Patterns of Orientation: Lateral Deixis and the Shaping of Spectatorship in Early Modern Art Writing
Principal Investigator: Stefano de Bosio
Funded by: DFG
How do words orient our experience of images? This project investigates a largely overlooked dimension of early modern art writing: the use of lateral deixis (references to “left” and “right”) in descriptions of artworks. Far from being neutral, such expressions actively structure how viewers position themselves in relation to images and how they cognitively and imaginatively engage with them.
Focusing on European writings on art from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century, the project combines art history, historical linguistics, and cognitive approaches to analyze how verbal descriptions function as tools of orientation. Through the systematic examination of a multilingual corpus using both close reading and digital methods, it reconstructs historically specific modes of viewing that differ from modern, viewer-centered habits of perception. The project further argues that different patterns of lateral deixis are associated with distinct ontological characterizations of the artwork, including as a ‘living’ entity, as a structured space in which viewers were implicitly positioned, or as an object of observation.
By bringing together art history, historical linguistics, image theory, and digital methods, Patterns of Orientation seeks to articulate a historically grounded account of how language both structures and reflects immersive and detached modes of viewer positioning in early modern Europe.