Chapler l

VANESSA R. SCHWARTZ ANO

JEANNENE M. PRZYBLYSKI

VISUAL CULTURE'S HISTORY

Twenty-first century interdiscip li narity and
its nineteenth-century objects

T H 1 S VOL U M E A 1 M S T O con tribute to the history of \'isual culture by giving

shapc lo the notion that our conte mpo rary undc rstanding o f it has a particul ar conn cc-
tion to m ode rnity ancl the nineteenth ce ntury o W e contend that the very noti on of "visual
culture" was madc possible by many of the changes in imagc producti on in thc nine teenth
ce ntury and we take se riously the no ti on that the tcchno logical reproducibility of lithography
and , more ~ignifica ntly, pho tography, forcver alte red our connecti on to such fundam entals as
materiality, cx pc ricncc, and truth o Thc sclccti ons in this vo lume are testirno ny to the centrality
of images, image- making, and vision in thc ninctcenth centuryo
lt is also truc that onc might link thcsc essays to early-rnodc rn continuitics that go bac k
to thc Rcnaissance intc rest in "il vero;" to the fiftccnth-ccntury innovation of the printing
press, o r t o thc Scic ntific Rc,•olution's trust in knowing through sccing, c rysta llizccl in thc
Enlightcnm cnt. Thesc are impo rtanl ancl ultimat ely more ambitious projectso Yet in the ninc
tcenth ccntury "modernity," we suggest, is an especially meaningful tcrm precisely becausc it
Jirccts us to conside r transf'o rmatio ns that are at once aboul how visua l culture studi es have
been conceptualized and how the history of visual c ulture has becn ancl w ill continue to be
writteno As a conceptual fie ld o f study, visual culture has been shapcd by our scnse of a
distincth cly "modern" m ode o f pe rccptual /cognithc ex pe ri ence that bcgins its lineage in the
rcality-based entertainmcnt and info rm ation techn o logies of ninc tcc nth-century panoramas,
wax muse ums, illustrated newspape rs ami the likc, and subsum es f'o rwa rd-looking imaginings
of the simulacrum from Disneyland to The Matrixo As an historical narrati ve, the history o f
visual culture asks us to intcrrogate the pcriod bounclarics, limi ts, ami mo me nts of paradigm
shift accounting for our current scnse of the centrality of images t o be licf-syste ms (capitalism ,
d e mocracy, fascism, globalization , ancl its disco ntc nts) in contemporary socic ty o
Moreovcr , the beginnings of this particular histo ri cal narrative (however preliminary ancl
partial it mig ht be) must begin by plo tting the e me rgence of visual culture studies through
the disciplines of hist ory, art history, and literature and film studi cso All of these disciplines
are well re presentcd in this volumc and all contribute their distincti ve stre ngthso Lite rary
studi es have been m ore than willing, in the words of' WOJOT O Mitchcll, to view vision as
"a mode of cultural cx prcssion and human communi cation as fundamental and widespread
as language," thereby opening visual practices ancl products to strategics of att enti vc rcading
4 VANESSA R. SCHWARTZ ANO JEANNENE M. PRZYBLYSKI

that have o nly d eepencd the possibilities for inte rpre tatio n. 1 Art history has providecl many
o f the tools of visual analysis and visual comparison informing visual culture studies, but it
has also provee! a sitc of useful rcsistance. This is not me rely because it continues to ho ld in
high regard qualitative judgments about rc lative acsthctic value and singular artistic achieve-
m en t, but beca use it continues to distinguish, qualitatively, between the diiTeren t material
histories of productio n, clistributio n, and rece ption that are characte ri stic o f any practice of
imagc-making, whcther in thc real m of visual or verbal represe ntations. 2 History has becn
uniquely well positioned to write somc of the material accounts of these modes o f produc-
ti on and media techno logies, precisely becausc o f its commitment to thc archiva! record and
its acute aware ness o f thc problem of pc ri odization in general. lt rcmains a challcnge to histor-
ians, how eve r, to move bcyond conventiona lly descriptive accounts. Mo re often than not, as
Michael L. Wilson notes in rus essay for this volume, they remain more comfortable bringing
images to the table o nl y insofar as they serve as illustrati vc evidence for another kind of
historical study (about politics, economi cs, eve ryday life, etc.). 1
As w ill quickly beco me appare nt to anyonc reading th.is vo lume, the va ri ous disciplines
may ha ve contributcd to the e me rgcncc o f a ficld o f scholarl y practice we call "visual culture
studies," but a histo ry of visua l culture is unthinkable without a willingness to transgress
disciplinary boundaries. This is why we begin from a discussion of the contributio ns o f art
histo ry, histo ry, lite rary and fi lm studics to the field, but wc end with a partisan account of
intcrdisciplinarity as the best roadmap for how visual culture studies and the history of visual
c ulture wi ll be writtcn in the future. Likcwise, in a similar vein, while we bcgin by attcmpting
lo define the particular o bj ects of visual c ulture studies, we encl by suggesting that visual
culture studi es is constituted lcss by its topical rcpe rtoire and more to the dcgrcc that it
produces a discursive spacc whcrc CJU C~ti on~ ami matcrials that have been traditionally margi n-
alized within the cstablished di sciplines become central. In turn , we con tinue to be optimistic
that this di scursive spacc has its ow n constitutive eiTcct . As historians, art histo rians, litc rary
and fi lm critics, ancl others come together as scho lars fro m diffcrcnt d isciplinary per·spectivcs
and look at similar objects and proble ms, they bcgin to speak a hybridizcd di scourse that not
onl y claborates thc field of visual culture studi es but also illuminates thc productivc rcsist-
ances that lcnd each discipline, within its own arcas of compete ncy an d inte rcsts, a continued
curre ncy.

