________________________________________________________________________
SELECTED READINGS FOR ESSAY 6 (III)
________________________________________________________________________
*******You can read this blog for free! Please, do not copy its content.*******
*******You can read this blog for free! Please, do not copy its content.*******
Hawking vs/as Einstein
*******You can read this blog for free! Please, do not copy its content.*******
Who is Stephen Hawking? Stephen Hawking is a physicist who years ago made important contributions to our understanding of gravitational phenomena, including the physics of black holes and the universe as a whole. But, since then he has also become a celebrity. Certainly, he is not a visual icon to the same extent as Einstein, but his face is frequently seen in the media and it is easily recognized by millions of people around the world. Take the following description of an art book by Charles Saumarez Smith, Director of the National Portrait Gallery in London (NPG) from 1994 to 2002.
This extract, taken from the NPG’s website, clearly reveals Hawking’s importance to contemporary British visual culture. And, as one of the most prestigious galleries in the world, the NPG is also visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. That Hawking’s portraits (eight in total) are exhibited next to historical and popular figures such as Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, and David Bowie, tells us about his fame and the importance assigned to his visual recognition. Moreover, someone vaguely familiar with the history of art in Great Britain will observe the fact that the paintings of Elizabeth I and Shakespeare are not usual portraits. Indeed, the great Elizabeth I had a weakness for portraits, some of them being masterpieces of British art, and Shakespeare’s portrait, the one attested to John Taylor, was the first painting acquired by the NPG. In another description of Smith’s book (indeed, of the gallery), we can read: “The National Portrait Gallery’s collection of portraits of British men and women constitutes an extraordinary survey of both historical and contemporary personalities. A national pantheon of great figures — from Henry VIII to Stephen Hawking — portrayed by great artists … .” This extract is still more remarkable since the representation of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein exhibited in the first room of the gallery is considered to be the “most important portrait” of the collection.[source] So, it should be kept in mind that if Hawking’s portraits were commissioned it was because the members of the NPG (staff and trustees) found it important that people recognize his face; the face of one of the most influential contemporary British scientists. This determination to immortalize personalities has been put forward explicitly by the NPG: “The Gallery hopes to encourage portraiture and to keep the representation of the human figure very much alive.”[source]
Following an approach very similar to the one previously applied to Einstein, I will now present the most distinguishable features of Hawking’s countenance, that is to say, the main features that help people to identify him. Let us first consider the portrait in Figure 10, currently showing in the National Portrait Gallery in London. [source] The artist Yolanda Sonnabend was in 1985 commissioned by the institution to paint it — at that time the NPG started to commission portraits of notable English scientists. The picture, rendered several years before Hawking became a famous figure, is exhibited in the primary collection. What strikes me at first sight is that it looks as if something is missing. Perhaps Sonnabend saw Hawking the way she painted him, but for someone acquainted with Hawking’s face it is clear that something important is lacking in the portrait. In the painting we observe a young man dressed in elegant clothes (maybe too big for his emaciated body); he sits on what seems to be a comfortable chair; and there is a blackboard with mathematical inscriptions in the background. The sitter has a pale and bony face; his straight brown hair covers his forehead; his eyes are half-opened; he has also a thin nose and a wide mouth with fleshy lips. If we look at the pictures in Figure 11 we notice that all the facial elements depicted by Sonnabend are also present and have the same relevance. However, we immediately identify what is missing from her portrait: the glasses. And this is a noteworthy absence. The author of the first picture shown in Figure 11 was so aware of Hawking’s glasses that he painted him as wearing black thick-rimmed glasses. It is irrelevant whether or not Hawking has ever really worn glasses of this type; the important thing is to highlight them on his portrait. Since this element has persistently been repeated in Hawking’s portraits, from the cover of A Brief History of Time to the images shown in Figure 11, we can affirm that Sonnabend’s picture is certainly not a good portrait of Hawking (maybe it is a good painting though!). The reason is simple: Hawking is not easily identifiable. On the right side of Figure 10 is my own version of Sonnabend’s portrait.
