Passage
November 5, 2007 — heatherdh
Commentary on the work “The Passage”
Heather den Houting, 2007, acrylic on canvas board.
Introduction
Providing written commentary on visual images is a complex task. As image, text and reader interact, new meanings emerge, and new links are found.
In order to contain this essay to a reasonable size, this commentary will proceed as an exploration of the combination of visual and feminist hermeneutics in reading Luke 23:49 – 24:11.
To assist the reader/viewer however, the text enclosed in boxes will draw attention to some of the elements of the painting which were intentionally created to capture this framework.
Visual hermeneutics
In his article “The Artist as a Reader of the Bible” O’Kane summarises the two key writers in the area of visual hermeneutics, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paolo Berdini. Their frameworks are relevant to the process of understanding the concept of visual hermeneutics. Gadamer’s work is and exploration of the processes of interpreting visual images, while Berdini explores the concept of visual exegesis; that is, artwork is not only illustration, but is a medium for exegesis.
Gadamer’s approach is described as emphasising the play of meaning that visual work can elicit. O’Kane writes;
“The subject matter which a painting expresses, can never be exhausted by its particular exemplifications; it is more than any individual expression of it and always susceptible to extension by further interpretation so that no art work can ever be finished.”
Berdini’s approach is described as visual exegesis, in order to emphasise the text as the source and function of the image. This approach encapsulates the two stages of the interpretive process. Firstly, the artist is the reader of the text, and the image is the visualised reading. Secondly, the viewer of the image encounters the text in new ways as a result of that image.
