328
PARTISAN REVIEW
such meaning must, by definition, be accessible to intelligent, perceptive hu–
man viewers. Neither semiotics nor hermeneutics finds a place in such a
practice of interpretation, nor does the history of techniques and genres, nor
any study of the sociology or ideology ofviewing.
Following the introductory material are four chapters that develop in–
terpretive themes. In the first of these, Wollheim posits an "internal" specta–
tor as a feature of certain compositions, particularly works by Manet. The
external spectator (the actual viewer) imagines this internal spectator who
enters the space of the picture and either succeeds or fails to make direct
contact with whatever is represented there. Often when Manet depicts hu–
man figures he renders them so mysteriously evasive that the internal spec–
tator can be only frustrated in his efforts to engage them.
An
example is
Mlle
V.
in the Costume of an Espada.
Wollheim argues that the cluttered
background of this picture - a set of images surrounding the central woman,
seeming to make only loose thematic and perspectival connection with her –
"peels back [and] opens up an undefined or irrational volume of space in
which a perambulating internal spectator might insert himsel£" He goes on to
associate this effect with that produced by another type of background com–
mon to Manet's pictures, the vague and undifferentiated ground to
be
seen in
a number of portraits. Within a few short paragraphs Wollheim moves from
the odd observation that a background "peels back," to the speculative
assertion that Manet used both cluttered grounds and undifferentiated ones
with the express purpose ofestablishing an internal spectator. This conclusion
is consistent with Wollheim's belief that (l)concerted looking tells you what a
picture is about; (2)a picture is about what an artist intended it to be about. If
you look hard and see it, Manet must have meant it. Once Wollheim gets
onto this interpretive track, the train moves like a bullet toward its destination
- everything Manet does is done for the sake of that internal spectator.
I would be more inclined to travel along if there were at least one or
two stops. The cluttered background of
Mlle V.,
as well as the figure itself,
plays upon pictorial conventions for allegorical representation. This has been
noted by recent scholars and was alluded to by Manet's contemporaries.
There is no need to posit an internal spectator to make some sense of this
picture. Wollheim has substituted a difficult and implausible explanation for an
easier one that has some historical foundation. The only previous interpreta–
tion of the odd compositional features of
Mlle
V.
that he acknowledges is one
no one is now likely to accept - that Manet was "inept" at composition.
Wollheim's ignorance of the more sophisticated critical work on Manet seems
willful
Despite the systematic organization of its introductory chapters, the
remainder of
Painting as an Art
has little cumulative effect. Once presented,
the theme of the "internal" spectator makes only the briefest reappearances.
One chapter deals with Ingres's distorted figures and spaces, leading to an