10. Portraits of Hawking: by Yolanda Sonnabend, and by the author.
The pictures in Figure 11 are useful to determine the rest of Hawking’s main facial features. Due to its dominant presence and invariable form, we will keep his straight hair combed to one side. We notice that his eyes are not so visible since the glasses are the prevailing feature of this part of his face. Given that most of Hawking’s representations are full-faced portraits, the nose is not so relevant (in a portrait from the side Hawking’s nose would gain importance while the glasses in turn would lose theirs). His wide mouth with fleshy lips is certainly an important feature. Then, we are left with his hair, glasses, and mouth.
11. Portraits of Hawking: painting (detail), book cover, tattoo, sculpture.
Before beginning our comparative analysis of Einstein’s and Hawking’s visual representations, it is worth remembering the context in which Hawking has been associated to Einstein. However, since many things have already been said about it, I will be very brief. In the inside flap of the first edition of A Brief History of Time, which came out in 1988, it is said: “Stephen Hawking has earned a reputation as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein.”[source] Hawking’s Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays was translated into German, in 1993, as Einsteins Traum (Einstein’s dream). In Star Trek, “The Next Generation,” Hawking played cards with Einstein, and won (this episode was first aired on summer 1993). Hawking has published many popular articles about Einstein and his theory, including one published in Time magazine on 3 January 2000 (this Time issue was entitled “Person of the Century: Albert Einstein”). In 2007 Hawking edited a book containing several of Einstein’s most important papers (a task that we would expect to have been assigned to a genuine professional historian of physics).[source] And, Hawking currently travels worldwide giving talks about Einstein.
But, the fact that Hawking has been proclaimed by contemporary media ‘‘Einstein’s natural successor’’ does not explain by itself the high visibility he has gained and, a related issue that I will try to decipher here, his visual identity. The procedure I will use in order to understand the relationship between Einstein’s and Hawking’s visual representations is one that has been extensively employed by, among others, advertisement creators and film producers; always with great success. It is true that most of the time the method has been applied unconsciously, however, its vast success also in these cases, rather than diminishing the efficacy of the practice only verifies its strength. The idea is to present two characters with the body or facial features reversed, that is, in binary opposition. For example, one has curly hair, the other one has straight hair; one is tall, the other is small; one is fat, the other is thin. Some well-known characters in visual binary opposition, to name but a few, are: Laurel & Hardy, R2D2 and Z6PO of Star Wars, and Mel Gibson and Danny Glover of Lethal Weapon. To apply this method properly it is essential to keep in mind that the characters put in visual binary opposition must share a common background, that is, a non-visual context that links them. In our previous examples the scenes were quite obvious, each in their own way: funny men; loyal robots; representatives of justice. In these cases the common context is easily perceived since both characters are shown at the same time. As we will see below, things get more complicated when one character refers to a binary partner that is not always physically present.
12. Laurel and Hardy. Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer.
Claude Lévi-Strauss was among the first social theorists to study the relationship between visual representations in binary opposition. In his wonderful book The Way of Masks he analyses the tribal masks of two Native American communities. Like our abovementioned characters, the Swaihwe and Dzonokwa masks, shown in Figure 13, are in binary opposition. In his account, Lévi-Strauss describes first the myth associated with each mask, and then he points out how opposing passages in the two myths are related to visual oppositions in the masks (this strategy will not be followed in my own discussion). In addition to this, it should be mentioned that the masks, which are from two neighbouring communities (synchronic representations), are consciously employed by the two tribal groups in order to accentuate their own identity. Jean-Marie Floch, an expert in visual semiotics, has taken Lévi-Strauss’ considerations and applied them convincingly to the process of the creation of two well-known logos: the sober IBM logo, and the festive bitten apple of Mackintosh.[source] In contrast to the instances cited above where one character is always shown beside the other (Laurel and Hardy; R2D2 and Z6PO; and Mel Gibson and Danny Glover), Lévi-Strauss’ and Floch’s cases are more interesting. In effect, even though the binary masks and logos also take place synchronically, they are situated in different places with a non-immediate connection. The attentive reader may have noticed that in this essay I have been implicitly using Lévi-Strauss and Floch’s approach (without being too structuralist!) to discover the connection that exists between Hawking’s and Einstein’s visual representations.
