I quite agree with him in claiming that picture reading is indispensable especially for the professional interpreters of art. We must take special care not to fall a victim to the danger of mystifying the image. But I am at the same time rather skeptical of the idea that we shall get near to historical reality by verifying the meaning of picture-language. Can we really hope so? It is certain that an image allures us to attempt interpretation, but I wonder if it will ever confide the secret of its birth to us truly.
In what follows, I will attempt to make clear the limits of Gombrich's picture-reading theory by pointing out the philosophical background on which his theory of image and image interpretation is based.
First, I will reconstruct his account of the ontological status of an image in art, according to which an image is by nature indeterminate and incomplete so that it needs the participation of the beholder.
Next, I will show how he solved the problem of determining the indeterminate, and demonstrate that the strength of the argument that makes him believe in its validity is drawn from the institution of art history and further based on the intent-oriented assumption of hermeneutics.
Finally, I want to explicate my view on the subject of Gombrich's optimistic rationalism in handling the aesthetic by making a comparison with the aesthetics found in the work of H.-G. Gadamer.
1. The Concept of 'Image'
Usually an image, or a picture as a visual image, is thought to be a faithful transcription of the appearance of something. But Gombrich does not entirely agree with this general notion of 'image'. Of course he would not deny that we can get some information directly from an image just by the way something appears. The target of his objection is rather the idea that an image is a copy of reality, transcribed to the retina in a tabula rasa state. In other words, he is throwing a doubt on the traditional distinction since Berkeley between sensation and perception, or between the receptivity of sensitivity and the spontaneity of understanding (Gombrich 1972: 15,297).
According to Gombrich, an image cannot be a true copy of nature, because our visual organs are by no means like a mirror that passively reflects and reproduces a stimuli from the outside world. As countless instances of optical illusion show, even if the correct stimuli from the outside world were not given, we could easily believe that we see it. From this psychological fact, Gombrich argues with Popper that we do not recognize something by accumulating the given information bottom-up, but there always comes first a top-down grasp which permits the active and spontaneous making of a meaning as a coherent whole (Gombrich 1972: 28-29; Gombrich 1984: 106). If so, an image cannot be a transcription of nature itself onto our retina. Rather, it is we who construct an image of the outside world by extrapolating in our imagination from information from the visual organs.
As a consequence of this argument, it follows that we will have to confer on the image a highly indeterminate status. A painting itself should be considered as a "blank"(Gombrich 1972: 200) not yet filled. This blank provides various visual information, and without the participation of a beholder to select and process these cues an image would not exist.
It is tempting to compare these claims of indeterminacy of image with, e.g., Ingarden's theory of "Unbestimmtheitsstelle" or Iser's "Leerstelle". Though it may require a closer survey, there can be hardly any doubt that Iser's Rezeptions sthetik was inspired and influenced by Gombrich's Art and Illusion". For instance, the three basic requirements for the function of image Gombrich puts forth: the equivalence, the medium, and the mental set (Gombrich 1972: 368), are almost the same as those which are presupposed for the reading act by Iser in Der Akt des Lesens. The equivalence corresponds to das Repertoire; the medium to die Strategien; and the mental set to die Bereitschaft f r die Realisation (Iser 1976: 115).
I believe, as is already suggested by Kemp(1983: 8), Gombrich's Rezeptions sthetik is one of the most important and valuable contributions to contemporary aesthetics and theory of art. His rediscovery(cf. Kritsch 1986: 191) of the indeterminate essence of imagery deserves to be highly valued as a pioneering achievement. However, as far as the professional interpretation of imagery is concerned, our praise of Gombrich's work tends to be more reserved. The problem resides in the fact that he also declares himself to be fundamentally against relativism in interpretation(Gombrich 1969: 102; Gombrich 1978a: 16).
In the next chapter, I will take up this problem of relativism which arises when we try to "determine the indeterminate".
