SubprojectsIn this part of the programme, which deals with methodological issues involved in studying living presence response, two issues are central: (1) in what ways can Alfred Gell’s anthropological, that is a-historical study of art’s agency be used to study the responses of people who treat works of art as living beings? (2) how can this be done in a way that is (art-)historically informed?
This research starts from the concept of enargeia or vividness, which is discussed as persuasive technique in the handbooks on poetics and rhetoric. Making use of such techniques as metaphor and description, the poet or orator was urged to create such a vivid presence for his subject that his audience almost believed they could see it. This concept offers an ideal starting point to study how visuality was conceptualised in antique texts on rhetoric and literature, but also in philosophy, the visual arts and in the theatre. It makes it possible to examine why and how plastic, mental and verbal images were considered the most effective means of communication and persuasion.
On the basis of modern reconstructions of several renaissance theatres I will argue that, with their stucco statuary, their wall paintings and their sometimes elaborate fixed stage set, they were pictorial environments, representing ideal society under good government. They had been created to give the chosen audience the (illusory) experience of being a member of the ideal society represented by the buildings and the shows on the stage. At the same time this experience was an appeal to the visitors to imitate the ideal outside the walls of the theatre and be good citizens and rulers, acting to the benefit of their country.
As we may gather from contemporary accounts people in seventeenth century Italy often spoke of sculpture as if it were alive: works of art are said to breath, move, speak, and even have feelings. Moreover, in some cases people actually were said to interact with these works of art in a way that suggests they were perceived as living beings rather than cleverly modelled lumps of marble or bronze. At a first instance responses like these, here grouped under the label of ‘living presence response’, seem rather inconsistent; even though spectators must have been very well aware (and indeed, in some cases did not fail to point out) that these works of art were essentially lifeless, they spoke of them and treated them as being alive nonetheless.