13. Swaihwe and Dzonokwa masks.
It could be argued that Hawking’s and Einstein’s portraits (Figure 14) are not synchronic representations since they have arisen in different periods of Western visual culture. Einstein as a visual icon is the product of photography and photojournalism, while Hawking’s visual representations have been mostly reproduced on the screen. However, for the synchronic approach I am utilizing, and the visual relationship that may follow, what matters is that both pictures were shown to the public at the same time. And this was indeed the case; because it is a fact that contemporary representations of Einstein were present when Hawking’s visual fame was consolidated. What is more, Hawking’s image developed and strengthened in a period when Einstein’s popularity as visual icon was at its peak (1990-2005). Having clarified this issue I would like now to consider some of the discourses that were constructed, in the period under consideration, around Einstein and Hawking. Because two images that differ in their visual manifestations are not in binary opposition unless there is a non-visual discourse that connects them. There is no visual essentialism! This non-visual relationship must be understood dynamically: the two discourses are in opposition but at the same time they advance mutual reinforcement and individual identity. In our case, Hawking is like Einstein: two physicists that devoted their lives to the search of a final theory of nature. However, in order to reinforce each other and to strengthen their own identities it is crucial that their respective discourses differ. This dialectical relationship (“unity and struggle of the opposites”) is what I will try to explore in the final part of this section. Only under these conditions can we read Hawking’s portrait as being in binary opposition to Einstein’s.
On one hand, Einstein has shaggy hair, he does not wear glasses and he has a moustache. He is the archetype of the mid-twentieth century scientist. Hawking, on the other hand, has smooth straight hair, wears glasses and does not have a moustache. He is the stereotype of another kind of scientist, not the electric-shock hair mad scientist but the Nerd. Other binary oppositions seem to me less important. Note also that Einstein’s visual myth comes from the Age of Science, an epoch where scientists were respected, while Hawking’s visual representation is the one of an anti-scientific period; nobody wants to be a Nerd!
14. Einstein and Hawking.
Besides the previous oppositions we have identified, it is also worth mentioning that Einstein and Hawking also differ in their typical postures and body mobility. Whereas Einstein is generally recalled in slightly eccentric postures: sticking out his tongue, smoking his pipe, riding a bicycle, playing the violin, etc., Hawking sits invariably stuck in his wheelchair.
In this section I have extensively used and illustrated the method of “binary opposition”; a concept that I have borrowed from Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jean-Marie Floch. There is, however, a clarification that I would like to make once more. At the visual level, the relationship must not be understood as if the images negate each other by opposite visual statements. It is more a dialectical process where the images oppose each other but at the same time are mutually reinforced. This constant tension produces changes on both sides of the liaison. For example, Einstein’s facial features change due to the influence of Hawking’s visual concurrence. In the last paragraphs I have also emphasized how this is related to the more fundamental tension between the discourses associated with the two images. In the title of this section I named this interaction “vs/as,” a notation introduced by W. J. T. Mitchell in a slightly different context. While he uses it to stress the tension opposing and uniting “words and images” (vertical double arrows in Figure 15), in our case study the notation applies not only to the portrait/discourse correspondence (vertical double arrows in Figure 15) but also to the portrait/portrait and discourse/discourse dialogue (horizontal double arrows in Figure 15). Paraphrasing Mitchell: “Hawking vs Einstein” denotes the tension, difference, and opposition between the portraits and the discourses; “Hawking as Einstein” refers to their tendency to unite, dissolve, or change place.
Since I have found Mitchell’s notation very helpful, I will use it to conclude this section: the Hawking vs/as Einstein double function of “differences and likeness, must be thought of simultaneously as vs/as in order to grasp the peculiar character of this relationship.”[source]
*******You can read this blog for free! Please, do not copy its content.*******
Hawking vs/as Einstein
*******You can read this blog for free! Please, do not copy its content.*******
Who is Stephen Hawking? Stephen Hawking is a physicist who years ago made important contributions to our understanding of gravitational phenomena, including the physics of black holes and the universe as a whole. But, since then he has also become a celebrity. Certainly, he is not a visual icon to the same extent as Einstein, but his face is frequently seen in the media and it is easily recognized by millions of people around the world. Take the following description of an art book by Charles Saumarez Smith, Director of the National Portrait Gallery in London (NPG) from 1994 to 2002.
