A Study Of Mitchell's Image Theory

As the precursor of the visual culture studies and the prolocutor of the"pictorial turn", professor W.J.T.Mitchell plays a very important role in the field of art history or cultural criticism. Most of Mitchell's research results are collected in three works: Iconology, Picture Theory and What Do Pictures Want, Mitchell called them the"trilogy"of his image science. This thesis thus mainly dedicates to the"trilogy", to the detailed texts of them, to the special process of the very image study, and to refraining from all kinds of misunderstanding of Mitchell and his theory.Chapter 1 is about image itself, the concept of image has different meanings in different stages of Mitchell's image theory, the word"image"firstly means a concept family of all kinds of images, but at last, it means a kind of life form. Chapter 2 discusses about the relationships between images and words, between pictures and texts. Mitchell looks image and language as a kind of heterogeneous picture, his train of thought will be presented in this chapter. Those issues about ideology and the power of images are mentioned about in Chapter 3. By means of critique of the"ideology critique", Mitchell claims that there are only images of ideology. Chaper 4 and Chapter 5 concentrates on the questions about objects and media. The analysis of those specific images is connected with the situations of art and the culture coditions of our era. Chapter 6 makes some important concepts of Mitchell's image theory clear, and discusses the issue about"pictorial turn". At last, the the whole process of Mitchell's image studies has been revealed in the conclusion part, the central task or key target of every stage and the progress of them have been discussed about and commented on.