A Rage of Angels 1.2- The Elements of Narrative Art pt. 1

A Rage of Angels 1.2

The Elements of Narrative Art pt. 1

Images and the Embedded Narrative

"I am going teach you that painting is not storytelling. If you want to tell stories, become either an illustrator or a writer. If you want to be a painter, you will learn to use line and color and shape and texture to create paintings, not stories. Now look at this canvas and tell me what you see."- Chaim Potok's MY NAME IS ASHER LEV

In the first segment of A RAGE OF ANGELS, we discussed the origins of the fundamental components of narrative art, namely words, images, and writing, as a foundation for assessing the true nature and potential of the medium. In order to understand how those components work in conflict and in complement with one another, it is essential first to identify appropriate terminology by which to consistently discuss that interaction and, in so doing, develop defensible and hopefully meaningful ideas about what is and what isn't included under the purview of narrative art.

One of the overwhelming benefits of narrative art as a critical term with which to begin this conversation is that it has an intrinsic meaning related to its use. In other words, narrative art is exactly what it sounds like, an image or images with an explicit narrative component or components. It apprehends the simple act of drawing both hemispheres of the human mind into the transaction through the combination of these two prime elements before that act is critically lost to the more parochial concerns of particular traditions that thrive within its domain.

Beginning from this premise, we are then led to reconsider the essential nature of our prime elements, images and narrative. At first glance, the notion of images is self-explanatory. That is their most basic nature, to be internalized instantly in the right hemisphere of the brain. But, without narrative components to drag the meaning of those images across the corpus callosum, an image contains, at best, only an implicit narrative and one that relies on an enormous amount of cultural context to be held in common between creator and viewer. Narrative art then seeks to improve on these odds by providing that context through the narrative and, in so doing, stumbles upon a range of artistic potentialities forbidden to either used alone.

Unlike the image, the concept of the narrative is an abstract one that warrants some discussion if it is to be used with any clarity. Simply put, narrative is storytelling. So why, then, do we not just call it that? The problem is really two-fold, which is appropriate given the compound nature of the verbish noun in question. To begin, many people have their own idea of what exactly a story might be, complete with a hero and a villain and plot mechanics and so forth and so on. None of those trappings of "stories" has anything to do with the basic impulse at work in narrative art. Secondly, storytelling in the clarified sense of the word suggests a tongue to enact and an ear to hear it. What is done in other media to approximate this sense of telling or being told a story is universal beyond the one responsible for spawning it and, as such, is deserving of a term to describe this impulse as it translates into later and, perhaps, more complex forms of Art.

What is not lost in the conversion from storytelling to narrative is the all-important verbal/left brain component it provides to narrative art. More concretely, any image that is processed without engaging the left-brain for crucial de-coding functions has no narrative component and fails to qualify as narrative art. This is not to suggest, however, that the written word is the most important or even most effective means of accomplishing this task. Textless visual storytelling, thought by some critics to be the best example of pure cartooning, has been a vital strain in nearly every narrative art tradition, including comics. So, if there is no sound (and thus no spoken words) and no text, where the hell did the narrative go? Obviously, it is still there or the image or images being presented would, by our definition, cumulatively suggest nothing beyond the artistry employed in their creation.

Nonetheless, here is a narrative and, as such, a left-brain component at work in a piece made up entirely of images, which are traditionally processed and governed by the right brain. Without the left brain, there is no story; there are only pictures. To create this left-right brain synergy, the images rely upon a narrative component that is embedded into them. The means of this implantation differ some from one dialectic tradition to the next but include linear sequentiality, form restrictions (such as the use of recurring characters as an example), expressive visual devices used to express both motion and emotion, panel borders, layout strategies, and a variety of other cartooning techniques. Any narrative component that adds context beyond what is contained in the image alone (essentially text though some exceptions exist) can be thought of as non-embedded and, as such, judged by an entirely different set of standards.

As the embedded strategy engages both the right and left brains in the interpretation, it can, further, be seen as approximating the function of oral storytelling. As we read narrative art that is otherwise silent, our two brains provide the equivalent of a spoken word recitation of its embedded narrative component. If the reader is not able to assemble a cumulative interpretation from the cues embedded into the images, then the narrative component of the piece is essentially lost, rendering it, at best, merely sequential in nature. There is, as a result, an implied difficulty to telling stories without the use of words because if the images alone don't successfully complete both of their assigned tasks, there is nothing else from which an interpretation might be drawn.

It is important to recognize from the outset that the relationship between the embedded and non-embedded narrative components is not an equal one. Just as the written word emanated from image making which emanated from the spoken word, so does the importance or primacy of the embedded narrative create the eventual possibility for its non-embedded counterpart. Without the former, the latter can not exist. Without the latter, the former may persist.

In recognizing the narrative function that the images themselves bear, we discover that the visual component enjoys two equal aspects in the creation of narrative art; that which is being embedded with narrative and the means by which much of that narrative is being embedded into it. It is, at once, a drawing separate and distinct from any other than may precede or follow it, free from all responsibilities save to be seen and internalized in the right brain and, the largest portion of the meaning of the narrative that must be puzzled out and assembled by the left-brain. As a result, its effect on the interpretation of the narrative unit is far more pronounced than any strategy possibly employed by a non-embedded component. What we see, then, that happens on the page is substantially more important than what we are told, thus illustrating the value of the old platitude, "Show, don't tell."

Read RoA 1.1