The National Portrait Gallery in London houses a unique collection of personalities and faces from the late Middle Ages to the present day. A national pantheon of the greatest names in British history and culture, the collection includes kings and queens, courtiers and courtesans, politicians and poets, soldiers and scientists, artists and writers, philosophers and film stars, from Elizabeth I to David Bowie, from Shakespeare to Stephen Hawking; portrayed by artists from Hans Holbein the Younger to Avedon, from Sir Joshua Reynolds to Paula Rego.[source] (Italics added.)
This extract, taken from the NPG’s website, clearly reveals Hawking’s importance to contemporary British visual culture. And, as one of the most prestigious galleries in the world, the NPG is also visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. That Hawking’s portraits (eight in total) are exhibited next to historical and popular figures such as Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, and David Bowie, tells us about his fame and the importance assigned to his visual recognition. Moreover, someone vaguely familiar with the history of art in Great Britain will observe the fact that the paintings of Elizabeth I and Shakespeare are not usual portraits. Indeed, the great Elizabeth I had a weakness for portraits, some of them being masterpieces of British art, and Shakespeare’s portrait, the one attested to John Taylor, was the first painting acquired by the NPG. In another description of Smith’s book (indeed, of the gallery), we can read: “The National Portrait Gallery’s collection of portraits of British men and women constitutes an extraordinary survey of both historical and contemporary personalities. A national pantheon of great figures — from Henry VIII to Stephen Hawking — portrayed by great artists … .” This extract is still more remarkable since the representation of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein exhibited in the first room of the gallery is considered to be the “most important portrait” of the collection.[source] So, it should be kept in mind that if Hawking’s portraits were commissioned it was because the members of the NPG (staff and trustees) found it important that people recognize his face; the face of one of the most influential contemporary British scientists. This determination to immortalize personalities has been put forward explicitly by the NPG: “The Gallery hopes to encourage portraiture and to keep the representation of the human figure very much alive.”[source]
Following an approach very similar to the one previously applied to Einstein, I will now present the most distinguishable features of Hawking’s countenance, that is to say, the main features that help people to identify him. Let us first consider the portrait in Figure 10, currently showing in the National Portrait Gallery in London. [source] The artist Yolanda Sonnabend was in 1985 commissioned by the institution to paint it — at that time the NPG started to commission portraits of notable English scientists. The picture, rendered several years before Hawking became a famous figure, is exhibited in the primary collection. What strikes me at first sight is that it looks as if something is missing. Perhaps Sonnabend saw Hawking the way she painted him, but for someone acquainted with Hawking’s face it is clear that something important is lacking in the portrait. In the painting we observe a young man dressed in elegant clothes (maybe too big for his emaciated body); he sits on what seems to be a comfortable chair; and there is a blackboard with mathematical inscriptions in the background. The sitter has a pale and bony face; his straight brown hair covers his forehead; his eyes are half-opened; he has also a thin nose and a wide mouth with fleshy lips. If we look at the pictures in Figure 11 we notice that all the facial elements depicted by Sonnabend are also present and have the same relevance. However, we immediately identify what is missing from her portrait: the glasses. And this is a noteworthy absence. The author of the first picture shown in Figure 11 was so aware of Hawking’s glasses that he painted him as wearing black thick-rimmed glasses. It is irrelevant whether or not Hawking has ever really worn glasses of this type; the important thing is to highlight them on his portrait. Since this element has persistently been repeated in Hawking’s portraits, from the cover of A Brief History of Time to the images shown in Figure 11, we can affirm that Sonnabend’s picture is certainly not a good portrait of Hawking (maybe it is a good painting though!). The reason is simple: Hawking is not easily identifiable. On the right side of Figure 10 is my own version of Sonnabend’s portrait.
