View images / View questions

3. Can imagery be addressed in new ways with on-line methods? Can a collective discussion of imagery produce more scholarly knowledge than just an individual analysis? Is it possible to analyze electronic images in a scholarly manner without examining the material object? texture of the paper? printing technique? style? color?

Looking at the actual print is obviously better than looking at a reproduction of it, whether the reproduction is a photograph or an on-line image. It isn't just a question of connoisseurship, that is, identifying the kind of paper, printing technique and the like, but also getting additional information such as the size (very important, colors used, and the like. In the case of example 2, "Supplice du Sieur Foulon," we would discover that it is 0.144m x 0.087, as compared to the Prieur/Berthault print of the same subject, which is 0.155 x 0.205. In other words, the anonymous work is a fairly modest-sized print while the Prieur/Berthault is large. Furthermore, we would note that the anonymous print has in the left corner a "No. 2" and in the right "Page 20." In other words, it was one of several illustrations to a pamphlet?, a book?, or what??? In trying to find other illustrations from this work (both through style and the numbering system), perhaps we could uncover the political stance of this anonymous engraver.

In another case, illustration 29, "Prise de la Bastille," this reproduction is possibly a colored drawing for the Thévenin print, which is black and white and reversed. Or perhaps it is a contrefaçon of which there were many in the Revolutionary period (see La Révolution par la Gravure. Les Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française). But it is hard to tell exactly what it is with an examination at the Carnavalet.

Go back to the question