QUESTION 1

In Scopic regimes of modernity (in Hal Foster, ed., Vision and Visuality, Bay Press, 1988) Martin Jay contrasts the scopic regimes of the Renaissance and Baroque. Critically explore his argument and the concept of the scopic regime in response to two of the following artworks.

Jan Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Wedding (1434) Caravaggio, Judith and Holofernes (1598-99)

THE MASTERSENSE OF VISION

There have been numerous debates regarding the position of sight in the hierarchy of senses. Many arguments conclude that the society is in fact ocularcentric and communication with the world revolves mostly from observations through vision. In The Scopic Regime of Modernity, Martin Jay challenges the omnipresence and supremacy scopic regimes of two mega periods, the Renaissance and Baroque, questioning, is there one unified scopic regime of the modern or are there several, perhaps competing ones? (Jay, 1998, 3).

French film theorist Christian Metz originally applied the term Scopic Regime to distinguish the difference between the cinema and the theatre (Metz, 1982, 61). However, in this context, it can be simply described as the system of organizing sight (Jay, 1998, 4). This essay will focus on analyzing the argument of Jay on his theory regarding the scopic regime of Renaissance and Baroque in reference to two of the following artworks: Jan Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Wedding, and Caravaggio, Judith and Holofernes. This topic will be explored into three sections; the concepts of visuality in Renaissance, the baroque notion, and finally a thorough comparison of both eras in credits to the paintings.

To begin with, the term Renaissance itself is the French word for rebirth. It was a cultural movement that spanned approximately from the 1300s until 1600s. Beginning in Italy after turning away from the strict values of the Medieval Period which the Italian poet Petrarch described as an ignorant and unenlightened dark age and eventually spreading throughout Europe (Morgan, 5 March 2012).

In the article, Jay pointed out that Renaissance grasped on to the idea of Cartesian Perspectivalism, which has dominated for centuries. Rorty suggests the reason for this notion to be at the top of the pinnacle in allusion to visual mode was because, its best expressed as the natural experience of sight valorized by the scientific world view. In other words, it can be said that the artists and also the spectators agreed the elucidation of what was being practiced during the renaissance period. (Jay, 1998, 5).

The author stated that the concept of space in the renaissance was geometrically isotropic, rectilinear, abstract and uniform, adopted from De Pittura by Alberti (Jay, 1998, 6). And to 2

support what Jay already states, is to look further into what Alberti has put out himself. In his book, Alberti wrote that there are several guidelines to follow in order to render a threedimensional, rationalized space of perspectival vision on a two-dimensional surface.

That said, he recommends his readers the use of a veil, a grid through which one could look unto and align the paints and curves of the subject to boxes on the veil, and by proxy, to the grid on the canvas. Yet, he defends this technique that it is not a way to lessening and cheapening the mastery of painters but a way to make use of provided tools. In addition, measurements are taken out of human proportions in comparison (Gleason, Internet). The veil of Alberti which has in fact influenced numbers of famed painters of the era is just one example of many in the history of renaissance artwork and their fascination with mathematical applications in their pieces.

Another concept tied down to Cartesian Perspectivalism is the one point perspective system. Jay described this notion to be invented, although the term discovered seem to best depict linear perspective, as it is something that is already natural and normal for the eyes to discern (Edgerton, 2009). Basically, this system is created for the viewing pleasure of the observer, and the eyes observing the painting is being brought to the center or focal point of it. For instance, Jay described it as static, unblinking, and fixated, rather than dynamic and moving, following the logic of the eternalized gaze rather than the glance; any human viewer would be occupying the same point in time and space (Jay, 1998, 7)(Morgan, 5 March 2012). Another significant scopic regime of the Renaissance era, which Jay did not seem to thoroughly elaborate are the postulation of naturalism where figures and forms corresponds to their natural figure in reality and there was an awareness in the idea of an idealized figure, commonly done by picking out the best feature from a subject and incorporating them into one form (Morgan, 5 March 2012).

As result of all these understood guidelines, there was a side effect to their triumphant mathematical sense. The stiff, theoretical, and somewhat unrealistic, ethereal artworks, created a gap between the viewer and the painting. Although it produced artworks with astounding connoisseurship, there was few eroticism and sentiment involved, with almost no character or emotions.

It was not until the Baroque, which flourished in the 17th Century, did the visual mode of the Renaissance came under attack. Coming from the Portuguese word Barocco, the Baroque refers to a rough and imperfect pearl. It arose under the influence of the Counter-Reformation, a 3

movement inside the Catholic Church, launched against the solemn Protestants (Morgan, 7 March 2012). This explains the straightforward narratives in baroque paintings, which is also a way to spreading biblical stories to the communities who are incapable of reading the bibles in letters.

The baroque ocular regime rebels against the geometricalization of the Cartesian notion, rejecting the system of perspective, focusing more on asymmetry, mass, and space. Jay personally described this era as, painterly, recessional, soft focused, multiple, open, bizarre and peculiar (Jay, 16). It is chiefly known for the ecstatic, bizarre, and dramatic effect conveyed in the paintings, sometimes even holding a deep sexual and violent content. This is made possible by several factors; the use of Chiaroscuro light-dark applying throughout the painting to create a sense of volume, similar to theatrical lights, catching a storyline at its most climatic moment, and in many paintings, the characters in it gaze directly at the viewer with the most celebrated one being Manet, Olympia (Jay, 1998, 16)(Wollen, 1993, 9).

