Can I Get a Witness?

There is something positively modern about the increasing reliance on the witness. Reflecting on some of my research, I’ve come to some conclusions I want to jot down. A framework that I don’t have the time to justify, and yet, I don’t want to let slip away.

From the birth of journalism in eighteenth century England, there has been an emphasis on the “true account” provided either by a participant or a supposed close confidant of one of the principles. One of the guiding tropes for veracity in this period is the fact that such an account should be spectacular or unbelievable. The more far-fetched the tale, the more likely it was to be true. But underneath, the usually anonymous witness of supposed credibility gave credence to the claim.

From the onset of the modern period, the artist increasingly appears within his own frame—as a witness to the scene which he depicts. The ability of art to universalize experience begins to rest on the skill of its practitioners to reduce the inessential, and present only the spectacular to the viewers gaze. The birth of the heroic, individualized, artist is reflected in the role of the artist as reporter on the human condition. The artist does not only transcribe reality, but he makes it communicate a story which might inform and educate, provided that he is a reliable witness.

Captioning practice of the time reflects this primacy of the artist, and places in dubious stature the copyist (engraver) who makes possible the multiplication of the image. Removal of the intermediary stage of interpretation became increasingly important in the technologically focused nineteenth century. There was a belief in the transparency of nature, of its ability to give up its secrets. If every reader were able to see directly the connections between humanity and nature, then the world would have access to nature’s harmony. The spectator would become witness.

But there was no such belief in transparency regarding the public’s ability to interpret the evidence presented in images. The nineteenth century is at once the age of the image, as well as the age of the well-meaning interpreter who extrapolates what is thought to be “obvious” in such images. Captioning is aggregate; the image is the jewel which requires just the right setting to display its brilliance.

As images proliferated in every form of publication in the nineteenth century, the attribution of the images to a trustworthy artist was displaced. The captioning of mechanically produced images in the nineteenth century (particularly photographs) becomes less a matter of attributing them to a reliable witness, and more a matter of creating just the right context to deliver the message. The transparency of the images themselves is not suspect. The witness becomes not the creator behind the page, but the spectator in front of it.