Tracing the rcccnt rise of visual culture

Thc fact that diffe rc nt clisciplinary practitio ne rs might find thcmsclvcs with ovcrlapping intel-
lectual agendas is a product o f radical changes and dcvclopme nts in the humanities in the last
thirty years that may now sce m casy to takc for granted. As the histo ry of visual culture
begins lo be writtcn in o ur own time, we m ay find ourselves asking not so much " Why 'isual
culture now?" as "Why did it take so long?" Beginning to answer this question rcquircs rcmcm-
be ring the institutio nal boundarics of disciplinary study in th c mid-twentieth century, whcn,
fo r the most part, those scho lars who wcrc primarily intcrested in the visual generally fo und
thcmse lves dircctcd toward or ni chcd into thc history o f art (i tscl f a rclativc newcomer to
academia). Rootcd in practices of connoisse urship ami framcd by the harcl rcalities of thc art
markct, the ficld allowed art objccts, such as paintings and scu lpturcs, inevitably to occupy
centc r stage, whilc prints, caricatures, fashion platcs, advertising images, cn tertainmcnts, visual
e pheme ra gene rally, and o thc r fo rms of visual expe ri cncc played at most supporting ro les.
The rise o f the " ocia! llisto ry of Art" in thc 1970s breachcd the art historical canon on
a numbe r of fronts , bringing fundam ental changes. lnspircd by a Marxi st analysis that placecl
 VISUAL C ULTURE ' S HI S TORY 5

art production and consumption within a largcr ideological nctwork of objects, images, and
mcssages, at its best the social history of art maclc good on the assertion by thc influen tial
historian of medi eval and modern art, Meyer Shapiro, that an "art bui lt up o ut of other objects,
that is, out of othe r interests and cxpcrie nce, would have another formal character ," thereby
reinscribing a scnse of social urgency and contingcncy into the increasingly rarified and "u ni\ e r
salist" rcalm of modc rnist / formalist artistic practicc and visual anal ysis. 4 It also opened up
discussions about thc histo ry of art institutions, thc training of artists, the matuial conditions
for the prod uction and circ ulation of art , and the mutually constitutive dia logue between "art"
and "craft. » S
By shining a spotlight o n this broader histo rical context, the social history of art paved
the way to the history of visual culture al times clclibe rately and at times by dcfault. For
cxam ple, the revisionist scrutinizing of canon formatio n o r how "good" art carne to be
conside red "good" especially by feminist art historians who understood the gendered nature
of artisti c produ ction ancl distribution, both challenged aesthetic standarcls ancl broadened the
catcgori cal dcfinitions of the objects that art historical scho lars might study. 6 The subdiscipline
of thc history of photogr aphy bcgan by making acsthetic claims about thc med ium that were
dceply influcnccd by thc history of painting, only to t urn the tabl cs and embrace an "instru-
mental" view of photography that ultimate ly argucd that much of no t only its cultural relevance
but also its aesthctic stature ste mmcd from its early ancl ongoing uses as scientific document,
judicial cvidcncc, ancl topographic view, among o thcr app lications. 7 By t hesc means and othe rs,
thc history of art securccl a claim of ccntrality to any history of visual cul ture. But its inevitably
primary focus on the fine arts also ensurcd that, left to its own dcvices, art history itself
would be inad eq uatc to the task o f providing an cxpandcd vicw of the visual field.
At the same time that art history was changing into ''thc new art history," othcr fields in
thc humanitics changed as well. C ritiques of"top-dow n" history, similarly inspircd by Marx ist
analysis of "social history," seemed to arrive cverywhere to proclaim that wc should study
"history from bclow," paying spccial attention to the elcments of infrastructurc and material
culture that crn bodicd class relations at the leve! of cvcryday life. s Furthcr corn plicating thcse
revisionist intcrvcntions, histo ri ans and litc rary scho lars in parti cular began in the 1980s to
consider thc problem o f "reprcsentation" as a historically contingcnt construction. Thcsc
scho lars were dccply influenced by thc anthropologist C lifford Gcertz and his notion of cu lture
as an assemblagc of texts. All aspects of life now seemcd ripe for cultural intcrprctation and
anthropological "thick dcscription ." 9 T his rnodcl for histori cal inguiry, looscly groupecl undc r
the rubrics of "thc New C ultural History" o r "the New Historicism," proccedcd frorn "thc
possibility of treating al! of the written and visual traces of a particular culture as a rnutually
°
intelligibl e nctwork o f signs." 1 Cathcrine Gal lagher ancl Stephc n Grccnhlatt, two of its forc-
most prac titio nc rs, dcscribed its focus o n:

rcpresentation as the central problern in which all of us litcrary critic ancl art histo-
rian; historian and po litical scien tist; Lacanian, Foucauldian, Frcudian, ncopragmatist;
dcconstructor and unreconstructcd formalist wcre cngagcd ... Whatcver progress
we wcre likely to makc in grappling with the contcsted status of reprcsentation wou ld
occur, wc were convinced, on ly in close, dctailcd engagemcnt with a multiplicity of
historicall y cmbedded cultural performanccs: speciflc instances, images, and texts that
offcree! so me rcsistancc to intc rprctation . 11

In other words, regarding bo th textua l uttc rances ancl visual artifacts as the material residuc
of social ped ormanccs allows comparativc rcadings across dis<:ip linary boundarics (oftcn
6 VANESSA R. SCHWARTZ ANO JEANNENE M. PRZYBLY SK I

dc ploying, as is eviclent from this quotation, thc most au courant theoretical methodologics).
Attcncling to thc o pacity of thesc "specific instanccs" (thcir illegibility or apparcnt marginality
"ithin a broadcr vicw of thc pcriod ) sho uld be all thc greater spur to histo ri cal and archiva!
invcstigation.
Sorne might fault thc New Culturalllisto ry for its proclivity fo r singular ancl strange evcnts
(incl uding cat massacres, cases of mistaken idc ntity, and fo ul -mouthcd Ncw W orld natives) ancl
th c te nuo usness of their rc lationship to more gene ralizable patterns ol" histo rical circumstan ce,
linking the practice in a peculiar way to the a rt histo rical taste for thc exccptional and unique,
rathe r than the quotidi an and broadly re prcsc ntati ve. 12 Others might contend that the New
llistoricist em phasis o n a synchroni c cultural field in which cliffe rent cultural fo rms and dis-
courscs are studied in the ame historical mo me nt has blurred the specific formal elements of
the texts unde r consicle rati on by privileging their same ness. This critique woulcl charactc ri 7e
New llisto ricist studies as moving relatively effo rtl cssly betwecn high and low c ultural l"o rms,
fro m paintings to crackpot medica! writings to popular song, eliding th c specificity of the tex ts
all(l imagcs under cliscussion in o rde r to make aphoristic ge ne ral claims about a cultural mome nt
(Lo ndon was a "city of Dreacll"ul Oclight," "París was deodo rizecl al mid-ccntut-y''). 13 W e wou ld
suggcst instead that, in the best of cases, the juxtaposition of the literary text with a medi ca!
text or a visual image has clariflecl the eclges of bo th texts and images, thus illuminating the
partic ularities of each l"orm , whi lc also revealing shared attributcs across a culture in time. 14
In addition, in the hands of th e New Historicists, visual objccts beca me not just illustrations
of an histo rical asse rtion about say, religion or monarchy but the evidcncc itsclf. Rather, the
history of th e procluction and reception of images and the status and cxpcricnce of thc visual
has started to bccome part of the historian's legitimate d omain of inquiry.
Thcsc c hangcs in art hist01·y, history, and litcraturc al so pushcd thcm into closer prox-
imity with the d c\'eloping ficld o f film studies. Bccause film prescntcd a form al languagc akin
to still pho tography in its cffccts of immane nce and imagc-making, but distinct from it in its
narrativc dri vc, film scholars initially attcmptcd to lcgitimate thc study o f this "popular amusc
mc nt" by discussing it in thc lc rms cobbled togcthc r fro m thosc sct o ut by critics for art ancl
litc raturc . 15 At thc samc tim e, the compl cx naturc and hybrid qualitics of film was it art,
entc rtainmc nt, culture, o r ca pitalist business-as-usual? tro ubl cd the rcceived categori cs of
"art" and "litcraturc" prcciscly to thc dcgrcc that it sccmed to prefigure thc logic o f the twc n-
ticth century, espcciall y that o f ratio nalized mass production and fre n7ied mass consumption .
Anothcr way of saying this is that thc risc of film in thc twe nticth ccn tury as a paradigmatic
cultural form has contributcd grcatly to thc ri sc o f \' Ísual culture as a ficld of study; film 's
own phcno me nal success has Ice! to a rclc ntl css casting backward into thc nineteenth ccntury
to locatc its o rigins. To no small dcgree this succcss has also led to a recvaluatio n of thc
history of thc visual culture of thc nin ctecnth cc ntury from thc pe rspcctive of thc media
saturatcd late twcnti cth ccntury. Thc cssays in this volume are gathcrcd in a way that rcgis-
tc rs this preoccupatio n with cincmatic "prchistory" to thc cxtcnt that thcy acknowlcdgc thc
ccntrality o f our own momc nt's questions and pc rspcctives to o ur study of the nine tccnth
ccntury, serving collecti vc ly as a gc ncalogy for thc prcscnt. Yet thcy also carefull y g uard thc
historical spccificity o f thcir own ninctecnth -cc ntury mo me nt and , as such, stand as a r ecord
o f a diffcrcn t visua l culture as wcll.

