Translation into Art History

Morra, Joanne

doi:10.1080/135346400249333

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2000

DOI: 10.1080/135346400249333

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Translation into Art History

Joanne Morra¹

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2007

2022

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“…For instance, translation is deployed as a way of interrogating and understanding the epistemological, ontological and philosophical possibilities provoked by a work of art (Bal, 2002;Morra, 2000;Shapiro, 1997;Steyn, 1996). It is integral to recent discussions on diaspora, exile and the construction of the other within analyses of modern and contemporary visual culture practices (Bhabha, 1997;Maharaj and Papastergiadis, 1999;Naficy, 2001).…”

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Bal¹,

Morra

2007

Journal of Visual Culture

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Today translation is gaining ground as a crucial trope, idea, concept, metaphor and mode of interpretation within discussions of international visual and cultural practices. Art historians, cultural and literary critics, philosophers and psychoanalysts are turning to modern and contemporary theories of translation in order to consider visual, historical, social and subjective transformations. This issue of the journal of visual culture situates itself within this context and offers new elements to the emerging debate.The figure of translation has a long history in the fields of theology, philosophy, literary studies and critical theory. From its early theological history, the study of translation produced an understanding of language as polyvalent. Based on the crossing of boundaries, this polyvalency was coupled with a recognition of language as polysemous. Together, these aspects of translation have led to the flourishing of divergent theories within various fields of study. Much of this work seeks to exploit the potential of translation's polysemy rather than tame it by pinning down meaning or interpretation. Walter Benjamin's (1992Benjamin's ( [1955) work on translation is vital to an understanding of this. For Benjamin, translation is a mode of writing that works against codification, imitation, derivation and stasis. Instead, he proposes a philosophy of language in which translation does not serve the original, but liberates and releases its potential -which resides in that which resists translation. In this way, theorists that have followed him have been able to conceive of translation as a resistance to reading.Benjamin's conception of translation as a mode or movement highlights its etymological relation to metaphor: both translation and metaphor share the notion visible in the root transfer. It is this idea of transfer or the crossing of boundaries, based on an accentuation of difference that supports translation's move into the study of visual culture. Scholars working in a variety of areas of study, across historical moments, and with diverse objects have taken up translation because of this mobility and the potential of art to

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confidence: 99%

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Bal¹,

Morra

2007

Journal of Visual Culture

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Utopia Lost: Allegory, Ruins and Pieter Bruegel's Towers of Babel

Morra

2007

Art History

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Beginning with the ubiquity with which art history discusses Pieter Bruegel the Elder's work as allegorical – and the Tower of Babel paintings are no exception – I offer a reassessment of this by contributing to the ongoing debates within Breugel studies on methodology, and, until now, outside of them, on Walter Benjamin's theory of allegory. Through a close reading of the paintings, the art historical literature on the paintings, and a philosophical interpretation of the Tower of Babel narrative, I intervene in the methodological debates by proposing an alternative conception of the dialectical aspects of Bruegel's paintings. I then suggest how an understanding of the dialectical character of the paintings, and a necessarily overdetermined hermeneutics of them, can add to our knowledge of Bruegel's work, and put pressure on our comprehension of Benjamin's writings on allegory and ruins.

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Maria Teresa Costa & Hans Christian Hönes (eds), Migrating histories of art – Self-translations of a discipline

Evans¹

2022

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Translation into Art History

Cited by 3 publications

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Editorial

Editorial

Utopia Lost: Allegory, Ruins and Pieter Bruegel's Towers of Babel

Maria Teresa Costa & Hans Christian Hönes (eds), Migrating histories of art – Self-translations of a discipline

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