10. Portraits of Hawking: by Yolanda Sonnabend, and by the author.The pictures in Figure 11 are useful to determine the rest of Hawking’s main facial features. Due to its dominant presence and invariable form, we will keep his straight hair combed to one side. We notice that his eyes are not so visible since the glasses are the prevailing feature of this part of his face. Given that most of Hawking’s representations are full-faced portraits, the nose is not so relevant (in a portrait from the side Hawking’s nose would gain importance while the glasses in turn would lose theirs). His wide mouth with fleshy lips is certainly an important feature. Then, we are left with his hair, glasses, and mouth.
11. Portraits of Hawking: painting (detail), book cover, tattoo, sculpture.Before beginning our comparative analysis of Einstein’s and Hawking’s visual representations, it is worth remembering the context in which Hawking has been associated to Einstein. However, since many things have already been said about it, I will be very brief. In the inside flap of the first edition of A Brief History of Time, which came out in 1988, it is said: “Stephen Hawking has earned a reputation as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein.”[source] Hawking’s Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays was translated into German, in 1993, as Einsteins Traum (Einstein’s dream). In Star Trek, “The Next Generation,” Hawking played cards with Einstein, and won (this episode was first aired on summer 1993). Hawking has published many popular articles about Einstein and his theory, including one published in Time magazine on 3 January 2000 (this Time issue was entitled “Person of the Century: Albert Einstein”). In 2007 Hawking edited a book containing several of Einstein’s most important papers (a task that we would expect to have been assigned to a genuine professional historian of physics).[source] And, Hawking currently travels worldwide giving talks about Einstein.
But, the fact that Hawking has been proclaimed by contemporary media ‘‘Einstein’s natural successor’’ does not explain by itself the high visibility he has gained and, a related issue that I will try to decipher here, his visual identity. The procedure I will use in order to understand the relationship between Einstein’s and Hawking’s visual representations is one that has been extensively employed by, among others, advertisement creators and film producers; always with great success. It is true that most of the time the method has been applied unconsciously, however, its vast success also in these cases, rather than diminishing the efficacy of the practice only verifies its strength. The idea is to present two characters with the body or facial features reversed, that is, in binary opposition. For example, one has curly hair, the other one has straight hair; one is tall, the other is small; one is fat, the other is thin. Some well-known characters in visual binary opposition, to name but a few, are: Laurel & Hardy, R2D2 and Z6PO of Star Wars, and Mel Gibson and Danny Glover of Lethal Weapon. To apply this method properly it is essential to keep in mind that the characters put in visual binary opposition must share a common background, that is, a non-visual context that links them. In our previous examples the scenes were quite obvious, each in their own way: funny men; loyal robots; representatives of justice. In these cases the common context is easily perceived since both characters are shown at the same time. As we will see below, things get more complicated when one character refers to a binary partner that is not always physically present.
12. Laurel and Hardy. Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer.Claude Lévi-Strauss was among the first social theorists to study the relationship between visual representations in binary opposition. In his wonderful book The Way of Masks he analyses the tribal masks of two Native American communities. Like our abovementioned characters, the Swaihwe and Dzonokwa masks, shown in Figure 13, are in binary opposition. In his account, Lévi-Strauss describes first the myth associated with each mask, and then he points out how opposing passages in the two myths are related to visual oppositions in the masks (this strategy will not be followed in my own discussion). In addition to this, it should be mentioned that the masks, which are from two neighbouring communities (synchronic representations), are consciously employed by the two tribal groups in order to accentuate their own identity. Jean-Marie Floch, an expert in visual semiotics, has taken Lévi-Strauss’ considerations and applied them convincingly to the process of the creation of two well-known logos: the sober IBM logo, and the festive bitten apple of Mackintosh.[source] In contrast to the instances cited above where one character is always shown beside the other (Laurel and Hardy; R2D2 and Z6PO; and Mel Gibson and Danny Glover), Lévi-Strauss’ and Floch’s cases are more interesting. In effect, even though the binary masks and logos also take place synchronically, they are situated in different places with a non-immediate connection. The attentive reader may have noticed that in this essay I have been implicitly using Lévi-Strauss and Floch’s approach (without being too structuralist!) to discover the connection that exists between Hawking’s and Einstein’s visual representations.