Defining and studying visual culture

Visual c ulture can be d cfincd first by its objects o f study, which are cxamincd no t for thcir
aesth(·tic \'aluc pe r se but for thcir mcaning as moclcs of making imagcs and dcfining visual
 VISUAL CULTURE ' $ HISTORY 7

ex pcric ncc in particul ar historical contexts. Visual c ulture has a particular invcstmcnt in vision
as a histo ri cally spccif1c cxpc ricncc, mcdiatcd by ncw tcchnologics ami thc individual and
social formations they cnabl c. Mo rcovcr , it ide ntifies and und crscorcs thc status of thc visual
as a sensory cx pcri cncc that is itsclf conditioncd by a histo ri cal unde rstanding of physiology,
optics, ami cognitive sciencc. Putting visual objects, imagc-procluctio n, and rcccption at thc
ccnte r of a histori cally bascd inguiry has also suggested a re-organization of histori cal period s
which can be so rted as "scopic regimes" with distinct patterns of regulating thc cclcbratory
ancl rc prcssive uses of particular objccts, tcchnologies, and ways of sccing. 16
This last asscrtion marks thc moment by which thc history of thc visual is unrungcd
dcfinitivcly fro m the purview o f the history of art and its convc ntions of stylistic pe riodiza
tion. In the lntroducti on to The Visual Culture Reader, the first in this series, edito r Nicholas
Mirzoeff suggests a move away fro m a certain kind of object -orientation: "Visual culture directs
our attcntion away from structured , formal vicwing scttings like thc ci ne ma and the art gallc ry
to thc ccntrality of visual cx pe ric ncc in cveryday life." 17 13reaking clown the boundaries be tween
conventional sites for expe1·iencing the visual ami the world "out the re" is fine as far as it
goes, espccially to the dcgree that it makes explicit the often probl ematic segregation of art
"isms" from mo re apparently fashionable and faddish definitions of "style." Yet we would
suggest that visual c ulture' s all iance with cvcryd ay lifc sho uld still cm phasizc objccts produccd
and consum ed primarily (if not cxclusively) as images and their associated institutions and
practiccs as culturally signifi cant vccto rs of visual cx pe ric nce.
Anothe r way of saying this might be that we acknow ledge the hybridity of cultural fo rm s
in an expanded visual fie ld . But, as we m ove outwards from the a renas of art galleri cs,
muse ums, movie theatrcs, and the like, we would also maintain that the angle of histo rical
approach to thcsc forms sho uld be f undam cntall y i111 c1>tcd in their visual character . The g reat
world's fairs o f the nin ctccnth and early twe ntie th ccnturies would be one good example.
Vast rngines fo r showcasing material c ulturr during thc industrialist and impcrialist agc, thcy
are not intcrcsting to scho lars of visual culture primari ly as a catalogue of that culture (and
as a point of entry for discussions of the use-valuc of such objects as stca m locomotives, silk
purses , and machine gun s), but as a particular site for transforming such disparate cle ments
into spectacles ( of exoti cism, commodity fetishism , or techn ological wizardry, to name just
a few examples). The nine teenth-century inve ntio n of the de partme nt sto re would be another
exampl e. While an account of the changing expc ri ence of window-shopping as a consumc rist,
urban distraction certainl y falls undc r the rubric of visual culture, a business history of rctail
shopping (on whi ch the department sto re also had a significant impact) that did not indude
an inte rrogation of visual practi ces of comme rcial di splay amo ng its exa minations of sales
figures , inve ntori cs, and vendor relations does no t. In o rder to be a uscful catego ry of histor
ical analysis, in other words, we bclieve that thc di!Jerences as wcll as the similarities be twccn
visual c ulture and cultural history, or mate rial c ultural studies more broadl y speaking, must
be constantl y and consistently inte rrogated .
Visual culture thus includcs the study of image/ objects and also reaches beyond the m to
includc the histo ry of vision, visual cxperience, ancl iL~ historical constructi on . It constitutcs
its "subject" of reception as a viewe r o r a spectator (whcther active or passive ancl this in
itsclf can be a point of dispute) rather than as a read er. Elaborating on Michacl Baxandall's
noti on of ''the pe riod eye ," historians of visua l culture consider changes in both represe nta-
tion al practices and in modcs of observation. 18 Once again , the relati on o f se nsc pe rception
to histo ry had an early and articu late advocate in Walter Benjamín whose arguments about a
nine tccnth century culture of the visual are built o n the pre mise that "the mode of human
sensc pc rception changes with humanity's entirc mode of existence." 19 But how and unde r
8 VANESSA R . SCHWARTZ AND JEANNENE M. PRZYBLYSKI

