The Discourse of Realistic Classical Representation and The Gaze

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The Discourse of Realistic (Classical)
Representation and The Gaze
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Realistic two-dimensional representation

• a conventional system (a discourse, a visual
  language, a code) that employs perspective (a
  system of representing in two dimensions was
  invented in the fifteenth century around
  Florence, Italy)
• as a system or discourse, it defines in advance
  the place for the subject

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Art of the middle ages

• Artists of the Middle Ages, lacking a theory of
  mathematical perspective, and more interested in
  depicting religious, spiritual truths rather than
  the real, physical world -- did not worry about
  whether the objects

on this table in an early 15th century version of
the "Garden of Paradise" would fall off or not.
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Art of the middle ages
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Traditional Chinese Art
Zhao MengFu Chao Meng-fu
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Renaissance Perspective
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Renaissance Perspective
perspective
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Renaissance Perspective
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American Landscapes
Thomas Cole, In the Catskills, 1837
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Las Meninas by Velasquez (as analyzed by Oudart
Dayan)
(1656)
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In this painting, members of the court and
the painter himself look out at the spectator.
By virtue of a mirror in the back if the room
(depicted as the center of the painting), we see
what they are looking at the king and queen,
whose portrait Velasquez is painting. Foucault
calls this the representation of classical
representation, because the spectatorusually
invisibleis here
inscribed into the painting itself. Thus the
painting represents its own functioning, but in a
paradoxical, contradictory way. The painter is
staring at us, the spectators who pass in front
of the canvas, but the mirror reflects only one,
unchanging thing, the royal couple. Through this
contradiction, the system of representation
points toward its own functioning. In
cinematographic terms the mirror represents the
reverse shot of the painting. In theatrical
terms, the painting represents the stage while
the mirror represents its audience. Oudart
concludes that the text of the painting must not
be reduced to its visible part it does not stop
where the canvas stops. The text of the painting
is a system which Oudart defines as a
double-stage. On one stage, the show is enacted
one the other, the spectator looks at it. In
classical representation, the visible is only the
first part of a system which always includes an
invisible, second part (the reverse shot).
- Daniel Dayan
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Las Meninas by Velasquez (as analyzed by Oudart
Dayan)
(1656)
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John Bergers Ways of Seeing (1973)

• the representation of womens bodies exists in
  this tradition of realistic representationthe
  nude
• (framing, lighting, shadows, makeup, glamour,
  body position)
• the spectator (protagonist) of the nude is
  constructed by the system (discourse)a male
  spectator
• what are the real-world effects?

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Sut Jhallys Dreamworlds

• examines the same phenomena in music videos
• women in the dreamworld perform for an implied
  (or explicitly shown) male spectator watching the
  image
• womens bodies are fragmented (buttocks,
  breasts), or are part of the landscape (the
  pan-shot)

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Whats Wrong With The Dreamworld?

• NOT just objectification, which Jhally argues is
  part of human sexuality
• BUT the denial of womens humanity when they are
  ONLY presented as objects
• ALSO when this attitude, and the limited stories
  of the dreamworld are acted out in the real world

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The Gaze or Fetishization

• Jhally refers to it Berger is specifically
  describing it
• Laura Mulvey (1975) Visual Pleasure and
  Narrative Cinema
• explores how the system or discourse of
  representation functions in Classical Hollywood
  Narrative Cinema

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The Female Body as Objectified Erotic Spectacle

• often dismembered (fragmented) into eroticized
  parts
• often the female body appears flat, static,
  passive (in contrast to the images of male
  characters who move within three dimensional
  space)

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Spectator Position and The Gaze

• the cinematic discourse (representational system)
  constructs a spectator-position for the viewer
  (often the cameras perspective)
• the male character bears the look of the
  spectator through POV shots
• the system thereby constructs the spectators
  identification with this male character, a screen
  surrogate

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Complications of the Gaze

• What about female spectatorswhom do they
  identify with? The male gaze or the objectified
  woman? What about gay men? gay women?
• Can male bodies be subject to the same system of
  representation?