Dissertation Information for Estelle Jussim NAME: - Estelle Jussim
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science
SCHOOL:
- Columbia University (USA) (1970)
ADVISORS: - Oliver L. Lilley
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Alice Bryan - Theodore C. Hines - Frances Henne - David Rosand
MPACT Status: Fully Complete
Title: PHOTOGRAPHIC TECHNOLOGY AND VISUAL COMMUNICATION IN THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN BOOK
Abstract: The impact of photography and its technologies on visual communication has scarcely begun to be measured. The pioneering work in the theory of the graphic arts, William Ivins' Prints and Visual Communication (1953) -- one of the major sources for Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media-- has remained unchallenged, although many of its assumptions, hypotheses, and conclusions lack adequate documentation. By applying the constructs of James Gibson concerning the perception of the visual world, and of Abraham Moles concerning the application of information theory to aesthetics, it was possible to reformulate and test Ivins' valuable hypotheses about the nature and influence of photography and the phototechnologies.
To discover in what ways the introduction of photographic technologies altered the capabilities of the graphic arts for artistic expression and information transfer, three specific illustrators and one subject area were explored in depth. A chronological survey of the work of Howard Pyle (1853-1911) revealed that even the most imaginative and versatile illustrators could not escape the technological limitations of the new media, however much they could learn to capitalize on their advantages. A comparison of the pre-and post-photographic books by William Hamilton Gibson (1850-1896) raised major questions of the relationship between "artistic expression" and "scientific fact," and introduced considerations of "media confusion." A new approach to the puzzling career of Frederic Remington (1861-1909)-- shadowed by discrepancies and myths which have obscured his absolute dependence on photography -- presented the inevitable conclusion that he was primarily an intermediary between the photograph and the printed page. Throughout, the problems encountered in the transmission of photography-from-Nature through type-compatible media provided considerable data on the conflict between the economics of publishing and artistic or technical goals.
The effects of the phototechnologies on the history of art history--Ivins' principle concern--were re-examined through carefully-matched sets of illustrations. Here, as elsewhere in the thesis, it became obvious that the message of the medium per se frequently obscures the message per se. Despite the fact that Ivins' theory that photography lacks a "syntax" is demonstrably naive, his concept of the "isness" of photography is amply verified in the transmission of messages about art objects.
As a control, the visual characteristics of publications of the Philadelphia Centennial (1876) era were compared with those of the World's Columbian Exposition (1893). Sampling of the years between these two major exhibitions unearthed a totally-neglected area which the present writer intends to pursue: that of the transitional book, in which the competition between wood-engraving and the phototechnologies created multi-media chaos.
The basic hypothesis of Ivins-- that the great achievement of photography is that it alone bypasses the subjective distortions of both the packager of information (the illustrator) and the technological manipulator of codes (the engraver) -- was discovered to be a gross oversimplification, as examples of communication needs for both the subjective evaluation of information and the subjective manipulation of codes could be found without difficulty. His subsidiary hypothesis--that the fine-screen process half-tone alone provided a printed surface using a subliminal code -- is also a distortion of the complexities of the graphic arts, especially since other phototechnologies surpass that medium in many ways.
Despite these oversimplifications, however, other Ivins’ contentions were significantly verified : (a) before photography, the distinction between pictorial expression and pictorial statements of fact went unrecognized; (b) the report of an event is more important than the event, since what we think about and act upon is most often the report and not the event itself. Since we cannot know of an event (in which we are not participants) except through a report, and since that report must rely upon culturally--accepted codes for its transmission, we are inescapably manipulated by the characteristics of codes.
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MPACT Scores for Estelle Jussim A = 3
C = 0
A+C = 3
T = 3
G = 1
W = 3
TD = 3
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:01:42
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