Reading Pictures

Thomas M.F. Gerry is a professor of English at Laurentian University and
the editor of Arachne, Laurentian University’s bilingual
interdisciplinary journal of language and literature.

A follow-up of sorts to his A History of Reading, Alberto Manguel’s
wide-ranging Reading Pictures is replete with fascinating details. Each
of the book’s 12 chapters takes its point of departure from a
particular work of visual art. The themes are captured in the chapter
titles, beginning with “The Image as Story” and continuing with the
themes of Absence, Riddle, Witness, Understanding, Nightmare,
Reflection, Violence, Subversion, Philosophy, Memory, and Theatre.

One of the most rewarding themes flowing from the reading of images is
the relation of painting, photography, architecture, and sculpture to
time. “When we read pictures,” Manguel writes, “we bring to them
the temporal quality of narrative.” In his chapter on Caravaggio’s
The Seven Acts of Mercy, he extends this idea suggestively, observing
that an image is “a site for performance. What the artist places on
that site and what the viewer sees performed on it lend the image a
dramatic quality, as if it were able to prolong its existence through a
story the viewer has missed and whose ending the artist cannot know.”
Manguel’s romantic view of the artist shines through as he explores
historical and biographical contexts, points out this or that irony,
quotes relevant words and images, and generally performs on the stage of
art. But precious little is left for his readers to do.