Table Of ContentVISION AND PAINTING
LANGUAGE, DISCOURSE, SOCIETY
Editors: Stephen Heath and Colin MacCabe
published
VISION AND PAINTING: The Logic of the Gaze
Norman Bryson
ALICE DOESN'T: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema
Teresa de Lauretis
CONDITIONS OF MUSIC
Alan Durant
FEMINISM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: The Daughter's Seduction
Jane Gallop
UNDERSTANDING BECKETT
Peter Gidal
ON LAW AND IDEOLOGY
Paul Hirst
JAMES JOYCE AND THE REVOLUTION OF THE WORLD
Colin MacCabe
THE TALKING CURE: Essays in Psychoanalysis and Language
Colin MacCabe (editor)
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND CINEMA: The Imaginary Signigier
Christian Metz
GENEALOGIES OF MORAL: Nietzsche, Foucault, Donzelot and the Eccentricity of Ethics
Jeffrey Minson
LANGUAGE, SEMANTICS AND IDEOLOGY
Michel Pecheux
LANGUAGE, SEXUALITY AND IDEOLOGY IN EZRA POUND'S CANTOS
Jean-Michel Rabate
THE CASE OF PETER PAN OR THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CHILDREN'S FICTION
Jacqueline Rose
THE MAKING OF THE READER: Language and Subjectivity in Modern American English and
Irish Poetry.
David Trotter
Series Standing Order
If you would like to receive future titles in this series as they
are published, you can make use of our standing order
facility. To place a standing order please contact your
bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address
below with your name and address and the name of the
series. Please state with which title you wish to begin your
standing order. (If you live outside the UK we may not have
the rights for your area, in which case we will forward your
order to the publisher concerned.)
Standing Order Service, Macmillan Distribution Ltd,
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG212XS, England.
VISION AND PAINTING
The Logic of the Gaze
Norman Bryson
Fellow of King's College
Cambndge
~
MACMILLAN
©Norman Bryson 1983
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1983
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or
transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988,
or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court
Road, London W1P9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
First published 1983 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-1-349-06123-5 ISBN 978-1-349-06121-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-06121-1
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
IS 14 13 12 II 10 9 8 7
03 02 0 I 00 99 98 97 96 95
For May and Edward
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgements XV
1 The Natural Attitude 1
2 The Essential Copy 13
3 Perceptualism 37
4 The Image from Within and Without 67
5 The Gaze and the Glance 87
6 Image, Discourse, Power 133
Epilogue: The Invisible Body 163
Notes and References 173
Index 187
List of Illustrations
1 Family of Vunnerius Keramus; Civico Museo dell'Eta Cristiana,
Brescia 4
2 Cimabue, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels and Prophets;
Uffizi, Florence. Photograph: Mansell Collection 8
3 Giotto, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels; Uffizi,
Florence. Photograph: Mansell Collection 9
4 Durer, Rhinoceros; British Museum 22
5 Heath, Rhinoceros; from J. Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the
Nile (Edinburgh, 1790); University Library, Cambridge 23
6 Chi-Rho Page, The Book of Kells; Trinity College Library, Dublin 28
7 Throne of Maximian (detail); Archaeoepiscopal Museum,
Ravenna. Photograph: Hirmer-Verlag 46
8 The Annunciation and the Nativity; southern apse, Church of el
Adra, Deir es Suryani. Photograph: Egyptian Expedition, Metro-
politan Museum of Art. All rights reserved 47
9 Nativity; Church of Hosias Loukas, near Delphi. Photograph:
Josephine Powell 48
10 Nativity; Church of the Peribleptos, Mistra. Photograph:
Josephine Powell 49
11 Duccio, The Betrayal; 5. Maria Assunta (Museo dell' Opera,
Siena). Photograph: Archivi Alinari 54
12 Giotto, The Betrayal; Arena Chapel, Padua. Photograph: Mansell
Collection 57
13 Giotto, The Betrayal (detail) 63
14 Wen Cheng-ming, Seven Juniper Trees (detail); Honolulu Academy
of Arts, gift of Mrs Carter Galt, 1952 90
15 Attributed to Chu Jan, Buddhist Monastery in Stream and Mountain
