5 - Baxandall PDF
5 - Baxandall PDF
5 - Baxandall PDF
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MICHAEL
BAXANDALL
Art,Society,
and the BouguerPrinciple
THIS
PAPER IS REALLY
THE
ACCOUNT
of a failure,an inabilityto
REPRESENTATIONS
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I
1) First,a list of some pictorial peculiarities,the desire to explain
whichis the startingpoint.
One peculiarityis the girlsdancing in the citysquare. They are sometimes
taken to be ordinary lightheartedlate-medievalpeople, on the same level of
realityas thecraftsmenand so on around. This willnotdo. They are anomalously
big in scale. The other people take no notice of them. There is a subtle shiftin
theircolor gamut. Girls of a class to wear this kind of dress did not behave like
thisin Sienese public squares in 1340.
A second peculiarityis the citywall in the center-as has oftenbeen pointed
out, a conspicuous piece of virtuosoforeshortening.But what,quite, is its role
in the structuraltotalityof the picture?
A thirdstrikingthing is the extraordinaryand precocious maturityof the
famous landscape on the right,specificallythe success with which such a vast
affairis articulatedinto one whole.
A fourththingis a component of the landscape-the hills,again famous,in
the background. These seem to have broken rightaway from the more usual
spikymountain formulasof the time. They seem precociouslymodern representationsof a kind of hill one sees oftenenough in Tuscany.
A fifthand general thingis the assertivenessand emphasis withwhich the
twohalves of the pictureare balanced-the foreshortenedwall actingratherlike
the pivoton a pair of scales. Each half is an independent compositionin depth,
but theyworkas a resonantpair. For instance,if one takes the houses of the city
and the hillsof the countrynot fortheirrepresentationalcharacterin depth but
fortheircharacterin the patternon the pictureplane, theyare one of a number
of half rhymesbetweencityand country.
Artor Society:MustWeChoose?
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33
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0.4~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
REPRESENTATIONS
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be
FIGURES 1 (opposite)
and 2. Ambrogio Lorenzetti,GoodGovernment
in theCityand GoodGovernment
in theCountry1338-40.
Palazzo del Comune, Siena. From George Rowley,
vol. 2 (Princeton,1958), plates 157, 159.
Ambrogio
Lorenzetti,
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35
REPRESENTATIONS
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II
1) There were a number of problems,but again I shall listjust five.
They appeared initiallyas verbal problems,but I came to feel theypointed to a
general conceptual awkwardnesslyingbeneath.
One was the lack of any pictorial indication of whether a depicted social
conditionwas factor aspiration,representationor compensation.There were no
pictorialtags or markerssayingplus or minus,so to speak. To know whethera
depicted conditionwas positiveor negative (or, in what proportions,both) one
had to appeal outside the pictureto writtenrecords of social history.
Another problem was a tendencyfor mytwo terms,Sienese art and Sienese
society,to polarize into very artificialand arid entitiesI did not want to work
with-namely a desocietized art and a de-art-edsociety.I share Stephen Greenblatt'slack of interestin these.
38
REPRESENTATIONS
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l-
6. Map of Siena.
From Langton Douglas,
A HistoryofSiena
(London, 1902).
-- - -- - --
...... ........................
....
.A
.... .. ...
.....
.....F
........
.. .-..
. B..
^.........
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SIENA.
FIGURE
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je.
A third problem was that each time I tried to match a piece of the picture
and a social fact I felt uneasy. There was somethingwrong about anything
approaching a one-to-onerelationbetweenpictorialthingand socialthing.There
seemed somethingmeretriciousabout the way I linkedthem withterms.
