The iconic indexicality of photography
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Piotr Sadowski
Abstract
The unique visual appeal of photography results from combining the basically iconic code (resemblance between image and referent) with indexicality. Photography is indexical insofar as the represented object is “imprinted” by light and the chemical (or electronic) process on the image, creating a visual likeness that possesses a degree of accuracy and “truthfulness” unattainable in purely iconic signs such as painting, drawing, or sculpture. The indexical origin of the photographic image explains why discussions of the photographic media (including film and television) often employ categories normally reserved for the emotive and irrational effects produced in traditional societies by sympathetic magic, with its objectively wrong but psychologically compelling sense of direct causal link between objects once physically connected but later separated. The essay discusses the iconic indexicality in the context of its historic antecedents such as imprints of hands, death masks, wax effigies, shadow portraits, and experiments with camera obscura.
Abstract
The unique visual appeal of photography results from combining the basically iconic code (resemblance between image and referent) with indexicality. Photography is indexical insofar as the represented object is “imprinted” by light and the chemical (or electronic) process on the image, creating a visual likeness that possesses a degree of accuracy and “truthfulness” unattainable in purely iconic signs such as painting, drawing, or sculpture. The indexical origin of the photographic image explains why discussions of the photographic media (including film and television) often employ categories normally reserved for the emotive and irrational effects produced in traditional societies by sympathetic magic, with its objectively wrong but psychologically compelling sense of direct causal link between objects once physically connected but later separated. The essay discusses the iconic indexicality in the context of its historic antecedents such as imprints of hands, death masks, wax effigies, shadow portraits, and experiments with camera obscura.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface and acknowledgements ix
- Introduction xi
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Part I. Word forms, word formation, and meaning
- Toward a phonosemantic definition of iconic words 3
- Iconic thinking and the contact-induced transfer of linguistic material 19
- Ezra Pound among the Mawu 39
- Cognitive iconic grounding of reduplication in language 55
- Imagic iconicity in the Chinese language 83
- Words in the mirror 101
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Part II. General theoretical approaches
- Un mélange genevois 135
- How to put art and brain together 149
- Image, diagram, and metaphor 157
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Part III. Narrative grammatical structures
- The farmers sowed seeds and hopes 175
- Non-iconic chronology in English narrative texts 191
- A burning world of war 211
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Part IV. Cognitive poetics
- Aesthetic qualities as structural resemblance 233
- Mental space mapping in classical Chinese poetry 251
- Iconicity in conceptual blending 269
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Part V. Acoustic and visual iconicity
- Thematized iconicity and iconic devices in the modern novel 291
- Iconicity and intermediality in Charles Simic’s Dime-Store Alchemy 313
- Words, like shells, are signs as well as things 327
- Unveiling creative subplots through the non-traditional application of diagrammatic iconicity 343
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Part VI. Intermedial iconicity
- The iconic indexicality of photography 355
- Unbinding the text 369
- Argumentative, iconic, and indexical structures in Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin 389
- John Irving’s A Widow for One Year and Tod Williams’ The Door in the Floor as ‘(mult-)i-conic’ works of art 405
- Author index 423
- Subject index 425
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface and acknowledgements ix
- Introduction xi
-
Part I. Word forms, word formation, and meaning
- Toward a phonosemantic definition of iconic words 3
- Iconic thinking and the contact-induced transfer of linguistic material 19
- Ezra Pound among the Mawu 39
- Cognitive iconic grounding of reduplication in language 55
- Imagic iconicity in the Chinese language 83
- Words in the mirror 101
-
Part II. General theoretical approaches
- Un mélange genevois 135
- How to put art and brain together 149
- Image, diagram, and metaphor 157
-
Part III. Narrative grammatical structures
- The farmers sowed seeds and hopes 175
- Non-iconic chronology in English narrative texts 191
- A burning world of war 211
-
Part IV. Cognitive poetics
- Aesthetic qualities as structural resemblance 233
- Mental space mapping in classical Chinese poetry 251
- Iconicity in conceptual blending 269
-
Part V. Acoustic and visual iconicity
- Thematized iconicity and iconic devices in the modern novel 291
- Iconicity and intermediality in Charles Simic’s Dime-Store Alchemy 313
- Words, like shells, are signs as well as things 327
- Unveiling creative subplots through the non-traditional application of diagrammatic iconicity 343
-
Part VI. Intermedial iconicity
- The iconic indexicality of photography 355
- Unbinding the text 369
- Argumentative, iconic, and indexical structures in Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin 389
- John Irving’s A Widow for One Year and Tod Williams’ The Door in the Floor as ‘(mult-)i-conic’ works of art 405
- Author index 423
- Subject index 425