what conditions do wc fccl autho rizcd to privilcge the visual over other modes o f scnso ry
pcrception? Isn' t this just falling into a trap that leavcs uncxamincd our own contemporary
sense o f being bo mbarded by images? O n the one hancl, images are usually cleli ver ed in a
multi -sensory package and are received in a multi-sensory way. In effect, a histo ry of visual
culture falsely describes what might be better expressed as a history of perception . Yet over
time, a hierarchy of the senscs became deeply embedd cd in the W estern philosophical tradi -
tion of the Cartesian mind body split. This hierarchy led to a celebration of sight as "the
noblest of thc senses," and much of the triumph o f cmpiricism in thc W est can be tnced to
its door . In othcr words, thc occu larcentrism of the Occidcnt turns o ut to be historically
specific. Dcspite the fact that the five senses clearly wo rk togcthcr, vision has becn accorded
a spccial status with rcspcct to how wc describe experience since the Enlightenment at least. 20
Further, altho ugh formalism , and espcciall y the brand of modernist formalism adduced
fro m thc late writings o f the American art criti c Clcment Grccnberg, has often been collapsed
into a narrowly focused accounl of medium specificity (cmphasizing, in the case of painting,
for cxampl c, literal flatness, abstraction, and opticality ove r pictorial illusionism, figuration,
and theatricality), we believe that historians of visual culture should nonethcless fcel compcllcd
to pay particul ar attention to the formal clements and conventions of the material objccts and
cultural performan ces they study. 21 In this way, scholars of visual culture should care decply
about the differences hetwccn media painting and fi lm , fo r example, or between forms of
spectacle such as the w orld 's fairs and wax museums whilc insisting on the contextualiza-
tion o f these differences in a broadct· and histo ri cally specific cultural field . They should not
confusc this contextua! reading of form with a simple, generalized d eterminism (the secm-
ing ly inevitable and unconditional conjunclio n of photography ancl death , fo r example, o r wax
muscums ami cphcmcral c..:clcbrity). lnstcad , what wc suggest is an rustoricall y informecl account
of perccplions about the special and "essential," or ontolooical, character of a particular medium
at a particular cultural moment.
Thus, our criteria for making sclections in this volume proceeds from the convicti on that
media have no essence o utside the contex ts o f their prod ucti on and consumptio n, and that
thesc contcxts d efine and give shape and meaning to the formal conventions of each medium
at particular moments in time. It d oes not escape o ur attentio n that kcy words for defining
these contexts in the nineteenth century often indude thc vexed conceptual pairing of
"modernity" and "Modernisrn" as ways o f coming to terms with rapid technological change,
urbanization, and capitalism as d efining features of ever yday life. In the fo llowing section we
want to suggest that o ngoing efforts to rethink theit· rclation , of which severa! essays in this
volume are o utstanding examples, may help us to rethink the nin eleenth-century 's rcl evancc
for under standing our contemporary situatio n as we ll .

"Modcrnity," "Modernism," and the nineteenth century

Bring ing togeth cr the terms "modernity," "Modcrnism," and the nineteen th ccntury implics a
particular story about a time, told fro m a particular perspecti vc that of W estern culture .
Thc narrali ve of "modernity" rnay not be the only way of conceptualizing the ninetecnth
century, but it has provided one o f the most useful cliscursive fram cs fo r rn aking sense of the
relationship between visual experience and cultural hegemony in the ninetecnth and twen-
tieth centuries, and it continues to provide the most explicit ge nealogy fo r c..: urrcnt discussions .
of visual culture in the twenty-first ccntury.
While the era of formal cmpires in the W est has all but come to an end, ''the g lobal
era" has not yet producecl a polyvalent web of inter conncctions. lnstead, W estern modcls of
 VISUAL CULTURE ' S HISTORY 9

dcmocracy ami capitalism still ho ld c no rmous sway. Und cr the t hrall o f thcsc models, imagc-
making techniques, tcchnologics, and institutions e manating o rig inally fro m the W est may be
the glue that binds any sense of a r ecognizable common glo bal culture whethe r onc views
that culture with horror , sk epticism , o r elati on . In this sense, wc can 't hclp but admit that
thc W este rn 'isual traditio n may wcll be the most widesprcad and du rable legacy o f the
Wcstcrn impc rialism of the nine teenth century, whilc the increasing cross-fc rtilizatio n o f
Wcstern and no n-W este rn visual conventio ns is a t wenty- first ccntury work-in-progrcss.
This antho logy is intended not only to articulate thc param eters o f a visual c ulture o f thc
ninc teenth century, but al so to providc a contcxt for o ur curre nt discussio ns of visual culture
in ge neral. The refore, the vo lume fo regrounds the problem s, questions, and media that are
indispensable in this gencalogical scnse, whilc also bcing sensiti ve to t he ways in whi ch
Western images and "ways of sceing" not onl y circul atcd globall y but also pro motcd and
contributed to its une ve n relations of powe r w ith peoples ami their visual cultures all ove r
thc world . While using such terms as "mod e rni ty" and "Modernism" runs the risk of
rc-inscribing a W este rn pcrspecti ve, a thorough-going in vestigati on of their premises is a vital
step towarcl grasping the shifting contours of today's virtual worlds. lt is prccisely out of this
une, en expe rie nce that the re ex ist such icons as the Coke bottle o r golden arches which circu-
latc globally but are made sense of within mo re locali zed and specific visua l contcxts, bo th
Wcste rn ancl non -W estc rn . The uneven dcvclopment o f modc rnity also pro vides a context
for explo ratio ns of how such things as animé art fro m japan, such as Poké man, has influenced
animatio n styk all over the wo rld .
Whc n wc speak o f "modc rnity," the n, usually we are rcfc rring to a set of political,
economi c, social, and cultural attributcs that incl udc such things as nationalism , dcmocracy,
impc ri alism, consum erism, ami capitalism each of whi ch appea r associatcd with the ninc-
tecnth century by virtuc of thcir radical expansio n during that pc riod Y These clemcnts of
changc may have resonated aro und thc wo rld but have come to stand as a shorthand for
changes assod atcd with "the W est. " T o this list o f attributcs e mcrging from thc wate rshcd of
the Frc nch Rcvolutio n, techno logically re pm duci ble image-making must be added. As William
h ins has no tcd , "thc numbe r o f printcd picturcs bct wcen 1800 and 190 1 was pro bably con -
sidc rabl y grcatcr than thc total numbcr of printed pictures befo re 1801 ." 23 T his explosion led
to what might be called "the image standard ," whi ch is among the fundame ntal devdopme nts
of the ninetecnth century. 24
Such transformatio ns in scale become transfo rmations in kind and not simply ones of me re
magnitude. While the Fre nch Revolutio n reprcscnts the t r iumph o f the bo urgeoisie ancl its
new public sphere as pivota! benchmarks fo r dcfining thc mode rn expericnce, scholars have
only just bcgun to associate this narrati ve of the transform ation of thc social o rd er w ith
images. 25 Yet bourgeois societ y put a premium on the Oow o f info rmation and trade (he nce
the pro life ration of ncwspape rs), esteemed objects for their exchange va lue (thc r ise of thc
art markct is a case in point), and foste red new institutions such as museums and expositions
that narrated thcir vicw o f thc wo rld through thc lcssons of things. lndustrialization ancl mech-
anitati on produced urbanizatio n which appeared to expand the visual f1e ld espccially by
constituting fo rm erly rural po pulatio ns as a group through urban spectacle.
In short, the e xplosion o f image-making made visual expc ri cnce ancl visual literacy
important ele me nts in the rubric o f modernity . 16 In the largest sense, one might claim that
thc transfo rm ati ons associated w ith mode rnity, bo th al the formal and the social historical
level, can be gene ralized as having been waged along a central axis between investme nt in
thc posith'ist ccrtainty of visual facts ami ambiva lc nce regarding the illusiveness of mere appea r-
anccs. These contradicti ons se rved to position visual culture as both dom inant culture and
10 VANESSA R. SC HWARTZ ANO JEANNENE M. PRZYBLYSKI