Landscape; Cleveland Museum of Art, gift of Katharine Holden 91
16 Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne; National Gallery, London 97
17 Christ Pantocrator; Monastery Church, Daphni, Greece. Photo-
graph: Josephine Powell 99
List of Illustrations
X
18 Master of the Barberini Panels, Annundation; Samuel H. Kress
Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington 100
19 Raphael, Marriage of the Virgin; Brera, Milan. Photograph:
Mansell Collection 105
20 Masaccio, Trinity; S. Maria Novella, Florence. Photograph:
Mansell Collection 109
21 Masaccio, Trinity (detail) 110
22 Vermeer, View of Delft; Mauritshuis, The Hague 112
23 Vermeer, The Artist in his Studio; Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Vienna 113
24 Vermeer, The Artist in his Studio (detail) 115
25 Cimabue, Lamentation of the Virgin; S. Domenico, Arezzo. Photo-
graph: Archivi Alinari 123
26 Baldovinetti, Profile Portrait of a Lady; National Gallery, London 124
27 Pollaiuolo, Profile Portrait of a Lady; Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan 125
28 Leonardo, Portrait of Ginevra de'Benci; National Gallery of Art,
Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund 126
29 Rembrandt, Descent from the Cross; Alte Pinakothek, Munich 128
30 Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus; National Gallery, London 129
31 Gros, The Battle of Eylau (detail); Louvre, Paris. Photograph:
Musees Nationaux, Paris 144
32 Manet, Olympia; Louvre, Paris 146
33 Gericault, Madman; Museum voor Schone Kunster 147
34 Male Funerary Portrait; National Gallery, London 165
35 Female Funerary Portrait; National Gallery, London 166
36 Attributed to Robert Campin, Portrait of a Man; National Gallery,
London 168
37 Attributed to Robert Campin, Portrait of a Woman; National Gal-
Gallery, London 169
38 David Hockney, Larry S., Fire Island; private collection, USA 170
a
39 Ingres, Study for L'Odalisque l'esclave; private collection, Great
Britain. Photograph: Musees Nationaux, Paris 171
Preface
It is a sad fact: art history lags behind the study of the other arts. Whether
this unfortunate state of affairs is to be attributed to the lethargy of the
custodians of art, too caught up in administration and the preparation of
exhibitions and catalogues to channel their remaining energies into analy
tic writing, and too preoccupied with the archive to think long and hard
about what painting actually is, or to the peculiar history of the institutions
devoted in this century to the study of art, a history which from the
beginning has tended to isolate that study from the other humanities, or to
some less elaborate reason, such as the plain stasis, conservatism and
inertia fostered by the sociology of the profession of art history, I cannot
say. Nor can I determine to what degree, if at all, this state of inertia may
be nudged toward growth and change by the appearance of a book criticis
ing the prevailing stasis from the outside: it may well be that the only
changes deep enough to be effective must come from within the institu
tions of art history, and must directly alter the way those institutions
function. What is certain is that while the last three or so decades have
witnessed extraordinary and fertile change in the study of literature, of
history, of anthropology, in the discipline of art history there has reigned a
stagnant peace; a peace in which -certainly -a profession of art history
has continued to exist, in which monographs have been written, and more
and more catalogues produced: but produced at an increasingly remote
margin of the humanities, and almost in the leisure sector of intellectual
life.
What is equally certain is that little can change without radical re-exami
nation of the methods art history uses - the tacit assumptions that guide
the normal activity of the art historian. Here, perhaps, something can be
done - and action is as urgent as it is belated. There are now fewer and
fewer art historians who venture outside their speciality to ask the basic
questions: what is a painting? what is its relation to perception? to power?
to tradition? And in the absence of writing which does ask those ques-
