Words and Images 11
Dans un tableau, les mots sont de la même substance que les images.
In a picture, the words are made of the same substance as the images.
This image helps me immensely, especially in my review of the apparent spectrum from “purely glyphic” communication to “purely representational” communication. The ways that people typically treat words tends to minimize (if not ignore) the extent to which written language constitutes a special case of the more general phenomenon of visual communication. It’s as though the formlessness of spoken language were persisted in written language, and the tonelessness of written language were transposed to spoken language, toward the theoretical telos of a “pure language” in which meaning might be communicated without distracting “other” features. But (as this unit begins to suggest to me) there’s no communication without the “other” features; the decision about what counts as “pure” and what counts as an “other feature” (be it regional accent, timbre, typeface, type style, vocal pitch, the speed of pronunciation) depends not on intrinsic features of pure language, but on contextual contingencies.
At such points, my interpretation of Magritte seeps over into my recollection of Saussure — which provokes me to wonder how extensively Magritte interacted with Saussure’s work (Magritte was only fifteen years old at the time of Saussure’s death). Googling for pages that contain both “Magritte” and “Saussure” brought these pages to my attention — undoubtedly there’s more to follow up in this trajectory, if I had but the leisure to pursue the question.
