Visual Culture: A New Paradigm

Author(s): William Innes Homer

Source: American Art, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring, 1998), pp. 6-9
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
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 Commentary
VisualCulture
A New Paradigm

William Innes Homer Within the past threeor fouryears,the phenomenonknown as visualculture(often
capitalized)has come into its own as a freshapproachto objectsand images-a kind of
"new,new arthistory,"to borrowfrom arthistorianMarshaMeskimmon.The riseof this
novel approachsuggeststhat thereis somethingwrongwith arthistoryas it has been
practiced,a field traditionallyconcernedwith "transhistorical truths,timelessworksof art,
and unchangingcriticalcriteria."Visualculturehas alreadyreplacedthe typicalchrono-
logicalarthistorysurveyat placeslike Harvard,Swarthmore,and the Universityof
California,SantaBarbara.At Harvard,for example,the new course(datingfrom 1994)
treatsthe materialthematicallyand "introducesstudentsto the historyof methodsand
debatesin the field, ratherthan askingthem to memorizenames,dates,and worksof art."
Bookson visualculture,such as VisualCulture:Imagesand Interpretations (1994), edited
by Norman Bryson,MichaelAnn Holly, and KeithMoxey; GoodLooking:Essayson the
Virtueof Images(1996) by BarbaraStafford;and Languages of Visuality(1996), editedby
BeateAlbert,arebeginningto roll from the presses.And this new approachis startingto
makeinroadsin the sessionsheld at the annualmeetingof the CollegeArtAssociation.
Significantly,W. J. T. Mitchell'sbook PictureTheory: Essayson Verbaland VisualRepre-
sentation(1994) won the CharlesRufusMoreyPrizeofferedby its namesakeorganization
in 1995. Yet, in spite of this recognition,visualculturepursuedto its logicalconclusion
"isnot a tweakingof arthistory,"as Anne Higonnethas pointedout. It is, rather,"a
fundamentaldisruption."'But unliketraditionalarthistory,it has as yet no theoriesand
no masternarrative.It is a youthful,amorphousmediumthat is still tryingto find its own
identity.
In his book and in two recentarticles,Mitchellhas characterized visualculturebetter
than anyoneto date. He points out that the new field-"the studyof the socialconstruc-
tion of visualexperience"-representsa "pictorialturn"that permeatesa whole varietyof
fieldsand disciplines.It requires,he says,"conversations amongarthistorians,film
scholars,opticaltechnologistsand theorists,phenomenologists,psychoanalysts,and
anthropologists." The constructionof visualcultureis thus interdisciplinary,but he warns
us that its practitionersshouldavoida fashionable,glib interdisciplinarityfor its own sake.
Mitchellprefersthe idea of "indiscipline," his code word for remainingfaithfulto one
disciplinewhile probingnew areasof inquirylike visualculture.Mitchell,however,
consistentlytips his hat to a varietyof disciplinesto which visualcultureshouldbe
responsive-"arthistory,literaryand mediastudies,and culturalstudies."2

