MS 111C exam 1

Portraiture: a dominant form of painting in the eighteenth century as a means of shaping and disseminating individual fame. The rise of printed portraits contributed to a broader visual culture where images of notable figures could circulate widely, reinforcing notions of identity and status. 

Verisimilitude: looks like reality but not actual reality. This concept, relevant to Braudy and De Bolla, refers to the appearance of truth in visual representation. In early modern portraiture and illustrated pamphlets, verisimilitude was not necessarily about realistic depiction but about aligning with cultural expectations of how a subject should appear. 

Patronage: In Crawford’s Marvelous Protestantism, patronage plays a role in the commissioning of religious and political imagery. The funding of artists by elites influenced how individuals and ideologies were represented, shaping public perception through visual means. 

Artistry (Genius): Braudy explores how artistic skill and genius became linked to individuality and self-expression, particularly in the Renaissance and early modern period. Artistry was often tied to patronage, with artists balancing personal vision and external expectations.

Visibility: representation. In Mirzoeff’s The Right to Look, visibility is tied to power structures—who is seen and how they are represented is central to regimes of authority. Visibility is not neutral but is controlled through techniques like surveillance, oversight, and the exclusion of marginalized groups.

Mantegna vs. Durer: This comparison highlights different approaches to visual representation. Mantegna, influenced by classical antiquity, emphasized sculptural form and dramatic composition, whereas Dürer, with his mastery of woodblock printing and perspective, brought a meticulous, scientific approach to art, merging Northern European detail with Italian Renaissance techniques. 

Perspectival drawing: a visual field; fixed, centered and ordered vision; objects located in space and time. De Bolla discusses the emergence of linear perspective as a key development in the visual culture of the 18th century, influencing how landscapes and figures were rendered to create a sense of depth and order.

Woodblock printing: originated in China 220 CE, paper made from pulp clothing. Dürer’s mastery of woodblock printing exemplifies how this technique transformed visual culture by allowing for the mass reproduction of images. Braudy discusses how this medium contributed to the dissemination of portraits and artistic styles, increasing accessibility while also shaping notions of authorship and originality. Woodblock printing played a crucial role in early modern Europe’s visual world, influencing everything from illustrated pamphlets to religious iconography.

Visualization : the ability to create images in one’s mind, being able to imagine a possible(s) and /or scenario(s). De Bolla and Mirzoeff examine how visualization is more than just seeing—it involves constructing knowledge and meaning through images. Visualization can reinforce power structures, as seen in colonial maps, battlefield diagrams, and anatomical drawings, where the act of depicting something shapes how it is understood. In the context of visuality, visualization is tied to authority, as those who control images control perception.

Cabinet of curiosities: Schmidt’s Inventing Exoticism examines cabinets of curiosities as collections that reflected European desires to categorize and control the exotic. These displays combined natural specimens, artifacts, and illustrations, reinforcing colonial narratives about the world’s peoples and geographies.

Standardization: De Bolla’s The Education of the Eye discusses how visual culture in the 18th century relied on standardization in art, architecture, and landscape design to create a sense of order and control. In Braudy’s text, standardization in printing contributed to the mass dissemination of portraits, reinforcing ideas of identity and fame.

Illustrated pamphlets: monstrous births exhibited Protestants men’s anxieties about women’s reproductive power and its potential effects on the “body politic”. Braudy and Crawford highlight how illustrated pamphlets were a key part of early modern visual culture, combining text and images to communicate political, religious, and social messages. These pamphlets helped construct public figures’ identities and spread propaganda.

Monstrousness: served as a visual symbol for disorder. Crawford’s Marvelous Protestantism discusses monstrous births as symbolic of religious and cultural anxieties in post-Reformation England. The monstrous body functioned as a warning about disorder, excess, and moral transgression. 

The body: the increase of visualized violence would focus on this site for the production and experience of pain. Bordo’s The Flight of Objectivity and Crawford’s Marvelous Protestantism explore the body as a contested site in visual culture. Bordo examines how Cartesian thought devalues the body in favor of reason, while Crawford considers how monstrous births symbolized fears of disorder and excess.

Self-fashioning: In Bordo’s The Flight of Objectivity, self-fashioning is linked to the Cartesian model of selfhood, where identity is crafted through rationality and separation from the body. Braudy also addresses self-fashioning in terms of portraiture and fame. 

Transnaturing power of clothing 

“Fashion excesses”: In Crawford’s text, women’s fashion is framed as a site of anxiety, particularly in Protestant discourse, where excessive ornamentation was seen as deceptive and linked to moral corruption.

“Split representation”: This term refers to the dual or contradictory ways in which certain figures are represented. In Crawford’s text, Protestant reformers viewed women as either virtuous or dangerously excessive in their self-presentation. In Schmidt’s work, exoticized subjects were depicted as both desirable and threatening.

Visual world: of medieval art in which objects linked by shared meanings, such like stares/looks, size, and halos

Visual field: of perspectival art in which objects are located in space and time. Fixed, centered, and ordered vision. Mirzoeff’s The Right to Look defines the visual field as the structured space of seeing, where certain subjects are made visible or invisible depending on social and political power. The visual field is shaped by regimes of authority that determine what can be seen and how it is interpreted.

