Verisimilitude (life-likeness) Versus Caricature

Extracted text from Verisimilitude.ppt:

Verisimilitude (life-likeness) Versus Caricature: Distinctiveness of Persons and Objects in Narrative Visual Representation

 The presumed premises of verisimilitude:

1. Represents historical reality better than caricature.

2. Distracts less from communication-thus more like illustration of text than narrative carrier.

 Problems with verisimilitude and historicity:

1. Verisimilitude at present is usually an idealized biblical (i.e. derivative of Renaissance) representation.

Rembrandts Martyrdom of Stephen

Joseph by Kim Southern

Man with a phylactery by Horace Knowles

To one degree or another, nearly all modern pictures of biblical persons are more like those of Renaissance Europe than what we imagine people looked like in the Ancient Near East.

Film Language and Communication From Cecil B. De Mille to Martin Scorcese by Jayne Loader

(in From One Medium to Another, Basic Issues for communicating the Scriptures in New Media Hodgson, Robert and Soukup, Paul A., S.J. eds.1997.)

(Speaking of Nicolas Ray's film King of Kings):

In the world of the biblical spectacular, evil is glamorous, colorful, sexy, memorable. Goodness and virtue are boring, forgettable, and dull.

Gold ordains the palaces of Herod and PilateBy contrast, Jesus' followers are clothed in dull browns and blues. Their hovels are dark and unappealing. This may be historically accurate [cf. verisimilitude], but it has a visual meaning as well, which subverts the film's ostensible goalChristianity (is) terminally boring (Hollywoods version of the kiss of death). (p.201)

 2. Historical / literal nature of biblical texts is often in question.

Whether in Knowles illustration of the Garden of Eden or Cooks picture of the ark of the covenant, the Cherubim are shown as human-like figures.

More likely the idea was along the model of this Assyrian bas-relief from the palace of Sargon II. (8th century B.C.E.)

This mythological combo-creature may never have been intended as anything but symbolic. (Notice the five legs.)

Just as the many different literary genres of biblical literature have been reduced to Bible History in many church traditions, the adherence to Renaissance verisimilitude in biblical artistic representation has flattened out the potential multiplicity of ways different texts could be visually expressed. The proverbs, for example, could easily find expression in local artistic forms or even photography, since they are often universal in scope. e.g. Pro 26.14: As a door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed.

 Problems with verisimilitude and illustration:

1. Visual representation requires distinctiveness to achieve clarity.

Spiderman and other super-heroes have special clothes to identify them.

Dilbert characters would never be confused with one another. Each one is distinctive.

This distinctiveness is maintained even without the use of color.

 2. Visual narrative is not the same as illustration, and must itself help carry the story-line. Mary Worth

The two women pictured above, though dressed differently, look so much alike as to be confused with one another. It is worse without color, of course.

 Gregor Goethals (The Imaged Word, Fidelity and Translation, 1999) describes this picture as if it functions as a narrative visual translation of the biblical text (pp. 154-156). But it can only do so if we already know the text. Otherwise we know little. Is the man with the sword going to kill the woman or the child? Or is he simply taking the child from the woman? And what does the raised hand mean? Take them (or the child or the woman) away!? Or Stop!? And so forth. The Judgment of Solomon by Gustave Dre

Comic / Cartoon Verisimilitude

In real life, people often look alike.

Verisimilitude usually exaggerates this tendency.

Here Saul and Goliath look very much alike. Without the context (rock, text) they would be virtually indistinguishable.

Abstract Caricature Vallotton caricatures can be effective vehicles for communicating attitude and emotion, but for many audiences they are too abstract. To some people, they appear as ghosts.

There are many examples of abstract caricature which nonetheless are quite good at showing emotion and attitude. But they all involve facial expression and/or body language.

As facial expression in particular disappears, the viewer has to work harder to figure out what is going on. These illustrations require much more context to interpret than the preceding.

Finally, some abstract caricatures are highly symbolic or simply have no force at all apart from their biblical contexts. These are the best (or worst) examples of the criticism that they are ghostly. This may partly come from a sense of indistinctiveness on the part of viewers.

Comic / Cartoon Caricature

David and Goliath

While foregoing any attempt at realism or presumed historical accuracy at the level of personal detail (appearance), comic caricature can capture emotions and attitudes far better than attempts at verisimilitude while avoiding some of the problems of abstract caricature.

Goliath One problem with comic caricature is that it can have associations which might distract from the focus of the text.

 On the other hand, associations may also work in favor of the intended communication.

The Beagle Boys

 Comic caricature does not escape the problem of possible historical inaccuracy which plagues all broad-band communication, and visual representation of persons in particular. Visual representation forces the explicit representation of details of human features usually not found in the text, and not usually a part of the storyline or focus of the text.

David was likely red-headed and/or of a ruddy complexion, but the RVRs rubio (blonde) has doubtless influenced this representation.

 Even caricature is influenced greatly by the tradition of Renaissance verisimilitude. Jesus here looks much like a comic version of the Jesus of western art tradition. The stability in the portrayal of Jesus may be a case of the principle of distinctiveness working in reverse.

 One only needs to view other possible visual representations of Jesus to realize the difficulty in changing the traditional appearance.

 We know Jesus was probably middle-eastern in appearance, but for various reasons we have trouble portraying him that way.

 We have a traditional idea of what Peter looked like (the big fisherman), even though we have no personal description of him in the Bible.

But visual depiction also depends upon the genre, and there should be a consistency of style as well.

 Judas has to look at least potentially evil.

 But not too much so.

Again, genre and consistent presentation are involved.

Summary Factors in deciding on visual representation: Purpose

Audience (acceptability) Genres (textual and representational) Consistency of style

Content (type of text, usually narrative) Media (comic, video, audio/video, etc.)

 Principles of communication within the above contexts. Clarity. verisimilitude vs. caricature. Interest / appeal.

locally determined. Appropriate to: audience / purpose / genre / content / media.

 Translation or Adaptation? Many (mostly theoretical) definitions of translation exist, with little consensus on specific wording. Still, most people recognize a translation (versus paraphrase or adaptation) when they see one. A rule of thumb could be: does this product adequately replace the original? This is not just better than nothing or the best we can do under the circumstances

 Using this replacement test as a guide, it is hard to imagine a visual product as translation for (at least) the following reasons: Visual representations require making explicit details of which we have no specific knowledge (e.g. what people looked like). Requirements of visual representation (e.g. distinctiveness, narrative movement) force suppression and augmentation of textual information to a degree that makes adaptation a better term than translation for the result. Adaptation is not worse than translation, only different (and in many cases, more appropriate).

 Faithfulnessa Wider Perspective (Euan Fry, Fidelity and Translation, 1999): I believe that it is possible to produce presentations of Scripture in the various non-print media which meet a standard of faithfulness that we in the Bible Societies can accept and defend. We must recognize, however, that not only where extensive restructuring is required, but in every non-print presentation, there will not be equivalence of the same order as we expect to find when we produce a new text which is in the same medium as the source text. So we should probably not use the term accuracy or attempt to define faithfulness in the same terms as for print media productions.