Hats off for ignoring "Cheerskep' s unthinking condemnation of it at the beginning of the project."
But if you "don''t like being told what to think", why do you care whether "French post-structuralists" built a "redoubt of thought which has long since been taken." ? Wouldn't you be interested in assaulting that redoubt yourself? And it may still have a loyal defender on this list - if Saul, with his interest in "discourses", bothers to chirp in. Nobody, including the "The newsletter of the Historians of Netherlandish Art has yet claimed that Berger poorly understands all that French theory that he wears as a feather in his cap. Have they? BTW - do you think that my discussion of the Introduction failed "to read with some care the description of Peirce ..covering almost all aspects of post modern cultural theory"? What did I leave out? I just looked again at the early Rembrandt portrait we have at the Art Institute: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/95998 I can't believe that man was 25 when he painted this! The ostrich feather is just as large as the one in the Rembrandt knock-off that fascinates Berger, but it's affect on the composition is way different. And what a strange "portrait" it is -- if you would even call it that. ............................................................................. ................ >I am increasingly finding the close reading of Berger necessary to produce even a weak precis very unproductive. I think this is because Berger's thought is influenced heavily by French post structuralists of the late sixties. There is a sort of stale feeling mounting up,a sense of defending a redoubt of thought which has long since been taken. The newsletter of the Historians of Netherlandish Art has this to say: Anti-theoretical as this catalogue is, the other extreme should also be mentioned, a book written by an outsider coming from literary studies: Rembrandt's fictions of the pose. Rembrandt against the Italian Renaissance, by Harry Berger Jr., of which the first 350 pages entirely consist of theory, covering almost all aspects of post modern cultural theory and the politics of portraiture in the early modern period, while the last 200 pages contain a provocative discussion of Rembrandt's self-portraits, shifting the attention from the painter's act of painting likeness, to the sitter's part in the act of portrayal and self-portrayal. The newsletter then continues on to the delights of Art for the Market and the new book about Hoogstraten,without adding the encomiums to Berger often found in US journals. I think we have in Fictions of the Pose an example of American enthusiasm for French thought done amazingly skillfully,still on the attack, but not useful at present. As for the starting premise-that portraits are a collaboration between the subject and the artist and that they result in a an idea of the subject in his cultural habitat,I don't think it can be argued with. The Fiction of the pose is the naive idea that all portraits everywhere are a mimetic representation of the subject as he is-Cromwell's warts come to mind- and I am sure that other listers realize this. The premise that Rembrandt was trying to subvert the fictions of Renaissance portraits is more contentious. Berger's concept of the Renaissance fiction of the pose is also contentious,a quick look at John Shearman's essay in Only Connect ,mentioned in Fictions of the Pose,will raise several questions. His discussion of the self portraits includes extensive discussion of Kenneth Clarks' book on Rembrandt and the Renaissance and Alpers' work on Dutch art. I am sure that Miller will exult in this capitulation,ascribing it to Cheerskeps' unthinking condemnation of it at the beginning of the project. I don't like being told what to think, I don't like being told what I have thought,and whatever others have said has only impelled me to look more carefully when it seemed there might be a problem. There is a problem,I am not sure what it is, I think it has something to do with Berger's approach,and not necessarily with his conclusions which might be reached by other means. It is a useful book in that it describes from a specific viewpoint a good deal of American poststucturalist thought. The pictures are excellent and all the texts mentioned that I have read are also excellent, with the exception of Simon Schama. Miller would do well to read everything mentioned and to read with some care the description of Peirce in the introduction. Kate Sullivan ____________________________________________________________ Criminal Lawyer Criminal Lawyers - Click here. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/c?cp=ywUbm1yTAMJvM43C_SKqzQAAJz6c l_zTaptgNR5c8Mer1v9kAAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAiFgAAAAA=