Locatedness: Bordo explores how Cartesian thought attempted to dislocate the self from the body and the material world, prioritizing abstract reason over embodied knowledge. This "dislocation" was a way of asserting intellectual control, reinforcing masculine forms of thought.

Objectivity: Bordo critiques the Enlightenment ideal of objectivity as a form of detachment that privileges a supposedly neutral, rational perspective. She argues that objectivity was historically constructed as masculine, in opposition to the feminized, bodily, and subjective modes of knowing. 

Cartesian masculinity: Bordo’s The Flight of Objectivity discusses how Cartesian dualism (the separation of mind and body) contributed to a form of masculinity that was defined through rationality, control, and detachment from emotion and embodiment. 

Flight from the feminine: Bordo’s The Flight of Objectivity discusses how Cartesian thought equated femininity with bodily excess and disorder, leading to the masculinization of intellectual thought and the rejection of embodied ways of knowing. 

Self vs. other: For Schimdt, the “knowledge” consumers derived from Dutch exotic geography was not so much knowledge about the truth of a world populated by actual others “out there,” as it was knowledge of self. His binary is central to several texts, including Mirzoeff, Schmidt, and Bordo. The “self” is often constructed in opposition to an “other” that is racialized, gendered, or exoticized. In colonial visual culture, the European self is defined against the non-European other, reinforcing hierarchies of power.

Regime of the picture: What one ‘sees’ or recognizes ia a name - of a style, genre, painter, or, in the case of a portrait, sitter - and this recognition of an artistic tradition of masterworks enables the viewer to identify with a particular subject position, a particular sociocultural space of knowingness and expertise. That expertise and subject position have a name: connoisseur” (De Bolla 17). This concept, discussed in Mirzoeff’s work, refers to how images structure power and perception. Under colonialism and slavery, visual representation was a means of control, determining how bodies were classified and understood.

Regime of the eye: The regime of the eye privileges identification over recognition; it gives way first to the impulse to be in the plane of representation - to occupy the space of visibility, where vision is - an only subsequently makes that identification over into a self recognition” (De Bolla 17). Mirzoeff’s The Right to Look describes the "regime of the eye" as a system that structures visuality, determining how subjects are seen and controlled, particularly in colonial and military contexts.

Scopic technique of identification: The viewer inhabits the space of the image (presentation) collapsing down the distance between the eye and the image, eye and object… This viewing position precisely overlays the image upon the eye; it results in an extremely strong sense of being there in the place of both vision itself and the world that is seen” (De Bolla 35). Schmidt and Mirzoeff explore how certain visual techniques, such as portraiture and mapping, were used to categorize and classify people. This “scopic” (sight-based) method of identification was key to colonial governance, determining who belonged and who was an outsider.

Scopic technique of recognition: In other words identification produces a feeling of being there, a feeling of connectedness, whereas recognition requires prior knowledge, detachment, and analysis. Similar to identification, but focused on how visual cues signal status, race, or gender. Schmidt examines how European visual culture created recognizable stereotypes of the "exotic" other. 

The middling sort: This term refers to the emerging middle class in early modern Europe. In De Bolla’s work, visual culture reflected and reinforced class distinctions, with portraiture and fashion serving as markers of status for the middling sort. 

Reynolds vs. Hogarth: Joshua Reynolds and William Hogarth had opposing views on art. Reynolds, as discussed in De Bolla’s work, promoted idealized, classical beauty, while Hogarth emphasized realism and moral storytelling. Their debate reflects broader tensions in 18th-century visual culture.

The connoisseur: Is the expertise and subject position of the regime of the picture. De Bolla discusses the rise of the connoisseur, a figure who claimed expertise in judging art. The connoisseur’s gaze was tied to elite status and reinforced the hierarchical ordering of taste and aesthetic value.

Self presentation: Braudy and Crawford discuss self-presentation as a means of constructing identity, particularly in relation to fame, gender norms, and fashion. Visual culture played a key role in shaping how individuals presented themselves to society.

The pose: De Bolla examines how posing in portraiture was a carefully constructed act, intended to communicate power, virtue, or refinement. Mirzoeff’s work also addresses how the pose was used in colonial imagery to establish authority over racialized subjects. 

Culture of visuality: De Bolla and Mirzoeff both explore how visual culture is shaped by historical forces, from the Enlightenment to colonialism. The "culture of visuality" refers to the broader systems that dictate how images are produced, circulated, and understood. 

Dutch exotic geography: Schmidt discusses how Dutch maps and illustrations constructed a vision of the world that emphasized exoticism and European dominance. Dutch visual culture played a key role in shaping European perceptions of non-European lands and peoples. 

Visual stereotype(s): Schmidt and Mirzoeff examine how visual stereotypes functioned as tools of control. Colonial imagery often reduced entire cultures to simplistic, recognizable figures, reinforcing racist and imperialist narratives.