6 Spring 1998
ThomasEakins,Perspective
Drawingfor"ThePair-Oared
Shell, "1872. Pencil,ink, and
watercoloron paper,80.97 x 120.8
cm (31 7/8 x 47 5/8in.).Philadelphia
Museumof Art, ThomasSkelton
HarrisonFund
Likethe rationalizedvisualfield in
Eakins'sdrawing,the multidi-
mensionalnatureof visualculture
has challengedmanyarthistorians
to takea morepenetratinglook
at art.
Visualculture,unliketraditionalarthistory,may concernitselfwith masscultureand
the populararts(it sharesthis interestwith culturalstudies,but Mitchellcautionsus not
to regardvisualcultureas the "visualfront"of culturalstudies).For this reason,visual
culturefinds a naturalhome in film studiesprogramsand departments.Yet visualculture,
unlikethe orientationof film programsto contemporaryor recentmaterials,can easily
addressitselfto the remotepast.
Imageversustext has becomethe centralissueamongadvocatesof what I call the new
visuality.Becausewe live in a worldfilledwith images,we should,Mitchellcontends,
addresspicturesin our studieswith the kind of reverencewe traditionallyhold for texts.
The new disciplineoffersan antidoteto the preoccupationwith textualityassociatedwith
the structuralismand poststructuralism of the 1970s and 1980s, when everythingbecame
a text and much criticaltheorywas dominatedby the internaldialoguebetweenone text
and another.Visualculture,by contrast,reliesin largeparton sensoryexperience-
particularlythe visual-and this relianceprovidesa welcomereliefto the self-referential
worldof linguisticrelations.BarbaraStaffordaptlyarticulatedthis tensionwhen she wrote
in her 1996 book:"Iam arguingthatwe need to disestablishthe view of cognitionas
dominantlyand aggressivelylinguistic.It is narcissistictribalcompulsionto overempha-
size the agencyof logos[theword] and annihilaterivalimaginaries."3
Staffordis perhapsthe most vehementand vocal advocatefor the visual.She feelsthat
fartoo much attentionhas been given to word-text-orientedthinkingand that the visual
7 AmericanArt
 has been disparagedor ignored.The seenworld,she says,is a vibrantsourceof informa-
tion, rankingwith and often surpassingthe semioticas a sourceof knowledgeabouta
given time and place.Unlike Mitchell,who hesitatesto endorsea fully interdisciplinary
approachto arthistory,Staffordembraceseveryimaginablefield-from optics to natural
history-as lQngas it shedslight on the objectof her inquiry.And while Mitchelladvo-
catesa balancedinterchangebetweenimageand text, Staffordopts for the primacyof the
visual.She thus seemsmoreemphaticallyavant-gardethan Mitchellin herviews.Or
perhapsshe is more retardataire: she
looks backwardto late-nineteenth-and
In spite of the recent efforts to define visual culture, it remains early-twentieth-centuryart history,
aslipperyconcept. when visualand aestheticexperience
and broadculturalcontextswere
cherished,separatelyor together,by the arthistoricalcommunity.If Staffordis leaning
towardthe past,perhapsshe is caughtup in postmodernnostalgia.But unlikeso many
linguisticpostmodernists,she does not deconstructearliertimes,but rathermines them
for theiraffirmative,positivevalue.
In recentconversationswith friends,I haveoften said that encounteringvisualculture
is somethinglike rediscoveringthe wheel-the wheel being the disciplineof arthistoryas
it was practicedbeforeit was politicizedas the new arthistorysome fifteenor twentyyears
ago. The new arthistoryopenedup the field to a panoplyof approaches-Marxism,
feminism,gay and lesbiantheory,postcolonialism,deconstructionism,semiotics,and
psychoanalysis.In differentways,thesevariedmodeshelpedbreakdown the exclusive
canonof greatmasterpiecesfabricatedby white WesternEuropeanmales,as well as the
privilegingof the fine overthe populararts.In the new arthistory,artwas seen at one
extremeas a text, without an "author,"or at the other,as a politicalinstrumentfor social,
gender,or classjustice.At both poles and anywherein between,the visualplayeda small
partor none at all. Indeed,"scopicregimes"(asdescribedby MartinJay)or the powerof
the "gaze"(asarticulatedby NormanBryson)wereto be avoided.The adventof visual
culture,however,changedall that. Lookingand feeling-experiencing throughthe visual
and othersenses-are on theirway back.It is no longera crimeto speakof the authoras
the makerof a workof artor of the spectatoras a sentientbeing, capableof experiencinga
full rangeof sensations.
In spite of the recenteffortsto definevisualculture,it remainsa slipperyconcept.
Perhapsit is too new to haveclear-cutboundaries,or possiblyit definesitselfprincipally
by what it is not. Mitchellseizedupon visualculture'selusivenature:

It namesa problematicratherthana well-definedtheoretical object.Unlikefeminism,gender

studies,orstudiesin raceand ethnicity,it is nota politicalmovement,not evenan academic
movementlikeculturalstudies.Visuality,unlikeraceorgenderor class,hasno innatepolitics.
Likelanguage,it is a mediumin whichpolitics(andidentification, desire,and sociability)are
conducted.4

Fromone point of view, visualculturemay be a postmoderntool that deconstructswhat

is outdatedand useless.But it also offersnew opportunitiesto those seekingto reformart
history.Throughvisualculture,we may once againrevelin visualsensationsand experi-
ences,welcomethe interdisciplinary, rejoicein the profundityof high artas well as the
vitalityof massor popularculture,and view culturenonpolitically,almostfrom an
anthropologicalperspective.The multidimensionalErwinPanofsky,in recentyearsseen

8 Spring1998
as a dinosaurof arthistory,now enjoysrenewedpopularity,especiallyfor his studiesof
Renaissanceperspective.Mitchellcallshim "aninevitablemodel and startingpoint for
any generalaccountof what is now called'visualculture."'5
Visualculturemay only be a passingfad. But given the inevitabilityof changein the
fashionsof arthistoricaltheory,I would estimatethatvisualculture'stime has come and
that both semioticpoststructuralismand sociallybasedapproachesmay begin to lose
ground. As with any movement-artistic or theoretical-this changewill taketime, but at
the momentvisualculturehas a greatdealof momentumand offersfreshnew fieldsfor
discoveryand insight.

Notes

1 MarshaMeskimmon,"Visuality:The New, New Art History?"Art History20 (June1997): 331; for

quotationon traditionalhistory,see Norman Bryson,MichaelAnn Holly, and KeithMoxey,eds., Visual
Culture:Imagesand Interpretations(Hanover,N.H.: UniversityPressof New England,1994), p. xv; for
quotationon Harvardcourse,see Scott Heller,"WhatAre They Doing to Art History?"ArtNews96
(January1997): 102; and Higonnet, quotedin Heller,p. 104.

2 and VisualCulture,"ArtBulletin77 (December1995): 540-41.

W. J. T. Mitchell,"Interdisciplinarity

3 BarbaraMariaStafford,GoodLooking:Essayson the Virtueof Images(Cambridge,Mass.:MIT Press,

1996), p. 7.

4 and VisualCulture,"p. 542.

Mitchell,"Interdisciplinarity

5 W. J. T. Mitchell,PictureTheory: (Chicago:Universityof
Essayson Verbaland VisualRepresentation
ChicagoPress,1994), p. 16.

9 AmericanArt