Speaking for pictures: the rhe!oric of art criticismJAMES A. W. HEFFERNAN

Let an}' man read any 01' those subjccts in the sacrcd book,and then takc a view 01' the cartoll [s:J. Let him turn overthe divinc paR{~ evcr so aflen, and as alten return to thecanon; he will assurt'dly carry back rrom tht", picture notonly nohlcr ami mOfe clllarged conceptions al' the grcatestpan 01' those subjects than thc sacrcd writer has len uponhim, but noblcr amI more cnlargcd cOllceplions ncvdycncrcasil1~ at CVCT)' vicw. Thesc clfcets are not produccd,becausc the sacrcd writcrs werc dcfeetive, but becaWie they\ ..:efC writers, ami becau~e words can Ilever convey suchideas as Illay be brollghl lJ.l ~f1O\v ti'orn ~u('h a pcncil [i.c.paintbrush I as Raphacl's.: ~I. ~,.~ '''''''}\11_" .......

1 quote this passagc from an obscure historian ol" artnot because it bears l In lhe latetwentieth eentury, a poster published by lhe InternationalPhotography Couneil says lhat 'the world speaks in 1994languages, bUl sees in ooly OIle: Photography, the universal

, language.' It should not be a surprise that prolessionali photographers want liS lo consider their language universal,1 bUl most readers ofthe paster probably do not evcn realise

_.~~i. that it makes a daim -- let alone wondering if the claimI is truco For pictures can sometirncs ambush lhe mind,circurnventing our logic and verhal defcnscs. Part oC whatI makes pielarial language secm universal is its seemingly': privileged access to thc vicwer's hcart or soul. Q:Jintilian,..' rth~ celebrate? teaeher of rh~toric in ancient Rome,.. ' ! aflIrmed: -A plcture, though a sllcnt work, may penetrate,~ ,,? ',6 the feclings so deepIy thal it sometimes surpasses the very~. " ':' force of spcaking.".l Scventcen ccnturies later, Quintilian's> l r Oinl was eited and amplified by the English c1er''Ymanf Roberl Anthony Bromley. [n the eourse of' his history of! lhe arts, Bromlcy compared the cartoons al" Raphael -'; tlw paintings he made on papcr (cartom) for the SistineI Chape! lapestries to be eopied by tapestry weavers - Wilhit the seriptural passagcs thc)" dcpict:

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the expressiveness 01' pictures wrought by artists such a:::iRaphael. Such a claim inevitably provokcs resistance, andQuintilian ~ whose authority indirectly sponsars ir ~would probably be the tirst to disavow it. He granted thata picture might 'sometirnes' speak more forccful1y thanwords, but he condemned the practice of using a pictureof a erime lo rouse the feelings of a judge. 'For the pleader ~who prefers a voiccless (mutam) picture to speak for hirnin place of his own eloquence must be singularlyineompetent. '4

The differenee between Raphael and the ancicntRoman precursor of the police photobJTapher must berespected, but regardless of the artist, Quintilian \vould!never allow a 'voicelcss' art to usurp or supplant the art Iof rhctoric, to speak for the orator himself.s Ql:lintilian) \Y?Td. for pictorial J.ft is tacens,.silent. Recalling Simonides~Jd~-finition oC painting as '~ute p~try' (poiesin sioposan),Quintilian's word suggests that painting cannot even speakfor itsclf: much less for the victim of a crimc 01' for anyoncelse. Art history springs /rom this eonvietion. As W. J. T.Mitehell observes,

The 'otherness' of visual representation from the standpoinl01' tcxtuality may be anything- from a professional competition (the paragone of poet ami painter) to a rclation ofpolitical, disciplinary, or cultural domination in which the'self' is undcrstood to he an active, spcaking, sceing subjcct,while the 'othcr' is projcctcd as a passive, secn, and (usual1y)silcnt ohjccl. Insofar as an history is a verbal rcpresentacion01' visual rcpr;Cltati6~elevation 01' ekph-';s's to adisciplinary principie. Like the masses, the colonizcd, Lhe ....PO\vcrlcss and voicelcss c\'crywherc, visual represcntationcannot rcprcsent itsclf; it must be reprcsctltcd by discourse.f'i

The history of art cannot be toldw,thout eKp!ir",1.J, t~ Ivel'bal representation of visual representili(ii.. When Leon

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