Visual appeal/spectacle: Mirzoeff and Schmidt highlight how visual spectacle was central to colonial and imperial projects. Exoticized violence, grand exhibitions, and public punishments were all staged as spectacles to reinforce power and control. 

Commodification: Schmidt and Mirzoeff discuss how bodies, especially racialized and gendered ones, were commodified in visual culture. From enslaved people to exoticized women, individuals were transformed into objects for consumption through visual representation. 

Autopsy/autopsia: De Bolla and Schmidt touch on how close observation (autopsia) was a key feature of scientific and colonial discourse. The act of dissecting or closely examining bodies—whether literal or metaphorical—was a means of asserting control and producing knowledge. 

The trope of close observation: This concept, explored by Schmidt and Mirzoeff, refers to the colonial gaze’s obsessive focus on categorizing and analyzing the "other." Scientific racism and anthropological photography relied on this trope to justify European superiority.

Decontextualization: Schmidt and Mirzoeff analyze how images of non-European people and cultures were often stripped of context and reinterpreted through a European lens, reinforcing stereotypes and exoticization. 

Exoticization of violence: Schmidt explores how European depictions of foreign lands and peoples often emphasized violence, creating a spectacle that justified colonial intervention while rendering non-European bodies as sites of both fascination and fear. 

Objectification (of humans): Mirzoeff discusses how visual regimes turned people—especially enslaved individuals and colonized subjects—into objects of study, trade, and spectacle.

Voyeurism: Schmidt and Mirzoeff highlight voyeurism as a key dynamic in colonial imagery. The European gaze transformed the racialized other into an object of curiosity, often through depictions of nakedness, violence, or servitude. 

The exotic body: Schmidt’s Inventing Exoticism examines how European visual culture fetishized and exaggerated the physical features of non-European bodies, reinforcing ideas of racial difference. 

Perversion: In Schmidt’s work, perversion is linked to the European fascination with "deviant" sexuality in colonial contexts. Images of harems, sexualized indigenous women, and violent spectacles were part of this perverse gaze.

“Oriental despotism”: Mirzoeff and Schmidt discuss how European visual culture framed Eastern rulers as tyrannical and irrational, reinforcing stereotypes of the East as needing Western intervention. This trope was used to justify colonialism, portraying non-European governance as inherently corrupt and oppressive.

Taxonomy (ordering): Schmidt and Mirzoeff discuss how visual culture was used to classify people into racial, social, and gendered categories. This ordering was central to colonial governance and scientific racism.

Oversight: In Mirzoeff’s work, oversight refers to the surveillance and regulation of racialized bodies under regimes of visuality, particularly in slavery and colonial rule. 

Plantation complex of visuality: Mirzoeff’s The Right to Look discusses how the plantation system functioned as a visual regime that structured racialized labor. The plantation was not only an economic system but also a way of organizing sight, reinforcing the oversight of enslaved bodies. 

(re)mapping: De Bolla and Schmidt examine how maps were not just geographic tools but instruments of power, reinforcing colonial control. The act of "re-mapping" refers to the process of revising territorial boundaries, often erasing indigenous presence and imposing European perspectives onto space. 

Tabulation (the table): This refers to the structuring of knowledge through visual means, such as charts, tables, and grids, which categorize and standardize information. In De Bolla’s The Education of the Eye, tabulation played a key role in organizing visuality, making complex information more accessible but also reinforcing hierarchical systems of knowledge.

The right to look: A key concept in Mirzoeff’s work, this term challenges dominant visual regimes by asserting that marginalized groups have the power to reclaim their own representation. Mirzoeff challenges traditional notions of visual authority, arguing that resisting dominant visual regimes—such as colonial oversight—constitutes a form of reclaiming agency. The "right to look" is thus a counterhegemonic act that opposes systems of oppression.

The Hero (carlyle): Thomas Carlyle’s theory of the "Great Man" in history suggested that history is shaped by exceptional individuals. This idea reinforced hierarchical thinking, suggesting that certain figures had an almost divine right to lead. Mirzoeff critiques this concept, linking it to colonial and nationalist narratives that center singular, dominant figures.

Battlefield maps: These maps were critical in military strategy and historical representation, transforming war into a visual spectacle. Mirzoeff explores how they shaped narratives of conflict, often erasing the realities of violence and reducing human suffering to abstract movements on a grid.

Visuality of History: Mirzoeff discusses how history is often told through dominant visual regimes, where certain events, people, and perspectives are highlighted while others are obscured. This reinforces power structures, as those who control images control historical memory. 

Modern phantasmagorias: This term describes the way modern visual culture constructs illusions, creating distorted or manipulated realities. Mirzoeff connects it to mass media, where spectacle replaces substance, and to colonial imagery, where exoticized portrayals obscured the realities of oppression.

Counter Heroism: This concept challenges traditional hero narratives, instead highlighting collective resistance, marginalized perspectives, or unintended consequences of heroism. Mirzoeff contrasts this with Carlyle’s "Hero" figure, emphasizing how historical agency can be decentralized and reimagined.