2. Determining the Indeterminate
As shown above, Gombrich takes the view that a picture works as a visual image of something only after some beholder has processed the cues in the pictorial text by projecting and adjusting his or her own hypothetical reading. But he will not apply this view to professional interpretation, because if the professional interpreters would accept this view, a difficult problem would arise. Gombrich is anxious that this indeterminacy of an image and the participation of the beholder in image making which inevitably follows should not became a menace to the validity or objectivity of professional interpretation. Then, how does he, one of the experienced professional interpreters of imagery, propose to ascertain that the interpretations of art historians are not some kind of arbitrary intrusion of their dogmatic conjectures, but rational arguments?
As far as we can see from his theoretical writings or actual practices of interpretation, he seems fairly confident to be able to secure the rationality of scientific interpretation. And I think what confirms this confidence is his notion of a work of art as a "trace" or an "evidence"(Gombrich 1969: 36).
We cannot deny that an image itself is indeterminate. But, a painting as a work of art, the pictorial 'text', tells us about the event of the first determination of the indeterminate by the artist. This is an event which happened only once in history. So, Gombrich argues, if we take this unshaken fact of historical reality as the criterion of objectivity, we can firmly carry out our scientific study of art.
This view, which takes a work of art as a trace, and interpretation as its reconstruction, is based on his trust in the stability of causality. And the reconstruction of these causal relations will be carried out still further, back to the conditions before the artist first engaged in 'sense making'. In other words, in order to restore the original event correctly, Gombrich summons as a witness the authorial intention which must have played a decisive role at that time(Gombrich 1978a: 4).
These arguments may seem justified and irrefutable to most historians. But I wonder, with B tschmann(1984: 48, 66) among others, if it has the power to convince philosophers, especially those who are familiar with the problems of interpretation. Is it not altogether too banal and weak to pretend that the task of professional historians of art is to sort out the irrelevant and to select the so called only true one among the many possible meanings rather than to construct freely the various meanings which an image will permit?
But, although Gombrich tends to fall prey to this kind of theoretical weakness, I think it is important to pay close attention to the complexity of his account. It is true that he mentioned and expressed his approval of the theory of Hirsch, who claims that the meaning of a literary text is the intended meaning by its author, by saying that Hirsch's theory is a reliable "old common-sense view "(Gombrich 1978a: 4). Nevertheless, in a sense, Gombrich seems to know the weak points of the traditional hermeneutics quite well. Here I will discuss the two improvements he tried to make on it: first, in relation to the problem of psychological overinterpretation; secondly, concerning the problem of the correspondence between interpretation and its object.
By pointing out the first improvement, I do not mean to say that Gombrich is against the idea that we can use the authorial intention as an adequate criterion for judging the relevance of an interpretation. The problem is where we should search for this intention. In the traditional hermeneutics, explaining the intention from the author's psychological state of mind was routine. And what Gombrich is attacking is just this kind of psychological explanation of intention. He stresses the point that if we reduce the cause of the original production of a work to the psychological state of mind, such as a private "motivation" or a collective "Zeitgeist", it will tend to bring about overinterpretations that are irrelevant or the relevance of which we cannot prove(Gombrich 1969: 97; Gombrich 1972: 20-21; Gombrich 1978a: 17).
Furthermore, according to Gombrich, an image is susceptible to become a target for 'symbol detectives' who pretend to solve the mystery of meaning hidden in the painting. But the hidden authorial intention, 'deciphered'and 'discovered' by such detectives (as is often the case with an etymology that pretends to resurrect the memories of a race[Gombrich 1984: 219]; or handwriting analysis reading the mentality of the writers[Gombrich 1984: 200]; or astrology, recalling the famous warning of Panofsky[1955: 32]), almost always tends to become a reproduction of the interpreter's own ideological prejudice. Not to give into the irrationalism such psychological overinterpretation might invite, Gombrich emphasizes the principle of "priority of context over expression"(Gombrich 1969: 71,89). The importance lies in "primacy of genres"(Gombrich 1978a: 5,7,20), according to which we have to look for the origin of meaning, not in the psychological state of mind but in the "programme"(Gombrich 1978a: 6), that is, the social context of means-and-ends connections which controlled the artistic image making. The event of image making is not the faithful transcription of the outside world by an innocent eye, but it is the result of the artist's act of selecting the "nearest equivalence"(Gombrich 1978: 358)based on social convention.
