Dear Editor,
To say that "images . . . have no interiority, no depth or density" ("Editorial," April 2004) certainly would have astonished Vermeer and Velázquez, whose human and inanimate subjects are full of interiority. In modern pictures, intellectual depth or density in the purely spatial elements can be further intensified through the encoding of time. It is not useful to confuse the shallow and materialistic properties of images drawn from popular culture or entertainment with the multifarious meanings and profoundly emotive experience of looking at great art. That most contemporary photography and video does not plumb the depths achieved by classic Modernism does not impeach the power of images any more than the failure of most contemporary poetry condemns the power of the written word to move and entertain us.
To say that "images . . . have no interiority, no depth or density" ("Editorial," April 2004) certainly would have astonished Vermeer and Velázquez, whose human and inanimate subjects are full of interiority. In modern pictures, intellectual depth or density in the purely spatial elements can be further intensified through the encoding of time. It is not useful to confuse the shallow and materialistic properties of images drawn from popular culture or entertainment with the multifarious meanings and profoundly emotive experience of looking at great art. That most contemporary photography and video does not plumb the depths achieved by classic Modernism does not impeach the power of images any more than the failure of most contemporary poetry condemns the power of the written word to move and entertain us.
Baltimore, Maryland
Originally Published: October 30, 2005
Letter to the Editor