contestecl culture, with key icleological disputes played o ut around issues of exhibition and
display, real ity and artífice, the impact of optical technologies promising enhanced visual
mastery, and the implications of new processes of technological re production pro mising mass
availability. There is no one over-arching causal facto r; the story of nineteenth -century visual
culture is a sort of alchemy of related problems and possibi lities whi ch can o nl y be illumi-
nated through histori cal in vestigatio n.

Thc Age of Mechanical Reproduction?

Nineteenth-century visual culture situates itself within and across the paradoxes of the "posi-
tive" and "positivist" late cighteenth -century Enlightenment in vcstmen t in thc mechanics of
seeing ancl a growing culture of spectacle dcpendent o n mechanical reprod ucti on .27 Whilc Lhe
reproductio n of images by such techno logies as fo unding and stamping has been practiced
since the time of ancient Grcece, Walter Benj amín iclentifiecl the nineteenth-century tech-
no logics of lithography and then photography and fi lm as fundamental transformations, leacling
him to posit a watershed "Age of Mechanical Reproducti on." Benjamín' s intent was no t to
reduce explanations to tcchnologies but to see in those techno logies the cr ystallizatio n and
materi al embocliments o f ways of imagining and experi enci ng th e world. For us, no essay has
more of a foundational status in the history of visual culture than his "The W ork of' Art in
the Age o f Mechan ical Reproduction" 28 precisely because it fram es the pro blems o f visual
culture as histo ri cal and material ones as opposed to universal and abstract ones. Benj amín
proceeds by writing a history of visual culture that is bo th descriptivc and mcthodologically
scl f-conscious at the sam e time . 29
Benjam in's "artwork" essay lays barc his intcr est in how forms of technology and m edia
ar e social facts not just in their inslitutio nalizatio n, but also as embodimen ts and instantia-
ti ons o f social relations and experiences. A hallmark of this essay, which is refl ected in
many studies in the history of visual culture, is an interest in the re latio n between a period's
visual technologies and its structures of unclerstanding. Benjamín believed that every era has
very specific techniques of reproducti on that co rrespond to it. 10 lle traced a lineage that
began with lithography and moved from photography to what he bclieved was mechanical
reproductio n's fullest expression in film. These technologies as cultural forms also trans-
fo rmed practi ces o f reception and spectatorship . Whereas art is conceived o f as absorbing
the spectator's attentio n, techno logies such as fi lm o ffer a new mode of receptio n in a state
of distractio n which better match the pace and scale of a public who fast became "absent-
mindecl examiners." The new agc al te red the ve r y gro und of valuation in the arts, substituting
thc shee r c¡uantity of images for quality. In mass culture, more is better. In the face of the
distraction (and placation) o f thc masses by numbers, Benjamín posited film 's effects o f
narrati ve fragmentation and montagc, which activated spectators as "vicwers" and hence
compcll ed th em to assumc a more engaged, critica! rclation to the world of modern spectacle
surrounding them .
Related as we ll to Benjamin's tcndenlious vicw o f film as co nstituti ve of ncwly politi-
cizcd vicwing subj ects is the avant-garde construction o f Modernism as a sct of aesthcti c
postures and pictorial practices. Severa! selections in Lhis volumc acknowledge, as T.J. Clark
has put it, that "Modernism is a form of testing of modernity and its modes." 31 Modcrnism
might be understood as a parti cular sct o f aeslhcti c responses, c¡ualifications, priorities, and
problcms formulated w ith respect to the experi encc o f modcrn lifc. What is intcrcsting about
the nineteenth century is the degree to which the two terms, modernity and thc "Modern"
in painting and sculpturc in particu lar were constantly held in a closc and deliberately
 VISUAL CULTURE ' S HISTORY 11

difficult, and provisional relationship to one anothe r . As Moderni sm was consoliclated as a