The most important thing to note here is that this"programme"is based on relations which can be objectively reconstructed by using the literary sources etc. Thus by shutting out psychological overinterpretations, Gombrich is proposing to adopt to apply a rational argument in the history of art.
There is another problem traditional hermeneutics must face. This is, one may say, a problem of the 'missing link'. My next task is to show how Gombrich overcomes this problem.
In place of exploring the variety of expressional meanings attached to an image, Gombrich proposes to reconstruct the most "fitting"(Gombrich 1978a: 7) meaning, i.e. the most probable one from within the original function of the programme which must have been imposed on the artist(s). But, to be able to do so, the interpreters cannot avoid filling up the gaps between the work as it exists in front of us, and its original cause, that is, the historical context which surrounded it when it was made.
If we, as Gombrich suggests(1978a: 17), restrain ourselves from our free imagination on the ground that it tends to bear a multiplicity of irrelevant meanings to us, we might be able to make up the conceptual frame only, but never fill up this gap. This missing link between the past historical situation under which the artist carried out his or her intention and the work as a trace of it will never ever be found as long as we do not admit the inexistence of the free will.
As is clear to those who are familiar with the history of hermeneutics, it was the spirit of the Enlightenment which encouraged this kind of correspondence theory of hermeneutics. The approach of traditional hermeneutics was founded in the age of the Enlightenment, and consequently its most important task has been considered to prevent the intervention of subjective prejudice(Gadamer 1975: 256). The problem we face now is a dilemma well-known to the theorists of hermeneutics, i.e., a dilemma concerning the refusal or admittance of aesthetic elements in interpretation. Traditional hermeneutics solved this dilemma by introducing the Romantic notion of "Kongenialit t" or "Divination"(Gadamer 1975: 175). But Gombrich could not possibly give his approval to this solution, because it would be a pet theory"(Gombrich 1984a: 219), which would form a barrier to further inquiries and lead to notorious fantasies and excesses"(Gombrich 1984a: 219). In consequence, he was compelled to accept a kind of agnosticism in historical interpretation for the time being(Gombrich 1969: 71-75; Gombrich 1978a: 18).@He confesses, "if they[the elements in the work] happen to fit we can never tell how far they were part of the original intention"(Gombrich 1978a: 18).
So, in practice, the principle of correspondence has to be given up and the principle of coherence, that is, the rationality of the logical connection, becomes the standard for judging the validity of interpretation. This shift of principle, however, does not mean that he abandoned his claim for the correct interpretation. Of course, it is clear to him that we cannot avoid the projection of our mental sets into the interpretation. But optimistically, Gombrich strongly believes that the historian's imagination "can overstep these barriers"(Gombrich 1972: 62). The basis of his conviction is the fact that the interpretation is not done for once but is open to "afterthoughts"(Gombrich 1978a: 18). By correcting and refining the preceding interpretations, we can, Gombrich believes, "eliminate mistakes" and"narrowed down the area of misunderstanding"(Gombrich 1972: 388), and get near to historical reality.
3. 'Institution'as a Restriction to Interpretation
We have observed how Gombrich overcame the difficulties of traditional hermeneutics. But there still remain several problems. In this section, I will discuss the most controversial one of them: the quest for the only true, original meaning in a work of art.
Gombrich argues that a work of art is a trace of the event of image making which took place only once in history, and that the interpretation of it should be the reconstruction of causal relations relevant to that event. Consequently, according to him, we shall have no other meaning to interpret than the meaning intended by the artist. But can this "intended meaning", whether conscious or unconscious, really guarantee the validity of interpretation if only we keep out the psychological import?