As Jay explains, the renaissance viewing revolves only with monocular sight, the baroque contradicts it, instead of bringing the sight of the viewer towards the focal point of the painting, it situates the viewer as a spatial representation. The center is positioned as the spectators themselves, with continual shifts depending on where the spectator is gazing towards the painting .It can be said that the environment of the painting revolves around the mass viewer. One more quality considered to be unique in Baroque is that it brings out the importance of materials and texture, even at some point contemplate a new sense in painting touch and feel (Ndalianis, 2003, 358-360)(Glucksmann, 1994, 134).

Ultimately, in order to more accurately distinguish the difference between renaissance and baroque and to explore further their respective scopic regimes, it is essential and crucial to contrasts one artwork from each era, and in this case it would be Jan Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Wedding, and Caravaggio, Judith and Holofernes.

The Arnolfini Wedding is a perfect example of a Dutch Renaissance painting, pertaining almost all the descriptions of the era. The portrayal of the room conveys the powerful application of perspective in the painting, from the floor, window, and especially the reflection shown in the mirror at the back of the room, where the back of the couple, Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife are seen, and more surprisingly, Van Eyck himself painting them, everything carefully proportioned. Another thing is that the couple in the portrait did not radiate any sort of emotions, 4

although they were being painted directly by the artist, there was no eye contact. Whereas in the other painting, a great model of an Italian Baroque, it centers more on catching the moment when Judith beheads Holofernes, channeling drama through the violent yet gruesome act, engrossed expression of Judith and painful one of Holofernes, in addition to the blood splattering on the bed sheet. The Arnolfini Wedding also use the Sfumato lighting style contrasts between light and dark portions of the painting clearly, with intended brightness rayed into from the window and shadows where the wall is blocking, in contrast to Judith and Holofernes that uses Chiaroscuro to achieve a more theatrical effect. Both eras have their own mechanism to symbolizing certain things, for instance, oranges and bed represents nobility and wealth in the Arnolfini Portrait, whereas draperies and folding of the sheet in Judith and Holofernes represents the new beginning of the Baroque. As suggested by Morgan, the Renaissance artists are more privileged because they had models to imitate from (Morgan, 5 March 2012)(Morgan, 7 March 2012). And from these comparisons, the scopic regimes of each era can be much clearly understood.

In summary, this essay has looked through the scopic regime of the Renaissance which highly values mathematical regularities, also the Baroque rejecting the Cartesian idea and focusing more on the dramatization, and finally a comparison of both epochs in relation to one artwork of the respective eras; The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan Van Eyck, and Judith beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio. The research of Jay suggested that there was a hierarchy in the scopic regimes of modernity, with the Cartesian Perspectivalism of the Renaissance being the highest, and Baroque Notion second in alternative (Jay, 1998, 18-19). Jay argued that it was overlooked, and this argument is in fact agreeable, although Baroque and other eras rejected the imperial application of perspective, it adopted some parts of it and developed it further, distorting the common view and borne its own. As shown in Judith and Holofernes, it brought up the courage, breaking through an idea that reigned for over few hundred years, creating an entirely new one. And rather that comparing one notion to another, it is safer to just analyze it without ranking it on different placements. Therefore to conclude, there is not only one unified way of seeing but also several scopic regimes existing amongst each other, it completely depends how the artists or creator wants to convey his or her work and in what way the viewers decide to translate it. In fact, the scopic regime is a significant procedure to better understanding what is around us.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baxandall, M. (1988). Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy. (pp. 124-128). Oxford: Oxford UP. Edgerton, S. Y. (2009). The Mirror, the Window & the Telescope: How Renaissance Linear Perspective Changed Our Vision of the Universe. (pp. 491-502). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Elkins, M. Characteristics of the Renaissance Period. eHow. Retrieved from. http://www.ehow.com/about_5448785_characteristics-renaissance-period.html (accessed March 12, 2012). Gleason, S. (.n.d). Enfolding Perspective. Art on the Net. Retrieved from. http://www.art.net/~simran/EnfoldingPerspectives/ep-statement.html

Glucksmann, C.B. (1994). Baroque Reason: The Aesthetics of Modernity. (pp. 134). London: Thousand Oaks.

Jay, M. (1998). The Scopic Regime of Modernity, Vision and Visuality (pp. 3-20). New York: The New Press. Metz, C. (1982). The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema. (pp.61). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Morgan, L. The Scopic Regime: Renaissance. Introduction to Architecture Theory. ARC_1401. (5 March 2012).

Morgan, L. The Scopic Regime: Baroque. Introduction to Architecture Theory. ARC_1401. (7 March 2012). Ndalianis, A. (2003). Architectures of The Senses: Neo-Baroque Entertainment Spectacles. Rethinking media change: The Aesthetics of Transition. (pp. 358-360). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Wollen, P. (1993). Baroque and Neo-Baroque in the Age of Spectacle. (pp. 9-11). Bloomington: Indiana University Press