narrowe r, more hermetic, and more bcsieged tc rm in miel - to latc- twcntieth ccntury artistic
practicc and discourse, visual culture, along with (not coincidentally) post moclerni sm, became
term s deployed to unsettl e this do minant construction. While unseating Mode rnism's hege-
mony may have been an admirable goal on a numbe r of fronts, witho ut Modcrnism as a viable
foil, visual cultu re threate ns to becom e much lcss inter csting as a category of both cultural
inte rventio n and ana lysis.
This is perhaps the point at whi ch the concerns of art historians inte rested in visual culture
most clcarly diverge from historians, broadly speaking. lf visual culture is only a "big tent"
designed to include everything that the history o f art (and especially Modern Art) had excluclcd,
ovcrloo ked, o r re legated to a second tier, thcn what can we uscfully define as the critica(
prio rities and qualifica tions o f visual c ulturejor arlists (and others) as participants in the making
and critiquing o f that culture today? What are to be its resistances , contingencics, edgcs?
While the predicament of much of early twenty-first-century art practi ce (i ts loss of comm on
proble ms, unfocused pluralism, and difll culty in disting uishing between innovatio n ancl fashion)
is certainly beyond the scope of this volume, sufli ce to say that yet another reason to look
back at the nine teenth century is to recover this useful sen se of a mo me nt when visual
artists had something vital to say about their diffe ren t relation to visual c ulture prccisely in
a rder to movc fo rward.
Finally, in Be nj am ín ' s vicw, it was not simply that thc age of mechanical rep rodu ctio n
ushe red in the culture o f the copy, but that these copies had an impacl on our dcllnitions of
authe nticity ancl o riginality (\\ hat Benjamín referred toas an "aura" produced by thc confronta-
ti on with actual prcsence) in unsettling and unex pected ways: "The dcsire of contcm-
porary masses to bring things 'closcr ' spatially and human ly ... is justas arde nt as thcir bcnt
to \\ arel ovcrcoming the unique ness of eve ry reality by acccpting its rcprocluction." 32 The
world , in short, appears evcr nearc r and more "real" by virtue o f these copies, cven as the
world "in reality" paradoxically rccedcs in thc facc of an o nslaught of virtual rc prcscntati ons.
Or, to put it anothcr way, aura does not ncccssaril y withe r away in thc agc of mechanical
rcprod ucti on . lnstead, it bccomes just anothcr (con vincing) illusion.
Of conte mporary scholars, Jonathan C rary has bee n one of the most precise in ex ploring
thc implications of this parti cular rcl ati onship of rca lity l o rcprcsentation in thc nine tccnth
century- and the d egrce to which it is defin ed and not dcfined by photography as the modc
of mcchanical rcproduction that loom cd largest in thc cultural imagination. Visual cxpcri ence
in the nin cteen th cc ntury, he argucs, did indced look to the codes of mo nocular vision ancl
geo mctrical pcrspectivc to structurc reality through its photographic re prcscn tatio ns (by sccing
the inve ntion o f th c cam era procecding from the camera obscura as a device fo r picturing
the landscape). But photographically bascd technologies such as stereoscopy ancl, Cl'entu ally,
cine ma , ultimatcl y annihilated the prctcnse of a single, consistent, and unificd point o f view
inhe rent in thcse codes. While what he calls "the 1-ictions of realism" continued lo ope rate
undisturbcd, tht•se techno logies dcmandcd a ncw kind of "observcr·-consumcr," al homc in a
world airead y reconstituted (through rcproductio ns) as free-fl oating illusions. ll
Such fine-graincd distinctions in moclcls of speclato rship are richly suggcsti ve for the futurc
study of visual culturt'. Thus, this volume is cve rywhc rc saturated by the photographi c as a
kcy medium of mcchani cal reprod uction, but also grapplcs with the cliffc rc nccs betwt•cn
photography and other, proximate technologics. Evcn further, it imagines f-ilm as a sort of
c ulminating poinl in the ninctecnth-ccntury history o f visual culture, a claim that has alrcady
bccn thoro ughl y cxplored in Cinema anJ the lnvention qf MoJcrn Lifc. 14 Simpl y pul, cine ma ti c
c ulture scemccl to mark a crossroads, cmbl cmati7ing and transcending ninetecnth-cc ntury
12 VANESSA R . SCHWARTZ ANO JEANNENE M. PRZYBLYSKI

"modernity" as a realm of both cxpc ri cnces and represe ntatio ns. The adve nt of film repre
scnts a ne w phase but o ne that is no t difTerent in episte me from that o f mechanical
r cproduction certainly it is a phase with whi ch wc are not yet fln ishcd. Many scholars intcr-
cstcd in idcntifying a postmode rn momcnt will point to var ious kcy momcnts of rupturc
bet wecn modc rnity and postmodc rnity: th e crisis o f Mode rnism as a sccmingly cx haustcd
acsthclic di scourse, the comple te uncoupling o f the copy fro m the original, virtuality ver sus
referentiality, ancl thc digital divide.
or thcsc facts as signs o f c piste mic rupturc, wc re main fa irly skeptical. ls it rcally thc
fate o f the histor y of visual culture to succumb to t he decis ivc discmbodiment of the image
bctokencd by the digital age? O r is the time also ripe for visual culture studi es to rcconside r
the degree to which thc histo ry of visual culture must rejoin and revise its relatio nship to the
histor-y of the co rpo real senses in gene ral? This is why pheno me no logical , cognitive approachcs
of carly modc rn ity studics such as t hosc of Georg Sim mcl and Sicgfriecl Kracauc r havc bccn
incl udcd in this vo lumc. Simmcl and Kracauc r ofTc r compclling argumenL~ for thc need to
makc grounded claims about corpo rcal cxpe ric ncc and thc intc ractio n of pcoplc, and a w idc
r angc of visual practiccs incl uding, but no t limitcd to, imagc making . Thcir pc rspcctivcs
cnco uragc us to use ncw tools that will nccd lo be dcvelopcd fro m thc sorts of visual and
formal analys is o f art history ancl lite rary studi es that go beyond Ye rba! dcscripti on and cxpcri -
cnce as "discou rse."
Ultimatcly, thcsc q uestions m ay lcad us to rcconsidcr· thc too-casy noti on of thc primacy
of visual culture in mode rnity. This is why locating vision amo ng the scnses ami writing a
g ro unded history of that visual culture fo r th e twenticth century should be forcmost p riori
ties as the fleld d cvclops. O nly the n w ill we be ablc to address sorne of thc primary issues
on the visual culture agend a cspccially the role that imagcs play in conte mporary global
i:t:ation. This volu me ho pcs to sharpcn an histo ri cal gcncalogy of visual cultu re ami thc historical
methodo logy of visual culture studi cs. Among othc r things, it asks rcadcrs to ask thcmsclvcs
w hcthcr wc are in a new visual cultural c poch or whe thc r what wc think o f as globalizatio n
is an extcnsion of thc Frc nch Re, o lution an d thc era o f mechanical rcproduction for better
and worsc. O nly the futurc w ill tcl l.

Notes
W.J .T. Mitchell, "lnterclisciplinar ity and Visual Culture," Are Bulleun, LXXVII (4) (December 1995):
543.
2 Carol A rm ~tro n g is parlieularly acule on this point in ht•r response lo tht• "Visual Cultun • Questionnaire"
post•d hy the journal October. See Octobcr 77 (Summer 1996): 27 28. In general, tht• rangt' of respo n.'>es
lo lhis questionnain• hy art and archi tcct ural historians, fil m theori,ts, litcrary critics, and arlists an•
well worth rcading.
3 For a rt•ccnt ovcrvicw of historians' u ~es o f images, Sl't' Peter Burh•, F-Jewitncssina. 7 he Uses l!f lmaacs
ar 1ilstoncal Evidencc (lthaca, . Y.: Cornell Uni versit) l'ress, 2001 ). T hc "ork of Ne il ll ar ris, and espc-
cially his inlluential essay " lconograph) and lntellcctual l listory: T ht• ll alf Tone EfTt't'l" in \'en Dircwom
w lmcrican lmcllccwal 111story, edited hy Jo hn Higham and Paul K. Conkins, 196 21 1 (Baltimo re, Md.:
The Johns llopki ns University Pn•ss, 1979), is essrntial rcad ing. O thr r work on "thc 'i<.ual" by histo
rians ind udes, Stephcn Bann , Thc Clothina tf C/10 (Cam bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984);
Pau la H nd len: Poucmna Nawrc: Museumr, ColleclinB and Scient!fic Culture w Early Modcrn lwly ( Berkclt•y,
Calif.: Universily of Ca lifo rnia Pn•ss, 1994); Joshua lln m n, BeyonJ thc / mes. P1ctonol Rcporuna. l:.veryJay
L!fc, anJ che Crms i!l GdJeJ Ase ilmcrrca (Bcrkeley, Calif.: Univcrsil) of California Prcss, 2002); Grcgory
M. Pfit7cr, P/Ciurma thc Post. lllustratcd 1-/istones anJ thc American lmaamatJon, /8.JO 1900 (Washington ,
D .C.: Smithsonian Pn•ss, 2002).
4 Mcycr Shapiro, "Thc Social Bases o f Art," First American Arusts' Conarcsr Aaamst IVar anJ Fascism (Ncw
York: American Artists' Congress, 1936), reprinted in Chadcs llarri,on an<l Paul Wood , llrt m Theory
1900 1990: An llntho/oBY tf Chanama Ideas (Oxford: Blackwcll Publishcrs, 1993), p. 508.
 VISUAL CULTURE'S HISTORY 13