Sometimeswiththese linkingtermsI found myself-fourthproblem-prevaricating.The prevaricationtook the formof using termsof relationthatmade
a weak half-claimto some stricterrelation-of causalityor signification
or analogy
or participation,these four particularly-which one was not in a position to
or
uphold. Examples of these four classes of prevaricatingwords were reflect
or followor comeoutof.You havejust heard me using them.
represent
At other times I found myself-fifthproblem-equivocating. The equivocation took the formof uncontrolledword play,shiftingbetweendifferentpossible denotations of a word. For instance,you heard me use the word balance
both of the compositionof the pictureand of a desired social relationbetween
town and country.These are verydifferentreferencesof the word balance,and
what underlies what they have in common is very abstractand not very interArtor Society:MustWeChoose?
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39
REPRESENTATIONS
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the differencebetween the distances from the eye of the two now matching
candles, and fromthisdifferenceworked out (withthe law of inversesquaresthough thatis no part of the analogy) the relativestrengths.
So, very generallyspeaking, the Bouguer principleis: in the event of difficultyin establishinga relationbetweentwo terms,modifyone of the termstillit
matches the other,but keeping note of what modificationhas been necessary,
since thisis a necessarypart of one's information.
4) This is what we do, I think,but-and that is whyI am puttingthe point
in thisform-we are not alwaysaware thatwe are manipulatinga term,moving
a candle, to get a match.And moreoverwe may move now one candle, now the
other,so thatwe have a kind of double vision.
In one mood we manipulate Societyinto what, for lack of a betterterm, I
shall call Culture. But I should make it clear that I am using Culture not in the
anthropologist'ssense (which seems to come near to embracing Society) but in
the sociologist'ssense: thatis, classically,the skills,values, beliefs,knowledge,and
means of expression of a society.As we all know,the modulationfromsocietyto
cultureis problematicand debatable, and we would differin our viewsabout it,
but at least one can have a view and take a position.And besides it is undeniable
that a societycoincides with a culture. The relation of a culture to a work of
art is relativelystraightforwardto handle because the relation is participative: a whole of which a picture is a part is a culture. We can state relations
decentlyhere.
In the other mood we move the other candle. We close in on those aspects
of art thatcan be considered in the lightof the functioningof institutionsor on
art as institutional.We extractfromthe complex of institutionsthatconstitutes
a societythose thatseem relevantto art. Again, the relationbetweensocietyand
those institutionsseeming to bear on art is participativeand relativelystraightforward.And again, though the relationbetweeninstitutionsand workof art is
debatable, because for instance we may disagree in how far we see the artistas
actingon institutionsas well as being acted on by them,we can have and take a
position.
I had betteremphasize thatwhat this is all about is not subject mattersbut
our own intellectualconstructions.Manyof the same subjectmattersare treatable
in eithermood. Visual skills,forinstance,can be considered eitheras an element
in a culture or as a functionof social institutions.An artist'straininghas both
culturaland institutionalfaces. So have artisticgenres. But we look at the same
thingsin differentways.
What neither mood accommodates is a direct matchingof the form of a
pictureand the formof a society.Some of what I wanted to sayabout Lorenzetti's
picture could be reworked throughone or another of the indirectmoods, but
not all.
5) Finally,perhaps I should spell out the bearing of what I have been saying
Artor Society:MustWeChoose?
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41
42
REPRESENTATIONS
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or as a functionof institutions;
"art"thatcan be seen as institutional
6) itis helpful
to know this; 7) a quite practical corollaryis that when we set out to give an
account of a particularwe have to choose, as a matterof explanatoryloyalty,
betweena work of art and a society-since, when our account of the one is an
adequate expositoryacknowledgmentof the structurethatgivesit meaning,our
referenceto the other willbe sporadic, fragmenting,and functionallyantistructural.If thebalance of myemphasisand tone constitutedsomethinglikea subtext
(as I have been told theydid), it was, I hope, thatwe mightdo whatwe do rather
betterif we were clearer about what it is we are doing. It was certainlynot that
we ought not to referout froma picture(or a society)to thisor thatothermatter.
That would be absurd. But perhaps misunderstandingarose out of my taking
the conceptof "society,"
whichis powerfully
and specifically
constructive,
seriously.
Artor Society:MustWeChoose?
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43