Witness to

Historians

1
Painters as Historian

William
Holman Hunt,
O.M. (1830–
1910) Nazareth,
1855 and 1860–
61
The Scapegoat
The Pyramid
The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple (1854–
1860) 

5
Painters as Historian

Jean-Louis
Ernest
Meissonier
(French, 1815-
1891). The
Siege of
Paris (1876) Oil
on canvas.
Private
collection.
Painters as Historian

Frederick the Great

and his Marshals
before the Battle of
Leuthen (1859-
1861)

Painter: Adolf
Menzel
The Iron Rolling Mill (1872-1875)

By: Adolph
Menzel

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Painters as Historian

 Carlos "Botong"
Francisco

Kasaysayan ng Maynila  (
History of Manila)
Galleon
trade
between
Manila
and
Acapulco
10
The Kataas-
taasan,
Kagalang-
galangan
Katipunan ng
Anak ng Bayan
11
Painters as Historian

Treaty of Paris
Benjamin West's unfinished
painting
This treaty, signed on Sept.
3, 1783

 
Films as Interpretation

Films gives viewer the

power of witnessing the
historical event.
Iconotexts

Shown
before
pictures or
videos in
films

14
is a vivid reminder of ‘Docudrama’
the tension between
the idea of the drama
and the idea of the
document, between
the anticlimaxes and
inconclusiveness of
the past and the
director’s need, like
the writer’s or the
painter’s, for form. 15
Birth of a Nation, directed by D.
W. Griffith (1875–1948) with Gone
with the Wind (1939), for instance,
is to see the American Civil War
and the ensuing Age of
Reconstruction in two rather
different ways, even if both films
present events from the viewpoint
of white southerners

16
The Leopard is a 1963 epic historical drama film directed and
co-written by Luchino Visconti

17
Films as Interpretation

Pride and
Prejudice
(1995)
Films as Interpretation

Fellini’s
Roma
(1972)
Winstanley (1975)

✘ During the
17th century
✘ From the
novel Directed by:
Andrew
Comrade Mollo &
Jacob by Kevin
David Caute Brownlow

20
The Taking of Power by Louis XIV
(1966)
Directed by:
Robert
Rossellini
Historical
Adviser:
Philippe
Erlanger

21
On the other hand, it is difficult to make a film in
the period before 1700 without becoming
uncomfortably aware of anachronism.

22
 Mérode
Altarpiece,
Robert
Campin,
1425-28, The
Cloisters, NY

23
 Portrayed Emilio
Aguinaldo’s
character is
different from
each movie

Mon Confiado as Emilio

Jeorge "ER" Estregan as Emilio Aguinaldo in Heneral
Aguinaldo in El Luna (2015). Artikulo Uno
Presidente (2012). VIVA Films. Productions.

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Contemporary
History
Recent Past

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Battle of Algiers (1966)

Directed
respectively
by: Gillo
Pontecorvo &
Miklós Jancsó
Oro, Plata, Mata (Gold, Silver, Bad Luck)

Directed by
Peque Gallaga
Screenplay by
José Javier Reye
s

27
 Microhistory
is a genre of history
that focuses on small
units of research,
such as an event,
community,
individual or a
settlement.

28
The Red and White (1967)

Written and
Directed by:
Miklós
Jancso

29
The Red and White (1967)

30
Heimat (1984)

Directed
by:
Edgar
Reitz

31
Rashomon Effect

The Rashomon effect is the situation

in which an event is given
contradictory interpretations or
descriptions by the individuals
involved, and is a storytelling and
writing method in cinema meant to
provide different perspectives and
points of view of the same incident.

32
Rashomon (1950)

Directed
by:
Akira
Kurosawa

33
 Beyond
Iconography

34
 Psychoanalysis

Perceives that art is deeply rooted in the

unconscious depth of the artist.
A piece of art is not only the symbol of one's
unconscious motives, but also the expression of many
socially undesirable wishes and fantasies just like
dream.

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis.

Leonardo da
Vinci –
Virgin and
Child with
St Anne
37
 Structuralism
Known as semiology or semiotics Approach
Describe general science of signs
A sign is something that can be
interpreted as having
a meaning,
which is something other than
itself,
and which is therefore able to
communicate information to the
one interpreting or decoding the
sign
Widely known in 1950’s and 1960’s
“I am at the barber's, and a copy of Paris-
Match is offered to me. On the cover, a
young Negro in a French uniform is
saluting, with his eyes uplifted,
probably fixed on a fold of the tricolor.
France is a great Empire, that all her sons,
without any colour discrimination,
faithfully serve under her flag.”
- Roland Barthes

40
Vintage Old 1950's
P&G Camay
Beauty Soap
Commercial

41
 Post-structuralism

✘  philosophical and literary forms of theory

that both build upon and reject ideas
established by structuralism, the intellectual
project that preceded it. 
✘ Focus on indeterminacy, ‘polysemy’

42
Uses inscriptions
on coins for
example to
lead reader
view the
image
correctly

43
Social Histories of
Art

44
Art is the reflection
of a whole society
- Arnold Hauser

45
 Feminist Approach

✘ Analysis of art in terms not of social class but of

gender
✘ May the focus of the gender of the artist, the
patron , the characters represented in the work
itself or that of the intended or actual viewers

46
 Pioneers of Feminist Approach

✘ Linda Nochlin
wrote an essay "Why Have
There Been No Great Women
Artists?“ on 1971.
All about obstacles that have
prevented women in the West
from succeeding in arts.

47
 Pioneers of Feminist Approach

✘ Griselda Pollock
Vision and Difference is as
powerful as ever for all those
seeking not only to understand
the history of the feminine in
art, but also to develop new
strategies for representation for
the future.

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49
 Reader-response Approach

The conventional notion of reading is that a writer

or speaker has an “idea,” encodes it that is, turns it
into words—and the reader or listener decodes it,
deriving, when successful, the writer or speaker’s
“idea.”

50
 Juan Luna
The Parisian Life (1892)
French: Interior d'un Cafi
51
Eugène
Delacroix,
Liberty
Leading the
People, 1830,
Louvre, Paris,
France.

52
 Ivan the
Terrible the
Part II:
Made in 1946, but Boyar’s Plot
not released until (1958)
1958 and the age of
destalinization.

53
General Points from the analysis by Peter Burke

✘ Images give access not to the social world

directly but rather to the contemporary views of
that world
✘ Testimony of images must be placed in context
✘ Series of images offers testimony more reliable
than that of individual images
✘ Historians needs to read between the line

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