5 This bibliography is by now voluminous and includcs thc work of many contrihuto,·s to this volumc .
Othcr important contrihutions in thc ficld of Frcnch painting, to makc an examplc o f just o ne arca,
indudc Albert Bo imc, The Acaden'Y and French PainUn9 in the Nincteenth Cenwry (London : Phaido n Press,
197 1); Patricia Mainarcli , Arr and Pohucs 1 thc Second EmpiTe: The Un iversal Expositions I?J' 1855 and 186 7
(New HaH·n, Conn. and 1ondon: Yale Uni\'ersity Press, 1987); Nancy Troy, Modernmn and the Decorative
Am in France: From Art No uveau tole Corbusier (Ncw lla\en, Con n. and l .ondon: Yalc Unht•rsity Press,
1991); and Harrison C. White and Cynthia A. Whitc, Canvases and Carecrs: lnstiwtional Chanac in the
Frcnch Pamtin9 World (Chicago and 1 ondon: University of Chicago Prcss, 1965).
6 In thc United States, thc fund amental cssay \\<IS Linda Nochlin 's " Why llave There Bcen No Great
Womcn Artists?" (ARTnews (January 197 1): 22 39; 67 7 1). In England, crucial contributions to this
debate wt•rc made hy Griselda Pollock , a sclcction of whosc <.'ssays has heen publishrd as Vision and
D1fference: Femminny, Feminism and the Hmones 1 Arr (London: Routledge , 1988) ancl Laura Mulvey,
whosc "Visual Pleasure and Na1·rativc Cinema," origina lly published in 1975 , hccame a fundamental
cross-disciplina1·y refcrencc for feminist art historians (reprintt•d in Mulvey, Visua l and Other Pleasurcs
(Bioomington, Minn. : Indiana Unh ersity Prcss, 1989), pp. 14 28. A uscful collcction o f early art
historical intcrventions can be found in Norma Rroudc ancl Mary Garranl (eds.) , Femm1~m and Art Hmory
(Ncw York: llarpcrCollins, 1982).
7 T he most notorio us narrative of the "painterly" history of photography was advanced by Peter Galassi.
See Bc{orc Phorooraph)·: Pamuna and rhe ln venuon 1 Phoroaraphy (Boston , Mass. : New York Graphic
Society, 198 1). Thc instrumenta l counterproposal to this narrathe \\as arg ued most forcefully by Allan
ckula (st'c, for examplc, Phoroaraphy Aaainsr the Grain: Essays and Photoll'orks (Nova Scotia: College of
Art ami Design, 1984) an<l "The Body and the Archive," Ocrober 39 (Wintn 1986: 13 640) and John
Tagg (Thc Burden 1 Representar ion: F.ssays on Photonraphu~s and IIISiones (A mhe r~t , Mass.: Univcrsity of
Massachusetts Press, 1988)). Scc also Abigail o lo mon-Godcau, Photoaraph) ar thc Dock: Essap on
Phowarpah1c History, lnsllwllons and Practices (M inncapolis, Minn .: Uni vcrsity of Min nesota Prcss, 199 1)
anclthc uscful anthology cdited by Richard Bolton , The Comesr 1 Mea m na: Critica/ 1-lHtor/es 1![ Phowaraphy
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Prt•ss, 1989). For mo re contextua) and institutio nal approachcs, see Anne
MeCa uley, Jndusuwl Madn ess: Commcrdal Photoaraph) In Pam, 18-18 1871 (Ncw ll a\·en, Conn.: Yale
Univt•rsity Press , 1994) and James Ryan ancl Joan Schwart1., (cds.), Picrurmn Place: PhotoarapllJ and the
Geoaraph,cal lmaomation ( Lonclon: I.B. Tauris, 2003).
8 For an cxce ll cnt survcy of dcvelo pmenls in histo rical mcthod s, sce Joyct• Appleby, Lynn llunt , ami
Margarct Jacob, Tcllmo rhc Truth abou1 1/istory (New York: Norton, 1994).
9 Clifford Gccrtz, 7he lnrerprewrion if Culr ures (Ncw York: Basic Books, 1973).
1O Catherinc Gallaghcr and Stephen Grcenhlatt, Prawcma /\'en lf1ston mm, p. 7.
11 Catherin,• Gallagher and Stephen Grcenhlatt , Practicin9 Nen 1-/morimm, p. 4.
12 Thesc referentes a1·e to Rohcrt Darnton, Thc Great Cat Ma~sacre (Ncw York, Rasic, 1984), Natalic
Davis, The Rerurn 1 Alartm Gucrre (Cambridge, Mass.: lfanard Uni versity Pn•ss, 1983) and Stephcn
Grecnblatt 's essay aho ul Caliban in Lcarnma to Curse (NC\\ York: Routledge, 1999).
13 Judith Walkowit¡,, Ciry I?J Dreac!ful Dehaht. Narratives 1 Sexual Danaer in 1ate- Victorwn l ondon (Chicago:
Chicago Unh ersity Prcss, 1993); Alain Corbin, Th e Foul and the Fraarant: Odor and rhe French Social
lmaaination (Cambridge, Ma.<.s.: llan·ard Univcrsity Press, 1986).
14 Somc or the bcst wo rk about thc ninetccnth Cl'ntury in this mod e inclmlcs: D .A. Milll'r, The /\ore/
and thc PoiJCe (Berkeley, Calif. : Univt•rsity of California Prcss, 1-cprintcd 1989); Mar y Poo\·ey, Unc1en
Derelopmcnts: Thc ldeoloaiCal Work I?J. Gender m Mid Victorran Enaland (Chicago: Univcrsity of Chicago
Prcss, 1988); Cathcrine Gallagher, Thc ln du~trial Riformalion 1![ Enahsh Fiwon (Chicago: Uni\'crsity of
Chicago Prcss, 1985); Alain Corbin, Thc roul and the Fraoram: Odor and the French Social lmaamauon
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uniwrsity Prcss, 1986); Judith W alkowit7, Cny 1 Drea1ful Dclio!Jr.
Na rratii'CS 1 Scwal Danacr in 1ate- VICtonan London (Chicago: Chicago Univcrsi ty Prcss, 1993).
15 David Hordwcll' s On thc 1/istor)' of Film St)'le (Cambridge, Mass.: Han·ard Uni \'crsit) Prcss, 1997) o fl'ers
a concise histo ry of this approach ancl is also one of the mon• recl' nt examplcs o f the same tradition.
Thc more litcraturc o riented model of "autt•urism" in which film directors replacc w ritcrs as autho rs
o f texts had its first systcmatic champion in th1• United Statcs in AndrC\\ Sarris. bpccially important
is his essay, "Toward a Thcory of Film lli!.tory" in Thc Amenean Cmema. 01fectors and Dlfecuom, 1929 1968
(NC\\ Yo rk : DaCapo , 1996; originally 1968).
16 Thc tcrm "scopic rcgime" i ~ borrowcd from Martin Jay's Donnca.\1 Eycs. The Demorcllion 1 VISion 111
Twenticth Century French Thouoht (Berkcley, Calif. : Unh enity o f Cali fornia Press, 199 3).
17 Ni cholas Minocff (ed. ) The VISlwl Culture Readcr (Lonclon: Ro utledgc, 1998).
14 VANESSA R. SCHWAR TZ AND JEANNENE M. PRZYBLYSKI

