Blended Arts: Between Pictureand Language—W·J·T·Mitchellpicture-Language Blended Theory Research

In the quickly changing and developing modern society, the picture have being produced an great influence on us which we cannot ignore. Because of the rapidly progressing of the internet,the picture has exploded in people’s life.The flooding of the picture make some literary theorists and scholars so scared about that the language will be replaced by the picture.On account of this, they are afraid of the picture, suspect it and reject it.W·J·T·Mitchell is the Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor of English and Art History at theUniversity of Chicago. He is also the editor of Critical Inquiry and mainly engaged in the study of visual culture and iconology. The research of Mitchel’s picture theory not only bring some new energy for iconology,but also give the research of the relationship between the picture and the language a whole new look.In Mitchell’s opinion, the picture and the language are actually blended together. You have me and i have you. Mitchell think that the study of the essential difference between the picture and the language is just some kinds of accumulated knowledge that stand for a mainstream experienced cognition.It is the ideology and the power hidden in the back that block our way to cognize the real relationship between the picture and the language.This paper is primarily divided into four chapters:In the first chapter,from the different metaphor to the surpassing comparison, i mainly analyze how Mitchell criticize the essential research about the relationship between the picture and the language and come up with a new study method and notion which regard the picture and the language as blended arts. In the second and third chapter, i chose several parts from the respective areas of the picture and the language separately to discuss how they are blended and what the value motivation that is concealed is. In the laster chapter, on the basis of the study before, i will put the research of the relationship between the picture and the language into the area of ideology. By emphatically analyzing the Mitchell’s interpretation of the picture power and the Foucault’s deconstruction of the language power, i try to find strong evidences to prove that the picture and the language are really blended in the deep area of ideology.In the conclusion part, after illuminating the blended concept of the picture and the language, i also point out some insufficiency in Mitchell’s research and put forward the prospect of the study of the future.