W. J. T. Mitchell
W. J. T. Mitchell teaches literature, art history, and cinema at the University of Chicago. He is the author of numerous books on image theory, including Iconology, What Do Pictures Want? and Image Science. His most recent book is Mental Traveler: A Father, a Son, and a Journey through Schizophrenia.
Omar Kholeif has asked me to reflect on how I, given my immersion in questions of individual and collective madness, feel about our ideas and images of feeling. In short, how do I feel about feeling?
Perhaps because I began the study of literature and visual art with the illuminated books of William Blake, I have always been fascinated by the phenomenon of anachronism. Was Blake a throwback, a medieval monk creating hand-made illustrated poems in the age of the printing press?
Idolatry and iconoclasm are evil twins. They need each other, feed on each other. The idol is said to demand human sacrifice. The iconoclast responds by sacrificing idolaters, or (more likely) exterminating them without the dignity of sacrifice. See Exodus 32, in which Moses melts down the Golden Calf, forces the idolatrous Israelites to drink it, and massacres half his people. When Poussin paints this scene, he cannot help himself. As a painter, he must glorify the Calf and its maker, and shroud the furious Moses in darkness. Why does Aaron, the artist who made the idol, get away scot-free? Was Milton a true poet, and of the Devil’s Party?