18 For the "pcriod cyc," scc Michael Baxandall's Pamunn ancl Expcncncc m 1-!ficcnth Ccntury Ita/y (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1972).
19 Walter Benjamin·, "Tlw Work of Art in lhe Ag<> of Mechanical Rc production" in this ,•olume,
pp . 63 70.
20 Martin Jay's Do11ncost Eycs is the best account of the rise of occularcentrism in the West. 1 h.• argues
ultimatcly for its decline, at lcast among intc ll cctuals.
2 1 Thc m ost historica lly sensi tivc accounts of painting influcnccd by "G rcc nbc rgian" formalism havc bccn
produccd by Michae l Fricd. Scc Courbet's Rcalism (Chicago and Londo n : Univcrsity of C hicago Prcss,
1990) and Manet's Jl.lodcmlsm or, The Face if Palnuna m the 1860s (Chicago ami 1 o ndon : Uni versity of
Chkago Prcss, 1996).
22 ce tuart Hall, Kenncth W. Thompson, and Da,id ll eld (eds.), llodcrnu;: An lntroducuon to tllodcrn
SoCJCocs (Oxford: 131ackwe ll, 1996) which is a tho ughtful tcxtbook in sociology that providcs a u~e ful
synlhesis. ee al so Arjun Appadurai, Madcrnll) at 1arae. Cultural D1mcmiam of GlobaliLation (Minncapolis,
Minn.: Unive rsity of Minnesota Press, 1996).
2 3 William M. lvins, Jr, PnnH ami VISUal Comllll/IliCallon (Cambridge, Mass.: MI r Press, 1973, first puhlished
1953) p. 94.
24 For a thorough explanation of the "image standard", scc the essay "Compkx Culture" by Margar<>t
Colw n ancl Anne 1-l igonnet in this volume.
25 St•e Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Traniformation if thc Public Spherc (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Prcss,
1989) and Benedict Andl•r son, lmaomccl Communiiics ( London: Verso, 1983) for general on~rv i C\\S of
thcsc transformations.
26 Jay, p . 122. For more on images and lhe Frt•nch Rc,olution, see 1 ynn llunt, Polines, Culwrc ancl Class
in thc Frcnch Revolution ( Bl•rk<'ky, Calif. : Uni,ersity o f Califo rnia P1-css, 1984) ancl Ma uricc Agulhon,
tllarianne lnto Battlc. Rcpuhhcon lmaacry and Symhol11m m Francc, 1789 1880, Janet Lloycl (trans.)
(Cambridge: Cambridge Uni versity Press, 198 1; origina lly 1979). For a usl•ful C D- ROM of images,
see Jack Ct•nst•r ancl l ynn ll unt, Libcrcy, Equal11y, Fratcmity (Statc Collegl', Pa.: Pc nn Statc Prcss, 2000).
27 SN' especially thc important work of 11arhara Maria Stafl'ord: Ariful Scicncc: Enliohtcnmcnt, Enccrtammcnt
and thc Eclipse ?f VIsual l:.Jucauon (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Prcss, 1994); GooJ l ookma. f..ssap on thc
I'Irtuc if Imanes (Cambridge, Mass.: M IT Press, 1996); ancl, wilh Frances T e rpak, Dcviccs if IVonclcr
(Los Angeles: Getty Rcsearch lnstitutc , 200 1).
28 Sl'l' Renjamin 's cssay in this \Oiumc.
29 Thc cd itors makc thrir indi vidual case fo r Benjamin in two separate cssays. Sec Jrannene M . Pr7yblyski,
" llisto ry is Photography: Thc Aftcrimage of Waltl·r Bc njamin," Aflcrimaac (Septt·mbcr/Oct o bcr 1998):
8 1 1; ancl Vancssa R. Schwart.l , " W alter Benjamin for llistorians," Amenean 1listorical Rcvicw, v. 106,
n.5 (Dcccmbcr 200 1): 172 1 4,.
30 Thi s point is also e laborated in "Ecluard Fuchs: Coll<>cto r an<l Historian ," Thc f.~¡cnual Franlfurt School
Rcaclcr, Andrcw Arato ami Fikc Gcbhardt (cds.) (Nt•\\ York , 1982), pp . 225 51.
3 1 T .J . Clark , "O rigins of thc Prcscnt Crisis," Ncn l ift Rcmw 2, Sccond St•ries (Mar ch April 2000):
85 96, 9 1.
n . l'l' Bcnjamin's cssay in thi'o \ Oiume.
33 Jonalhan Crary, Tcchmquc¡ if thc Obscn,cr: On Vmon ami Modcmity in thc Ninctccnth Ccntury (Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press. 1990), pp. 127 8.
34 Lt•o C harncy and Vancssa R. Schwa rtz (cds.) Cinema and thc lnvent ion qf Modcrn L!fe (Berkt'ley, Calif. :
Univc rsity of Califo rn ia Prcss, 1995).