Analogue vs. Abstract

Today we looked at a series of paintings reproduced below. As we did, I asked the class to tell me the story behind each painting.







Interestingly, the whole class agreed on the interpretation of the first four paintings. The class told me that the paintings depicted the crucifixion of Jesus. Not only that, but everyone agreed that them man on the middle cross was Jesus. Not only that, but they said that Jesus was in the process of paying for the sins of humanity. EVERYONE agreed on these points.

The class stuck to its guns as we progressed through the paintings. Even though the second picture doesn't actually seem to have a cross, and the third has strange flying objects and people not dressed in the style of ancient Jerusalem, and the fourth has a checkered floor, a weird looking cross, no beard on Jesus and no nails holding him to the cross. Despite these huge differences the class insisted that the paintings were all portraying the same story.

The fifth painting (by Picasso) gave us pause. We weren't quite sure what it was supposed to be. We all noticed a few forms that looked like feet, as well as a horse figure, but beyond that interpretations varied widely. Some of you thought that the central figure (in white) was a crucifixion and concluded that this painting was telling the same story as the others.

Then, along comes Bob the alien.
Bob has just landed on earth. He has no knowledge of earth's cultures or languages. He's completely ignorant of everything on this planet. You decide to show him the first picture of the crucifixion.


As an exercise, we put ourselves in the mind of the alien, what would he think was going on in the painting?

Among us we came up with a number of interesting interpretations. For example: perhaps Bob infers from the painting that people grow on trees and that these three men are being born. Or perhaps he thinks these three men are space travelers about to be launched into space on their tiny little rockets.

Many of us found this exercise to be difficult. We couldn't separate our story about the painting from the painting itself. When a story and an image are inextricably bound together in the minds of a large number of people, we call it an archetype.

As we go further into mass media studies we will start to see how heavily producers of images rely on archetypes to access your emotions and your mind.

Now that we have shown Bob the painting, we next show him this passage of text.

“When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left.”

What will Bob make of this? Probably nothing. Since he has no knowledge of human language, the letters would be meaningless black marks to him.

Bob enjoys his tour of earth so much that he brings you to tour his planet. When you arrive he shows you a painting. It looks like this:



Now we are the ailens. We have no knowledge of Bob's culture. How do we interpret this image?

We came up with a number of interpretations. Perhaps it represents the cycles of seasons. Perhaps it is a schema that represents how the government works. Maybe it is a representation of the circle of life.

In fact it is a rendition of a Navajo sand painting called "Whirling Logs." It depicts a river journey a character must make to prove he is a man, and the gods he will meet along the way.

What we established with this exercise is the difference between analogue and abstract. When something is analogous, it represents the subject with great accuracy, such as a photograph of Brad Pitt.


When something is abstract, it codifies the subject. It renders, for example, the person Brad Pitt into eight letters:

B, R, A, D, P, I, T, T

which have no analogous relationship with Brad himself. The more we abstract something, the less analogous it becomes.

It is helpful to think of analogue and abstract as being on a continuum as shown below. (You can click to enlarge it.)

The painting that is most like life is very analogous, while the middle painting is more abstract using distorted shapes instead of analogous shapes. It is the text, however, that is most abstract, bearing no resemblance at all to the event of crucifixion.

Since the Navajo sand art is so abstract, and since we know little of their culture, we had a difficult time even knowing what the figures were meant to represent (just as Bob would would be completely bewildered by Picasso's rendition of the crucifixion). However, a Navajo would be able to see a lot in these abstract images.

As we discussed yesterday, images can't make arguments. Therefore, in order to be able to work an idea or a person into an argument or a series of related thoughts, we need to abstract that idea or person into language or text. Otherwise, the idea or person remains an analogue and we can do nothing but look at it.

The abstract enables thought.