“Studies in Visual Arts and Communication –
an international journal”
Volume 2 – Nr 2, 2015
Table of Contents
Dec 2015; 2(2)
1. Robert J. Belton
The Narrative Potential of Album Covers
Studies in Visual Arts and Communication – an international journal / Dec 2015 2(2)
ABSTRACT
In Popular Music Studies there appears to be a conceptual divide between the aesthetics of videos and those of album covers because the former move in time and the latter do not. One of the consequences of this separation is that music video studies tend to take inspiration from film and media studies whereas album cover studies tend to derive ideas and methods from art history. This paper asks if this isn’t a missed opportunity. It argues that album covers can and do exist in time, and it offers a type of analysis that shows how still and moving images both integrate with music to create a modal hybrid that is greater than simply the sum of their parts. One can, for example, profitably deploy narrative analysis to understand still images. Similarly, one can deploy art historical methods to assess music videos.
2. Marcelo Mari
Mário Pedrosa, debate between International informalism versus Latin American constructivism (1950-1965)
Studies in Visual Arts and Communication – an international journal / Dec 2015 2(2)
ABSTRACT
In 1959 and 1960, during the inauguration of Brasília, Brazil, various initiatives were made to discuss the meaning and impact of Brazilian constructive art in the world. This was a period when Brazil seemed to offer an alternative to abstract expressionism and subjectivist tendencies of international contemporary art, under the influence is increasingly visible in New York rather than Paris. Among these initiatives which accompanied the construction of Brasilia’s advertising abroad, with the commitment of Mário Pedrosa, an extraordinary Congress of AICA in Brazil to discuss the founding of the new Capital and also was organized, by means of bilateral action between Brazil and Germany (GDR), exhibition of contemporary collection of the Museum of Modern art of Rio de Janeiro (MAM-RJ). It was the first time that promoted Conference of Brazilian artists in Europe. After having passed through Vienna and Munich, in Leverkusen, the exhibition named Brasilianische kunst der gegenwart, occurred in the Museum Schloss Morsbroich Leverkusen, State, between November 27, 1959 and January 10, 1960. The debate between Mário Pedrosa and European critic happened in that time.
Keywords: Mário Pedrosa, Latin American constructivism, Informalism, art criticism
3. Camilla Murgia
From Academy to “Sloshua”: Joshua Reynolds’ Perception in the Victorian Era
Studies in Visual Arts and Communication – an international journal / Dec 2015 2(2)
ABSTRACT
The present article explores the perception of the figure of Sir Joshua Reynolds during the Victorian era. Although Reynolds became, during his life-time, an extremely celebrated artist, his reputation encountered some criticism during the 19th century. Particular attention will be paid to the discussion of the British master as an anti-model for an entire artistic generation. Indeed, Pre-Raphaelites identified themselves with the works and doctrines of one of the greatest rivals Reynolds ever had: painter and poet William Blake. Such a rivalry is at the core of the perception of Reynolds’ work which is both artistic and theoretical as the master left a series of writings on art. This article will demonstrate how this negative comprehension is constructed and debated thanks to a number of texts, biographies and articles dedicated to both artists.
Keywords: Renyolds, Blake, Pre-Raphaelite movement, Rossetti, Ruskin, Art Theory, Art Criticism, Victorian age
4. Gino Querini
On the political use of images. Some reflections on the last panels of Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas
Studies in Visual Arts and Communication – an international journal / Dec 2015 2(2)
ABSTRACT
Aby Warburg’s (1866-1929) final project was the Mnemosyne Atlas, a collection of approximately one thousand images structured over about 70 plates. In this unfinished project, the scholar traced instantiations of the classical figure in western visual culture, focusing especially on the Italian Renaissance, producing an artefact that, once completed, should have showed immediately the intricate network of said heritage. The last two plates of the Atlas (78-79), however, are composed of photographs from the 1929 signing of the Lateran treaty, contemporary newspaper clippings and even depictions of Japanese tradition ritual suicides, clearly trespassing the original, self-imposed, boundaries of the project.
This paper investigates these two plates, showing how they vindicate a reading of the Atlas as an historical investigation that precedes under the premises of an anthropological consideration of the role of images in our experience.
The examination will consider the double nature of images as halfway between scientific signs and mythical symbolism. These extreme poles referred, for Warburg, to the double nature of images as attempts to dominate our pathos-laden experience via creative expressions. This is due to the a-historical condition of human beings as liminal creatures in between rationality and animality; a polarity that deliberately echoes Nietzsche’s opposition of the Dionysian and Apollonian in a transcendental sense. In this specific case, I will describe, via Warburg’s examples, how this liminality is reflected in the application of power, and how this same power is understood in its figurative expression.
More precisely, I am going to examine the connection that images share with their cultural milieu following Warburg’s reflections on Fascism’s self-understanding and consequent (mis)use of the classical. The result of said examination will prove the validity of Warburg’s reflections for an overall understanding of the nature of political imagery both as an instrument of self-understanding and of propaganda.
Keywords: Aby Warburg, Mnemosyne Atlas, Political iconology, Symbols, Sacrifice, classical heritage, fascism.
5. Arefe Sarami, Bahar Mokhtarian
Structural Analysis of Iconographic Symbols and Metaphorical Expressions of Bicorporal Fish Pattern
Studies in Visual Arts and Communication – an international journal / Dec 2015 2(2)
ABSTRACT
Fish (two fishes) is one of the repetitive dual patterns in decorative works of art which is thought to be a metaphorical expression of some underlying concepts in different cultures. Herati-Two-Symbolic-Fish is an example of two fishes pattern projection in Iranian carpets. At the same time, this pattern also symbolizes the Pisces constellation in the zodiac design. In this study, the dual structure of two fishes symbol and reception of its metaphorical expression in both iconographic material and literary devices within different cultures were investigated. Iconography was employed to describe illustrations and the pertaining symbolic meanings. Then, a structural approach was used to analyze this dual structure and the underlying relations with death/ life bicorporal concepts in myths and legends. In addition, analyzing pictorial and verbal depictions, and utilizing etymological considerations, this study attempted to reveal that two fishes, as a logical structure, is reflected in both cosmological and human body symbolism.
Results from iconographic and structural analysis showed that despite cultural differences and evolutions in some of the elements linked to the central fish-related institute in both iconographic and literary material, the underlying semantic structure, which is responsible for the internal semantic relations and logics among different elements, remains unchanged; and, the fish-related institute remains as the symbolic reflection of the death/life opposition.
Keywords: Two fishes (Pisces), Bicorporal fish pattern, Duality, Structural analysis, Iconography, Body symbolism.