Transcript Lecture powerpoint display

Visual and material evidence
Willem van Haecht, Collection of
Cornelius van der Geest, 1628
Visual culture and material culture
• Visual culture—images; the way humans and
human societies have expressed themselves
(intentionally or unintentionally) through images
(e.g. paintings, photographs, sculpture,
architecture)
• Material culture—artefacts; objects made and
used by humans; the way humans and human
societies have expressed themselves
(intentionally or unintentionally) through the
objects they make and use
What do we mean by culture and
cultural history?
• ‘Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words
in the English language.’—Raymond Williams, Keywords
(1983 edn), p. 87
• Culture as referring to someone knowledgeable about the
arts, particularly the high arts; culture as referring to the way
a people live (‘local culture’, ‘British culture’); culture as
referring to specific forms of shared values and ideas (e.g.
‘pop culture’, ‘gun culture’, ‘teen culture’, ‘drug culture’)
• Derives from the Latin verb colo, -ere, colui, cultum,
meaning variously ‘to inhabit, to protect, to cultivate, to
honour with worship’
• English derivatives include ‘culture’, ‘cultivate’ and ‘cult’
• Culture as ‘a system of shared meanings, attitudes and
values, and the symbolic forms (performances, artefacts) in
which they are expressed or embodied’—Peter Burke,
Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (1987), p. 270
Gun culture—some expressions of the
values, meaning and attitudes
associated with gun ownership; and
one counter-expression
Scene from the Bayeux tapestry, 1070s
Wonders on the Deep; 1683 woodcut of the frost fair
held on the Thames in that year
Jan Steen, The Feast of St
Nicholas
Jan Steen, The Bean Feast
Images of Dutch life in the late 17th century
Soviet workers; a propaganda poster and a
1942 photo of a woman working overtime in a
factory to aid the war effort
1950s American family: reality or ideal?
Robert Capa, Loyalist Militiaman at the
Moment of Death, Cerro Muriano, September
5, 1936 (‘The Falling Soldier’)
2008 image released by the Iranian government
showing the firing of four rockets
The image before Photoshop
photoshopdisasters.com
Two states of the same print, The Embleme of England’s Distraction,
the first featuring Oliver Cromwell, the second William III
Mezzotint portrait of Nell Gwyn, late
17th century
A mistress of Charles II, possibly Nell
Gwyn, more likely Barbara Villiers; painted
by Peter Lely
Barbara Villiers, mezzotint print
by Isaac Beckett after Peter Lely,
1683-7
Portrait of Lady ‘Orinda’ Phillips,
mezzotint, 1683-7
Iconography
The study of visual content and meaning,
particularly through an understanding of
the symbols used in an image, but also
including such things as gestures within an
image
Anthony van Dyck, Charles I and Henrietta Maria, 1632
George Gower, Portrait of
Elizabeth I (‘The Plimpton Sieve
Portrait’), 1579
Giovanni Battista
Moroni, The Vestal
Virgin Tuccia, c.1555
Andrea
Mantegna,
Tuccia, 1490
Bartolomeo Neroni,
Tuccia, mid 16th century
Quentin Metsys, Portrait of
Elizabeth I (‘The Sieve Portrait’),
c.1583
Attributed to Isaac Oliver,
Portrait of Elizabeth I (‘The
Rainbow Portrait’), 1600-2
Joseph Anton Koch, Noah’s
Thanksoffering, c.1803
The Clopton portrait, c.1560
Portrait of Elizabeth I, c.1565
The Pelican portrait,
c.1575, attributed to
Nicholas Hilliard
The Ermine portrait, 1585,
by Nicholas Hilliard
The Ditchley portrait,
c.1592, by Marcus
Gheeraerts the
Younger
The Double Deliverance, an engraving from 1621
The Papists’ PowderTreason, 1689; copy of the
1621 print by Samuel Ward
The Double Deliverance, an engraving from 1621
Abraham Bosse, ‘A Printer’s Workshop’, engraving, 1642
The Double Deliverance, an engraving from 1621
Title-page to the second part of Thomas
Scott, Vox populi, or Gondomar
appearing in the likenes of Matchiavell
in a Spanish parliament, wherein are
discovered his treacherous & subtile
practises to the ruine as well of
England, as the Netherlandes (Goricum
[i.e. London], 1624)
Chinese Han lacquer
cup, c.4 C.E.
Chinese characters at the
base of the cup, listing the
six craftsmen involved in
the manufacture of the cup
and the seven product
inspectors who checked its
quality
Concluding thoughts
• Visual and material culture provide us not so
much with social evidence, but more with
evidence of the way the world is seen through
the makers of the images and objects
• Images and objects need to be put into context
(just as we need to place texts in context); in
particular, our understanding of them is
improved if we see them in the context of other
images or objects
• Images and objects can be read and interpreted;
and we can ‘read between the lines’ and look for
the unintentional evidence they provide