for as Merleau-Ponty de-
scribes the advantages of reflective judgment, the viewer
takes in the strangeness of the object before him and re-
gards it as though he had no idea what it is, or what it
represents.
Tet artists such as Cézanne guide us into the wonders
of the unknown. Ordinary mortals can only follow. The
painter performs like a tuning fork, registering vibrations
from the world around (not in front of) us. Not every-
one, of course, is nearly as attuned to the thickness, tex-
ture, and presence of his or her surround as the artist.
Why not? Perhaps because we, unlike Cézanne “ruminat-
ing” on Mont Sainte-Victoire, do not tarry long enough to
heed the questions posed to us by the visible world:
It is the mountain itself which from out there makes it-
self seen by the painter; it is the mountain that he inter-
rogates with his gaze. What exactly does he ask of it? To
34 Ibidem, p. 241.
35 S. Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apri-
cot Cocktails, New York, 2016, p. 185.
36 J.D. Parry, M. Wrathall [introduction to] Art and Phenomenol-
ogy, p. 3 (as in note 11).
37 M. Merleau-Ponty, ‘Eye and Mind’, p. 129 (as in note 24).
38 Idem, Phenomenology of Perception, p. 242 (as in note 26).
39 Ibidem, p. 242.
unveil the means, visible and not otherwise, by which it
makes itself mountain before our eyes. Light, lighting,
shadows, reflections, color [are all] objects of his quest.40
And where are we, the spectators, in this process? As
Paul Crowther, a contemporary philosopher, puts it: “we
somehow feel that an aesthetic object is important, and,
as it were, trying to tell us something, even if we cannot
put it into words”.41 To be more precise, it is not the artist,
but the art that engages us in this magical quest. Certain
works, be they visual or verbal, Renaissance or modern,
representational or abstract, mesmerize. In the process
they “liberate the phantoms captive” within that arise to
hold us in their grip.42 Showing rather than saying. Un-
concealing rather than arguing.
A thought experiment by way of a conclusion: here’s
Gadamer in a court of interpretation summarily challeng-
ing Panofsky. The phenomenologist would combatively
assert [and I quote him here] that it is “an objectivist prej-
udice of astonishing naïveté for our first question to be,
‘what does this picture represent?”’43 Panofsky, humor-
ously proud because he was born with one far-sighted and
one near-sighted eye, counters with his oft-quoted rejoin-
der: “archaeological research is blind and empty without
aesthetic recreation, and aesthetic re-creation is irrational
and often misguided without archaeological [i.e., icono-
logica!] research”.44 The result? A hung jury that ends with
a riddle: has phenomenology been shadowing iconology
all along OR has phenomenology’s shadow actually been
iconology throughout the twentieth century? Certain tell-
ing initiatives in twenty-first critical art history - such as
those that address issues concerning the agency, animism,
and affect of images - it seems to me, have issued some-
thing of a verdict, at least for the time being.
40 Idem, ‘Eye and Mind’, p. 128 (as in note 24).
41 P. Crowther, Phenomenology of the Visual Arts (even the frame),
Stanford, 2009, p. 31.
42 M. Merleau-Ponty, ‘Eye and Mind’, p. 128 (as in note 24).
43 H.-G. Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful, p. 38 (as in note
И)-
44 E. Panofsky, ‘The History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline’, p. 19
(as in note 16). To be fair, Panofsky was sensitive to the tug of phe-
nomenology (‘Only he who simply and wholly abandons him-
self to the object of his perception will experience it aesthetical-
ly’, p. 11), but his interest and critical methods lay elsewhere. See
idem, ‘On the Problem of Describing and Interpreting Works of
Visual Art’, trans, ƒ. Elsner, K. Lorenz, Critical Inquiry 38 (Spring
2012).