The advent of the era of picture reading gave birth to the generation of linguistics to image in the history of Western thought, and shifted the focus of contemporary culture from language to images. As a result, the study of image narrative emerged in the academic community and quickly became a global academic focus and hot spot. The Outstanding Project of the National Social Science Foundation of China, "Research on the Narrative Construction of Images and Their Discursive Metaphors" (20BZW027), systematically sorted out and explained the narrative construction of images and their discursive metaphors from the two dimensions of academic theory and case.
The image is a visual image object, but also a visual image metaphor, and behind the seemingly universally recognized visual view, there is a complex paradoxical discourse abyss. In the logical development of image narrative, the image does not only provide a transparent visual window to understand the world, but also a visual representation mechanism full of narrative metaphors, with its own ideological construction, and should seek to hide the "invisible" metaphor through the "visible" vision of the image. The interpretation of image narrative construction and its discursive metaphor is the theoretical basis and theoretical resource for interpreting the visual order in the era of image reading.
Iconography and iconographic studies
In the history of Western thought, the concept of iconology can be etymically traced back to ancient Greece. The suffix olgy for Iconology is derived from the Greek logos, which refers to mind and reason. According to Panofsky, the object of iconographic study is mainly the image art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In his research on cultural history, Burckhardt regards the history of images as a perspective of historical research, and tries to interpret history from images to achieve the purpose of "illustrating history".
The concept of iconography first appeared in 1593 in Ripa's Iconography on the Renaissance, which was illustrated to explain abstract concepts. In Rippa's view, the way images are interpreted is not a modern iconographic concept, and the title of the book, Iconologia, also has iconographic connotations, i.e., interpretations of images and emblems, and even contains similar explanatory encyclopedic entries. Gombrich attributes Ripa's research to Aristotle's metaphorical tradition, arguing that Rippa's aim is to define visually through metaphor, and that Ripa gives unique meanings to visual images that are linked to the writings of the classical period.
In the history of thought after the 18th century, iconography gradually shifted from Rippa's manual of symbolic images to the study of symbolic images. Influenced by Rippa, Warburg applied iconographic research methods to the interpretation of works of art, and he broadened the sources of the themes of artworks from theological literary works and prayers to mythology, science, poetics, history, social life, political life and other fields, which was the prototype of iconography, so Warburg is also known as the "father of iconography" in the academic circles. Warburg's approach was embraced and inherited by his successors, such as Panofsky and Gombrich, who conducted in-depth analyses of Warburg's research objects.
Since the mid-to-late 20th century, the research direction of iconography has shifted, and the research object is no longer limited to the image itself, and the research of iconography has gradually expanded to the fields of literature, philosophy, art, and culture, becoming an interdisciplinary research paradigm. At the end of the 20th century, Michel challenged Panofsky's iconographic theory and proposed the concept of "critical iconography", hoping to realize the study of the nature of images and visual theory. Bradkamp put forward the theory of image behavior, focusing on the history of image narration that transcends history, he gives life to images, expects to return to the vivid images themselves, and constructs the vitality and subjectivity of images from the perspective of art history.
Pictorial narratives and their modalities
In a broad sense, image narrative refers to a narrative expression that uses image symbols as the medium and carrier of communication, that is, using image symbols as tools or means to express meaning and disseminate information. Image storytelling is a visual narrative. The visual and figurative nature of the image gives the image a visible character, allowing the image to appear in the text as evidence to be viewed. Image storytelling is a kind of "presence" discourse, emphasizing the visual sense of presence. The image is also a spatial narrative. In the narrative of images, the multi-dimensionality of space can be presented synchronously, and the objective images presented in front of the viewer are visualized, and the intuitiveness of the image narrative in the narrative medium makes the viewer not need to construct the corresponding image, but only need to understand and interpret it according to the visual intuitive understanding. The image is also a non-linear narrative. Images can be individually ideological, and each image is a non-linear symbol. In the image narrative, the meaning of the image presents divergent characteristics, and the visual signifier can be extended in several dimensions at the same time, and the viewer feels and perceives the object at different receiving points.
In the history of human civilization, image narrative has always attracted much attention. In the early days of human civilization, decorations and inscriptions on faience, stoneware, jade, and bronze objects, as well as rock paintings and cave paintings, carried the narrative function of symbolic referentiality. In the history of Western art, pottery painting in ancient Greece has undertaken the narrative and interpretation of the Theogony and Homer's epics. The images in medieval manuscripts were intended to help the illiterate masses better interpret and represent religious doctrines. In ancient China, the expressions of "Zhou Yi" "the sage erected the image with all his intentions, and set up the hexagram to make it as false as he could" and the "Shangshu Zhonghou Gripping the River Chronicle" "The river dragon produced the picture, the Luo turtle book spirit, the red text and the green characters, and the book Xuanyuan" also involved the topic of image narrative. During the Wei and Jin dynasties, Gu Kaizhi's "Female History Zhentu" and "Luo Shen Fu" created based on "Female Shi Zhen" and "Luo Shen Fu" are all cases of image narrative. Wang Yanshou of the Han Dynasty once described the narrative function of images: "The world of pictures is full of categories. The sundries are strange, and the mountain gods and sea spirits are spirited. Write about it, and support Danqing. Everything changes, and everything takes its own shape. With the color of the elephant, the song is full of feelings. Han Zhuo, a native of the Song Dynasty, also highly recognized the narrative function of painting, believing that "the painter is also a saint." Cover the mystery of the poor world, showing the sun and the moon do not shine" ("The Complete Works of Mountains and Rivers, Preface").
The narrative of an image involves the analysis of the narrative mode of the image, which is also the key and primary issue in interpreting the narrative of the image and its discursive metaphor, which can be analyzed from three levels: representational narrative, representational narrative, and intergraphic narrative. As a basic aesthetic category, representation has been changing with the development of Western aesthetics and artistic concepts, and this category also plays an important role in image narrative. Reproduction often refers to the representation or reference of object B (reality) by presenting object A (such as a work) in a specific way, and in the narrative of image reproduction, image symbols can form a schema and form a specific symbolic referentiality. The expressive narrative of images is mainly embodied in two levels: the expression of the subject's emotions by the images, and the representation of the specific cultural concepts of the images. The former emphasizes the embodied experience conveyed by the image; The latter refers to the fact that in a specific cultural context, the image symbol will associate the signifier with the specific signifier, forming the conventional symbolism of the image symbol. Inter-image is also a modality of image narrative, which mainly refers to the intersexual relationship between the images that make up an image, such as mirror narrative and picture-in-picture. Sorting out the various modes of image narrative and thinking about its internal narrative mechanism and situation can better respond to the question of "what is the narrative of images".
From a horizontal perspective, we can interpret the details of the image narrative, which is a concern for the surface narrative of the image, such as Warburg's interpretation of Botticelli's works, Panofsky's interpretation of "Portrait of the Arnolfini Couple", and so on. From a longitudinal perspective, we can pay attention to the expression of image discourse in different historical periods, such as the image narrative of Renaissance painting emphasizing symbolic metaphor, the image narrative of modernist painting emphasizing the expression of subjectivity, and the image narrative of postmodernist painting emphasizing the reflection on the philosophy of survival, and so on. Interpreting the narrative discourse of images from different dimensions can lead to reflection on the relationship between images and objects, pictures and words, and the complex discursive metaphors behind the referential function of image symbols. (Produced by the "Thought Workshop" of the social science newspaper, the full text can be found in the social science newspaper and its official website)