The causal relations concerning the artistic production cannot be so simple. Of course we cannot deny that a work is a trustworthy'witness'of the fact of its production. But when we reconstruct the meaning from this 'witness', we are always involved in the process of recreating our own image. So, no one can claim that he or she is capable of grasping the only true meaning of a work of art, as we have tried to demonstrate in the previous section. Even if Gombrich exchanges the concept of an"intention"with that of a"programme", that will at best allow us to sort out the irrelevant factors for the interpretation, but it does not authorize some sort of a unique explanation.
Gombrich must have been well aware of the danger of giving into the feeling of relief generated by the grasp of"the true and original meaning"(Gombrich 1984a: 219). But then, why does he still have to stick to the traditional approach of reconstruction? Because he needs it. In other words, he thinks it is his duty to be faithful to the demands of history as a scientific discipline.
All scientific disciplines have their own rules and premises which their members must obey in order to maintain themselves as an"Argumentations- gemeinschaft"(Baetschmann 1984: 160), i.e., a professional community for scientific interpretation. In the different disciplines of the historical science, we can find the premise of the uniqueness of a historical event and the belief that we can reconstruct the original meaning of events by inferring their causes(cf. Baxandall 1985: v,12-15).
Of course we must admit that these demands from the academic institution have a certain merit. It is my intention that it is still possible and necessary to enhance the efficacy of interpretations, without pretending establishing its truthfulness. If no restrictions were given on interpretations from the side of the institution, that would certainly cause unnecessary confusion at the actual scene of interpretation. Though I fully know it is dangerous to control interpretation through sanctions from an established authority, I think we must also admit the inevitability of cutting down unnecessary, nominal meanings.
However, I believe that there are far more demerits than merits in present procedures. As an example, I will point out two of them in the following.
First, as has already been pointed out by many authors(B tschmann 1984: 25; Belting 1984: 13; Carrier 1983; Carrier 1985: 333; Bryson 1983: xi-xii), if historians of art follow the fundamental rule of argumentation of the historical science, that is to say, if they try to reconstruct the meaning of an image from the artist's original intent, that would certainly make it difficult to communicate with other interpretative communities which have different rules of argumentation from those of historians. The result would be a breakdown of communication between art history and other disciplines where the paradigm of historical science had already been discarded, such as literary theory, or social sciences. If so, historians, who are by nature liable to do Without Theory"(Elkins 1988), would probably become isolated in the humanities.
Secondly, the pressure from the academic community to unify conflicting interpretations into a single one can cause the historians of art to feel overcautious, if not sacrilegious, to be too creative. Yet, as Gadamer insists, the inexhaustibility of texts, whether verbal or non-verbal, is secured by a kind of positive misunderstanding, that is, by their particular "applications " in a concrete case(Gadamer 1975: 280,292). So, in a sense, it can be inferred that we would be spoiling a precious source of energy of interpretation if we were forced to reconstruct a hypothetical unique meaning of a work only from the programme of the original image making.
In any case, we are faced with a problem of scholarly conventions in a professional community, that is, the problem of whether we should give priority to the concept of historical reality as a controlling principle, or whether we should permit pluralism into interpretation, acknowledging the fictive, story-making character of all historical reconstruction.
As I demonstrated above, Gombrich's position is quite clear in this respect. He will not give up his basic claim that interpretation should be based on unshakable reality of historical events. However, though I, too, admit that there is a kind of a feedback process of hypothesis and verification in interpretation, it is highly doubtful in fact whether it is possible for us to get near to some sort of truth if we only repeat this trial and error. So, I think we should frankly admit that there is a limit to the 'eliminating of errors'. Even if a certain hypothesis is judged to be erroneous and cut out in the process of verification, we are by no means authorized to pretend that it is entirely devoid of interpretative factuality. It is merely a hypothesis of low probability. The process may look as if it permits access to the 'real'identity of the image. But that is probably because the direction to be taken in the process of this trial and error is determined in advance by the compelling force of the institution.
