On Tue, 17 Apr 2001, Bailey, George W. S. wrote:
> This fact does not make it a metaphor for whatever can be inferred
> from it. Being something from which someone can infer someting else is not
> being a metaphor for something else.
>
But for someone, Christ could stand for oppression. Otherwise, re: above,
you would have to say that a metaphor is whatever the author/painter says
it is, and nothing more or less.
This is muddied further by bringing the symbolic into it - is the symbolic
always a metaphor? Is a sign metaphoric?
"My love is a red rose" - metaphoric; but love is inscribed, say, as a
heart with arrows - what is the difference in the standing-in?
In the latter, it's the symbolic, definitely - but need the red rose be a
symbol for love? Or a well-understood symbol?
-- All of which leads me to think the use of "metaphor" is at best a leaky
concept, that one might spend a great deal of theory on it, that there's
technicality at work here beneath the surface.
> I agree that language is one thing, depiction another. Metaphors
> exist in language. It is at best a metaphorical use of "metaphor" to treat
> depictions as metaphors.
>
Is there a language of painting, of cinema? Can silent cinema without
subtitles employ metaphor? - etc.
> Most significantly, by itself, a depiction does not assert anything
> as true or false. A depiction of christ is netrual, by itself, to whether
> its author would like to say "this is true" or "this is a myth."
>
Interestingly, one might argue that saying
"Christ was crucified"
is also neutral - it's a depiction or presentation - one might argue
further that this might be read on a symboic or metaphor or cynical
level...
Facticity in painting is always problematic; I think of painting as part -
as a node or intensification - of a discursive formation, existing only as
an object outside the formation (and perhaps not even that). Painting is
embedded in language; this is clear for anyone who has ever taught it.
There are crits, seminars, theses, artist talks, slide lectures, magazine,
artists' statements, etc. etc. - all of which are confluent with the
"works themselves."
Alan
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