"Why Image Analysis?"

19th and 20th Century Art History is a new course being offered this spring by Rodrigo Villaamil. In this course, students learn to leverage visual artifacts to explore broader historical currents and developments in Western Europe over the previous two centuries by way of “image analysis.”

Elsewhere in his practice as an educator, Mr. Villaamil has championed image analysis as a  revelatory mode of historical inquiry that testifies to the social, economic, and political realities of the past. In 19th and 20th Century Art History, this mode of inquiry is primary.

As this course gets underway, we plan to roll out a series of short essays where Mr. Villaamil reflects on the use of image analysis in the history classroom and discusses its impact as a pedagogical tool. 

The first essay in this three part series is aptly titled “Why Image Analysis?” 

Next week’s installment, “An example: Teaching the Renaissance using “The Arnolfini Portrait” by Jan Van Eyck,” will offer a demonstration of the technique. In the final week, we will hear from a former Dublin student about their experience examining images in Villaamil’s class, a process she likens to a "scavenger hunt.”

Read “Why Image Analysis?” below.

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Why Image Analysis?

By Rodrigo Villaamil 

In 2004 I started my third year of studies at the “Instituto de Profesores Artigas” in Montevideo, Uruguay. Besides the typical courses on Uruguayan History, Latin American History, and World History, students had to take their first-year-long course in Art History. On the first day of classes, Professor Héctor Balsas showed up with a portable projector and asked us if we had covered “The Middle Ages” in World History the year before. After our affirmative answer, he proceeded to project various images of a ruling Jesus (Pantocrator) painted at the San Clemente de Tahul church in northern Spain. 

Through his analysis, Balsas was able to explain the most important aspects of medieval visual arts but also how different aspects of medieval society and culture were reflected in this painting. I was fascinated noticing the work that went into analyzing each one of the images Balsas introduced to his students. It became apparent that besides his expertise in Art History, Balsas had a very solid knowledge of the historical periods connected to his course. When we had to write the mid-year paper for the class, Balsas surprised us again. We were expecting a rigorous research or analysis paper when he told us: “I want you to choose one image and write a lesson plan in which you will explain how you would use the image as a didactic resource.” Balsas knew that given the little emphasis on art in the Uruguayan education system, most of his students would never teach an Art History course; therefore he wanted his course to be useful for teachers in regular History courses.

A historiographical approach.

During the 19th century in Europe, historians approached their discipline using the scientific method borrowed from natural sciences. Following the great German historian Leopold Von Ranke, they founded the “Positivist” or “Methodic” historiographic school. According to that school, historians had no business providing past societies’ social economic, and cultural context. They just had to point out the relevant facts from the past. “To history has been assigned the office of instructing the present for the benefit of future ages. To such high office, this work does not aspire. It wants only to show what actually happened (wie es eigentlich gewesen war).” Placing all emphasis on individual facts gave way to a history heavily focused on political and diplomatic events. According to the positivist school, a historian only could present a fact as a valid historical fact when it was supported by a trustworthy document, which meant before any other consideration, a written document.  In this context, image analysis would not have any academic rigor and therefore would not have any real value in a history classroom.

 
Positivist historiography has been outdated for a long time, but the alleged “superiority” of written documents is still in place in our days.  

In the 1920s and 1930s, in France, historians working at Strasburg University started to challenge Positivist History. Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch changed the focus of their historical research: “They did not pay much attention to individual facts and focused on long-term developments. They prioritized studying the economy, the social organization, the collective psychology over political events.” They published their articles in a review called “Les Annales d’ Histoire économique et sociale,” which is why their historiographic school was named “The Annales School”.

The change in focus went along with many methodological changes. In his book “Apologie pour l’ Histoire ou métier d’ historien” (The Historian’s Craft) Marc Bloch advises young historians not to limit their research to written documents but to use archeological artifacts, artwork, coins, etc. “Our knowledge of the Germanic invasions depends as much on funerary archeology and toponymical studies as it depends on letters and chronicles (…). Painted images, sculptures, and funerary objects can tell us about attitudes and beliefs as much as written documents.” 

By agreeing to the principles and guidelines advanced by the Annales School, one could find at least two different ways in which image analysis becomes an important asset in the History classroom. 

Firstly, when one analyzes a painting, sculpture, cartoon, or photograph, one is, in fact, analyzing a valid historical source. A historical source that, following Bloch, has as much value as a written document. In that way when we bring an image to our classroom and we ask our students to examine it, we are having them practice the “historian’s craft.”

Secondly, an image if carefully analyzed allows us to understand the economic, social, cultural and technical aspects of the society that produced it. Introducing image analysis in the classroom is a good tool when we try to build a curriculum encompassing economic, social and cultural aspects in addition to the traditional political content. Another advantage of analyzing images is that by connecting abstract concepts to images we are helping students to better understand and remember them.