In my opinion, there is necessary an aspect of a kind of imaginative fiction in interpretation; for an interpretation has to determine the indeterminate text by projecting its own axiological background. Therefore, it is fundamentally impossible to make sure whether an interpretation corresponds to reality or not. If one interpretation looks truer than another, it is only because the condition of truth is in advance stipulated tacitly in the academic community where that interpretation is being carried out.
I do not want to claim that we have to abandon the scientific paradigm of history all at once. But if an interpretation which does not slavishly respect the rule of correspondence should bring us a new, convincing view of image, I think we should be ready to welcome rather than dogmatically reject it. Could it not be useful for the study of art, to have not only interpreters practicing the faithfulness to the conventionality of scholarly institution, but also to keep the door open for the more adventurous explorers of meaning?
4. Philosophical Background of Picture-Reading
In the previous section, I expressed the doubt that Gombrich's theory of interpretation was too optimistic in believing that professional interpretation can determine the indeterminate meaning of an image. I think this doubt, which I share with critics such as J. W. T. Mitchell(1986: 75-94), can be further confirmed by pointing out the aesthetic premise which forms the ground for his theory of interpretation.
Here, I want to make clear a basic postulate about the relation between words and image, or rationality and intuition.
It can be shown without difficulty that Gombrich gives rationality priority over intuition. Of course, for Gombrich, at least at the initial stage of experience, an image is an aesthetic je-ne-sais-quoi, which stands beyond the reach of understanding. But, as his favourite use of the notion of schema shows(Gombrich 1972: 63,87), he does not seem to believe that an image can exist without the mediation of conceptual schema which has quite opposite character to imagery.
No doubt we can 'explain'an image by making some verbal statements about it in one way or another. But, this does not mean we can grasp it as itself. By using a conceptual schema as an indispensable tool for processing an image, we are, I believe, only replacing one medium with another, but never coming near to its 'reality'. An image has its own 'language', and it should be understood by its own 'grammar'. So, I do not think such kind of rationalistic attitudes to imagery as Gombrich adopted in Art and Illusion (Gombrich 1972: 87), where he emphasized the conceptual character of art, will do it justice.
One might argue that Gombrich's rationalism must be taken, in a favourable sense, as a strategy for holding down the dangerous tendencies of mystifying the aesthetic. To be sure, we cannot deny that Gombrich's theory has such positive implications. His theory can be considered to belong to the kind of the criticism of common aestheticism which attempted to separate the aesthetic from the non-aesthetic, glorifying the purity of the former. But if we compare Gombrich's theory with that of the philosopher H.-G. Gadamer, who also takes a clearly critical stance on the separation of the aesthetic(1975: 81,111,132), the limits of his theory will get fairly clear.
Gadamer, like Gombrich, also thinks that a picture is read(Gadamer 1980: 12; Gadamer 1981: 35-37; Gadamer 1985). For him, picture reading is a process where a beholder encounters a picture as addressing him or her with a kind of personal question, and the understanding develops in the form of its answer (Gadamer 1981: 23-24; Gadamer 1985: 97,102-103). But, it must be noted that by this Gadamer does not mean to identify the understanding of an image with some sort of 'subsumption'of the image into its meaning(Gadamer 1985: 100). He insists rather that we can understand an image only by actualizing what is implied in the work, and engage in a dialogue with it. This process is ideally repeated again and again, and implies different relations than the original conditions that gave birth to the work in the beginning(Gadamer 1985: 100).