13. Swaihwe and Dzonokwa masks.It could be argued that Hawking’s and Einstein’s portraits (Figure 14) are not synchronic representations since they have arisen in different periods of Western visual culture. Einstein as a visual icon is the product of photography and photojournalism, while Hawking’s visual representations have been mostly reproduced on the screen. However, for the synchronic approach I am utilizing, and the visual relationship that may follow, what matters is that both pictures were shown to the public at the same time. And this was indeed the case; because it is a fact that contemporary representations of Einstein were present when Hawking’s visual fame was consolidated. What is more, Hawking’s image developed and strengthened in a period when Einstein’s popularity as visual icon was at its peak (1990-2005). Having clarified this issue I would like now to consider some of the discourses that were constructed, in the period under consideration, around Einstein and Hawking. Because two images that differ in their visual manifestations are not in binary opposition unless there is a non-visual discourse that connects them. There is no visual essentialism! This non-visual relationship must be understood dynamically: the two discourses are in opposition but at the same time they advance mutual reinforcement and individual identity. In our case, Hawking is like Einstein: two physicists that devoted their lives to the search of a final theory of nature. However, in order to reinforce each other and to strengthen their own identities it is crucial that their respective discourses differ. This dialectical relationship (“unity and struggle of the opposites”) is what I will try to explore in the final part of this section. Only under these conditions can we read Hawking’s portrait as being in binary opposition to Einstein’s.
On one hand, Einstein has shaggy hair, he does not wear glasses and he has a moustache. He is the archetype of the mid-twentieth century scientist. Hawking, on the other hand, has smooth straight hair, wears glasses and does not have a moustache. He is the stereotype of another kind of scientist, not the electric-shock hair mad scientist but the Nerd. Other binary oppositions seem to me less important. Note also that Einstein’s visual myth comes from the Age of Science, an epoch where scientists were respected, while Hawking’s visual representation is the one of an anti-scientific period; nobody wants to be a Nerd!
14. Einstein and Hawking.Besides the previous oppositions we have identified, it is also worth mentioning that Einstein and Hawking also differ in their typical postures and body mobility. Whereas Einstein is generally recalled in slightly eccentric postures: sticking out his tongue, smoking his pipe, riding a bicycle, playing the violin, etc., Hawking sits invariably stuck in his wheelchair.
In this section I have extensively used and illustrated the method of “binary opposition”; a concept that I have borrowed from Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jean-Marie Floch. There is, however, a clarification that I would like to make once more. At the visual level, the relationship must not be understood as if the images negate each other by opposite visual statements. It is more a dialectical process where the images oppose each other but at the same time are mutually reinforced. This constant tension produces changes on both sides of the liaison. For example, Einstein’s facial features change due to the influence of Hawking’s visual concurrence. In the last paragraphs I have also emphasized how this is related to the more fundamental tension between the discourses associated with the two images. In the title of this section I named this interaction “vs/as,” a notation introduced by W. J. T. Mitchell in a slightly different context. While he uses it to stress the tension opposing and uniting “words and images” (vertical double arrows in Figure 15), in our case study the notation applies not only to the portrait/discourse correspondence (vertical double arrows in Figure 15) but also to the portrait/portrait and discourse/discourse dialogue (horizontal double arrows in Figure 15). Paraphrasing Mitchell: “Hawking vs Einstein” denotes the tension, difference, and opposition between the portraits and the discourses; “Hawking as Einstein” refers to their tendency to unite, dissolve, or change place.
15. Diagram for visual and non-visual binary oppositions.
Since I have found Mitchell’s notation very helpful, I will use it to conclude this section: the Hawking vs/as Einstein double function of “differences and likeness, must be thought of simultaneously as vs/as in order to grasp the peculiar character of this relationship.”[source]
________________________________________________________________________
SELECTED READINGS FOR ESSAY 6 (III)
SELECTED READINGS FOR ESSAY 6 (III)
________________________________________________________________________
