The Visibility of the Image: History and Perspectives of Formal Aesthetics

280 Pages·2016·36.61 MB·English

by  Lambert Wiesing

The Visibility of the Image
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The Visibility of the Image

History and Perspectives of
Formal Aesthetics
Lambert Wiesing
Translated by Nancy Ann Roth
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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First published in English 2016
Originally published in German as Die Sichtbarkeit des Bildes. Geschichte
und Perspektiven der formalen Ästhetik, Lambert Wiesing © Campus
Verlag GmbH
All rights reserved and controlled by Campus Verlag GmbH
English language translation © Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
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can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978- 1- 4742- 3264- 7
ePDF: 978- 1- 4742- 3267- 8
ePub: 978- 1- 4742- 3266- 1
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Wiesing, Lambert, author.
Title: The visibility of the image : history and perspectives of formal
aesthetics / Lambert Wiesing; translated by Nancy Ann Roth.
Other titles: Sichtbarkeit des Bildes.
English Description: New York : Bloomsbury, 2016. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016012989 (print) | LCCN 2016021740 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781474232647 (hardback) | ISBN 9781474233316 (pbk.) |
ISBN 9781474232678 (epdf) | ISBN 9781474232661 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Aesthetics, Modern–19th century. |
Aesthetics, Modern–20th century. | Art–Philosophy–History–19th century. |
Art–Philosophy–History–20th century.
Classification: LCC BH193 .W4713 2016 (print) | LCC BH193 (ebook) |
DDC 111/.85–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016012989
Cover design: Catherine Wood
Cover image © Silke Rehberg
Typeset by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
Contents

List of Figures vii
Foreword to the New Edition (2008) ix
Introduction 1
1 The Beginnings of Formal Aesthetics: 
Robert Zimmermann (1824– 1898) 15
1.1 Formal logic as a model for formal aesthetics 15
1.2 The programme: A structural theory of the picture surface 22
1.3 Perspectives and problems in Herbartianism 31
2 Formal Aesthetics and Relational Logic: Alois Riegl (1858–1 905) 39
2.1 Transitions on the pictorial surface 39
2.2 Kunstwollen (the will to art): Making unlike things the same 47
2.3 Intensional and extensional relational logic 57
3 The Logic of Ways of Seeing: Heinrich Wölfflin (1864– 1945) 69
3.1 The relational logic of an image 69
3.2 Formal and transcendental aesthetics 86
3.3 The conditionality of perception 93
4 From the Way of Seeing to Visibility: Konrad Fiedler (1841– 1895) 107
4.1 The paradigms of formal aesthetics 107
4.2 Images produced technically: ‘For their visibility’s sake alone’ 125
4.3 The disappearance of artistic claims to truth 145
5 Phenomenological Reduction and Pictorial Abstraction:
Maurice Merleau- Ponty (1908– 1961) 157
5.1 Formal aesthetics and reduction 157
5.2 Visibility as quiddity 165
5.3 The abstract image 171
vi Contents
6 From the Formula to Formative Discourse:
Charles William Morris (1901– 1979) 179
6.1 Images about images 179
6.2 Images as formulae 184
6.3 The formative discourse of fast image sequences 191
Notes 203
Bibliography 231
Index 253
List of Figures

1 Hergé. Image of the ship Sirius from the comic series Tintin, Red
Rackham’s Treasure, 1944
2 J. M. W. Turner, Staffa, oil on canvas, 1832
3 Vector and Raster (pixels). Illustration from the manual for Adobe
Illustrator 6.0, Adobe Systems Incorporated, 1995
4 Illustration from auto motor und sport, 1993

Foreword to the New Edition (2008)
From a contemporary perspective, I find it nearly incomprehensible: in The
Visibility of the Image, I use the expression Bildtheorie [image theory] only twice
(pp. 18 and 172), just in passing, and without any further consideration I speak
of the theory of the image, too, only twice (pp. 40 and 126). It irritates me that
these concepts are used so infrequently, because I am sure that if I were writing
the book today, they would appear dozens of times. At present I know of no
other concept that would describe the contents and intention of this book so
tellingly: in The Visibility of the Image I try to sketch out a theory of the image.
As I was writing the book in the early 1990s, however – it was first available
in bookstores in November of 1996 – ‘Bildtheorie’ was not commonly used in
German intellectual discourse. Intensive research and thinking about images
and all their forms was underway in a wide range of disciplines, but it just was
not normally referred to as ‘image theory’. The term Bildtheorie, if it was heard at
all, had a completely different meaning, namely in the context of Wittgenstein’s
early understanding of a proposition. The concepts Bildwissenschaft [visual
culture] and ‘semiotics of the image’ were certainly available, although not yet
nearly as familiar as they are today. One tends to forget that people spoke of
Bilderkunde [the lore of images] in the 1980s and early 1990s. Yet whatever con-
cepts were in circulation, the expression ‘Bildtheorie’ didn’t quite fit – at least it
was not present in my vocabulary. If Bildtheorie was used before the turn of the
millennium at all, I think I’m justified in saying that it had no specific use: it was
not positioned centrally, either as a title or in a definition.
How the situation has changed! Those with even a superficial interest in
images are continually running across the concept of Bildtheorie: it is used in
the titles and programming of essays, books, conferences and research projects –
usually as if the meaning is obvious. There are posts, courses of study and profes-
sorships dedicated to image theory: all these are phenomena of roughly the past
ten years. In a very short time, the concept of Bildtheorie has developed from
a peripheral term into a well-u sed programmatic category. It should be noted,
however, that I am thinking about the history of the term, and not about the
issues to which it refers. These are without a doubt much older, not to say almost
as old as philosophy itself: Plato had an image theory, but it was never designated