What matters here for Gadamer is to let the aesthetic aspect of image take its own "Zeitgestalt"(Gadamer 1985: 101). In other words, he is trying to oppose the aesthetic intuition to the conceptual understanding by calling our attention to the ability of intuition to form linear time. But, at the same time, Gadamer takes care not to degrade this intuitive cognition into an irregular or improper form of conceptual cognition by sharply distinguishing the understanding from the above-mentioned subsumption(Gadamer 1985: 99-101).
Now, how is this problem treated in Gombrich's work? As we can see from the observations in section 1, the views of Gombrich and Gadamer are very similar, in that they both try to grasp the experience of an image by using the models of logical inference, such as"questions and answers"or"problems and solutions ". Both share a common faith in the possibility of 'understanding'an image. But, contrary to Gadamer's cautious man uvre, in Gombrich's approach, the care not to dissolve aesthetic intuition into the conceptual relations of meaning seems to be missing. The latter seemingly ends by putting the aesthetic close to the logical.
I think this is because the final objective is pre-set in the trial and error process of the kind of image making which Gombrich describes. He is suggesting that we can solve the problems inherent in the interpretation not only with professional means, but also in the understanding of imagery in general.
But, if we admit this argument, the aesthetic in a work of art will retain no more importance than a particular passage in the process for realization of the logical. Then, aesthetic intuition will be exploited in the reading, as it were, as a medium for offering information. Gombrich argues that an image is always already built into the functional context to meet the required operation such as representation by illusion, signification by symbols or decoration. If so, an image will be looked on as a kind of apparatus which, to fill the required role, attracts and makes beholders chase it. By doing so, it induces the beholder to make up the meaning. As Mitchell pointed out(1986: 75-94), an image is characterized by Gombrich as something like a game to be hunted by a hunter, or like a "decoy"(Mitchell 1986: 90). That is to say, the meaning and value of an image is assessed only from the side of those who chase it.
Gombrich insists rightly that too much has conventionally been made of the autonomy of aesthetic intuition, and emphasizes that its connection with modern political ideology has brought about disastrous effects(Gombrich 1969: 98). However, is such a thoroughgoing rationalization of intuition in the perception of art justifiable on the sole ground that otherwise it may invite mysticism? No doubt we cannot avoid 'reading' a picture. But it must still be impossible to read a picture completely, reducing its meaning into unambiguous verbal statements. Rather, our reading process is always set back and deflected by the 'negativity'(cf. Iser 1976: 348-355) of images. If this is true, then the most important thing for the hermeneutics of art is not to reduce all the possible meanings into a single one, but to secure and give an outlet to the unlimited productivity of the aesthetic.
5. Conclusion
Gombrich is an aesthetician in a strict sense of the word even though his works span art history, information theory, ethology, perceptual, experimental, and analytical psychology. When we read his books and papers discussing theoretical or practical problems in art history, we cannot miss his strong interest in the problem of picture reading or the problem of rationalization of the aesthetic.
In this paper, I have tried to argue that, as an aesthetician, Gombrich puts imagery or intuition too close to words or concepts. He will not give up his basic belief or hope that, no matter how inscrutable a picture may look at first sight, we can interpret it by inference based on hypothesis and verification and will finally get near to the 'real meaning'. But we have to conclude that this appears as too optimistic a view on the nature of rationality, even if we admit Gombrich's precaution against Platonism and Hegelianism(Gombrich 1972:19-20; Gombrich 1978a: 13-15,179,187; Gombrich 1979: 24-59; Gombrich 1984b).
We should not fail to check such a rationalistic reductionism, because the reading of a picture cannot help but resulting in its rationalization. And yet, at the same time, we must not underestimate Gombrich's outstanding integrity as a scholar: his refusal to separate the problem of interpretation from the study of art, untiringly attacking common stereotypes for easy recognition. If we forget these admonitions concerning the problem of picture reading, if our practical studies of art should be separated from the theoretical ones, we will end up with only mechanical and merely efficient routine operation, which, not only sterile and lacking in persuasiveness, but also risks to force us to accept irrational compulsion.
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Copyright Tetsuhiro KATO 1996