Perception and situation in the analysis of representations

Abstract

This thesis develops a methodology for the archaeological study of art and other forms of representation that is intended to provide an alternative to normative forms of stylistic analysis and to discourse-oriented studies of meaning. The approach presented here focuses on the material aspects of visual information and the relation of material form to social expression.

Through a review of perceptual, linguistic and psychological theory it is established that perception involves the direction and education of attention to specific features of the environment. The direction of attention is then associated in a social context with ideological reinforcement. Visual forms of reinforcement are examined in archaeological, ethnographic and analytical contexts in order to clarify the role of informational salience in the mediation of understanding.

It is ultimately proposed that the material analysis of reinforcement, in terms of its visual salience, may be used as a way of identifying variation in the distribution of significance in representations, variation regarded as sensitive to ideological changes in the situation of production. This contention is tested in a metric analysis of art from the tombs of high-status commoners of the late Eighteenth Dynasty in Egypt. The results indicate that the method docs reveal ideological developments associated with the wider social situation of the time.

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