Representation

The article Truth and the Stereotype: An Illusion Theory of Representation, by E. H. Gombrich, begins by posing a question that has long been asked by art historians, asking why images have been represented so differently by cultures though history. Gombrich goes on to give examples of the human eye viewing one image or object from different perspectives but never being able to see both perspectives at the same time. These examples are given to support the idea that an artist begins to create an image with a specific set of schema, a set of classified motifs and forms already known. The artist then takes these more generic representations and begins to enhance the image to give it the unique attributes of the specific version of the object he is trying to represent. Gombrich notes that before widespread travel and photography, specific and accurate detail mattered little in representing scenes and objects unseen to the culture. Artists were able to expand their schema through viewing of new images, and were subsequently able to expand the variety of images they could render accurately. The schema remains restrained in cultures where images or scenes around them are limited. Gombrich goes on to write that style also plays a role in representation and notes that this can largely affect way artists interpret and transcribe the picture or landscape in front of them. “Styles, like languages,� Gombrich writes, “differ in the sequence of articulation and in the number of questions they allow the artist to ask; and so complex is the information that reaches us from the visible world that no picture will ever embody it all.� Gombrich goes on to say that replicas can be created without too much deviation, but the process of sorting through schema and adding specific detail remains the same.
-Emily Udelhoven