Becoming an image in the cinema: from Lessing and Hegel to S. Eisenstein

Popova Liana Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0002-9766-7535 PhD in Cultural Studies Senior lecturer, State University of Management 109542, Russia, Moscow, Ryazan Avenue, 99, office U-404 pliana@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

By the beginning of the XXI century, Russian and foreign science had accumulated a lot of experience in studying various aspects of the art of cinema. The purpose of our research is to understand the birth of an image in cinema. The study is based on the principle of image creation, developed by S. M. Eisenstein ^[1],[2]. The aesthetic concept is based on the "principle of becoming", as it was considered by G. E. Lessing ^[3] and G. V. F. Hegel ^[4], who influenced S. M. Eisenstein with his "way of becoming". The work of S. Eisenstein attracted the attention of many researchers: V. B. Shklovsky ^[5], N. I. Kleiman ^[6],[7], V.P. Podorogu ^[8],[9], N.A. Khrenov ^[10],[11], S.I. Freilich ^[12] and others. This study is devoted to the study of the "image of becoming", which remains little studied at the present time.

The formation of an image in cinema: from Lessing and Hegel to S. Eisenstein

According to S. Eisenstein, cinema is a comparison of two methods — the method of image and the method of imaginative formation ^{[2, p. 211],[13, p. 244],[14, p. 69]}. In his opinion, the topic of two methods was well consecrated by G. E. Lessing in his work "Laocoon, or On the Boundaries of Painting and Poetry" ^[3], published in 1766, where it is not so much about the conflict of painting and poetry, as about the conflict of two methods: the method of image, as a method of reality and the results, and about the method of images as a method of formation and process ^{[1, p. 430]}.

Laocoon is a polemic between Lessing and his opponents, who defend the position that the laws of poetry are the same as the laws of painting and sculpture: the English classicist Alexander Pope, the art critic Caylus and the English antiquarian Spence. Lessing refers to the ancient poet of the VI–V centuries BC. Simonides of Keos, who determined that painting is silent poetry, and poetry is talking painting, but at the same time he notes that painting in its imitation of nature uses means and signs completely different from the means and signs of poetry: painting — bodies and paints that taken in space ^{[3, p. 105]}, poetry is articulate sounds perceived in time ^{[3, p. 105]}. Bodies exist not only in space, but also in time. Their existence has a duration, at every moment of their existence they can appear in one form or another, in various combinations, each of which is a consequence of previous forms and combinations. So they can cause subsequent changes, that is, become the center of action. Painting can also depict action, but only indirectly, with the help of bodies. Actions cannot be performed by themselves, but must proceed from  from any creatures. Since these beings are real bodies (or we consider them as such), poetry should depict them, but only indirectly, with the help of actions ^{[3, p. 106]}. At the same time, Lessing admired Homer, who depicted nothing but actions ^{[3, p. 107]}. The poet, according to Lessing, strives to make his ideas so vivid that we imagine that we get sensual pleasure about the depicted objects, while forgetting about the means used for this, that is, the word ^{[3, p. 116]}. Lessing does not deny speech such an ability as to depict any material whole in parts, since speech signs are arranged in a temporal sequence, while being arbitrary signs, but any image of material objects with the help of words violates the illusion, the creation of which is one of the tasks of poetry. This illusion is broken by the fact that the juxtaposition of bodies in space collides with the sequence of speech in time. Combining spatial relations with sequential-temporal ones makes it easier for us to decompose the whole into parts, but the final restoration from the parts of the whole becomes an incomparably more difficult, almost impossible task ^{[3, pp. 119-120]}. Lessing referred to Mengs's reasoning about Raphael, who believed that Raphael's folds showed how the parts of the depicted body were located at the previous moment. ^{[3, p. 125]}. At the same time, Lessing noted that the artist thus combined two separate moments into one ^{[3, p. 125]}.

What is the difference between a painter and a poet? And what are the advantages of a poet? First, it is the freedom to extend one's description to what precedes and what follows the image of a certain single moment that can be shown by the painter. Secondly, the resulting opportunity to depict what the artist makes us only guess at. It is this freedom and this opportunity that balance the poet and the artist. Their works should be appreciated and compared only by the vividness of the impression they make on us, and not by the number of objects and moments they reproduce" ^{[3, p. 135]}. S. Eisenstein believed that Lessing's strictness in distinguishing painting and poetry into two irreducible opposites was explained by the fact that by his time Lumiere and Edison had not yet provided him with the most perfect apparatus for aesthetic research and revision of the principles of art ? cinematography ^{[1, p. 430]}. Lessing divided the question into two methods, localizing them by regions, removed the enslaving function of the visual from poetry and highlighted the principle of dynamic formation ^{[1, p. 432]}. Taking into account the experience of cinema, according to S. Eisenstein, the problem should be understood more broadly as a comparison of the possibilities of two methods ? the method of image and the method of imaginative formation. He believed that in any art both methods are possible, that the second is the leading one, that the point is their unity, the usurpation of all functions by one leads to insolvency and collapse ^{[1, p. 432]}. Lessing's proclamation of the method of becoming in poetry is an anticipation in the history of art of a principle that was formed almost simultaneously in philosophy. According to S. Eisenstein, along with Lessing, G. V. F. dealt with similar issues. Hegel, who gave the principle of becoming a comprehensive philosophical meaning ^{[1, p. 433]}.

G. V. F. Hegel forms the doctrine of the "image of becoming." The purpose of art, according to Hegel, as with Lessing, is the imitation of nature. Art should be edifying, that is, beneficial, but only the figurative form makes a work of art a work of art ^{[4, p. 123]}. The content of art is an idea, and its form is a sensual, imaginative embodiment ^{[4, p. 140]}. The task of art is to connect these two sides into one whole. The content of art should not be abstract in itself, but quite concrete and sensual in contrast to everything spiritual, which is simple and abstract within itself. The sensual form and image must be individual and specifically singular ^{[4, pp. 140-141]}. The idea is the truth in itself and for itself, but it is the truth only from the side of its not yet objectified universality ^{[4, p. 143]}. An idea, as an artistically beautiful one, is an idea with a specific property, it is an individual formation of reality that has the specific property of "manifesting an idea through itself" ^{[4, p. 143]}. An idea, as a reality, which has received a form corresponding to its concept, is an ideal. The first form of art, where the idea is still vague and does not have the clarity that the ideal requires, Hegel calls symbolic. This form of art presupposes only the search for embodiment in a figurative form. He calls the second form classical, it represents the embodiment of an idea in an image ^{[4, pp. 145-146]}. In classical art, the proportionality of the concept and reality to each other should not be understood as a formal correspondence of the content to its external formation. The content in classical art is a specific idea and, accordingly, a spiritual principle. To embody such content, an appropriate form is needed and this form is the human form. The image appears here as a temporary phenomenon. ^{[4, p. 147]}. In classical art, the human body is not only a sensual being, but is considered as an external being and a natural image of the spirit. However, the spirit is defined here as a partial, human, and not an absolute and eternal spirit. The classical art form requires a transition to a higher, third form ? romantic. The romantic art form removes the complete unity of the idea and its reality and returns, at a higher level, to the difference and opposition of these two sides ^{[4, pp. 147-148]}. The true reality of the content is not the sensual direct existence of the spiritual, the bodily appearance of a person, but an independent inner life. In romantic art, the idea as spirit and soul life should be complete within itself, but due to this higher completeness, it does not lend itself to an adequate connection with the outside world, since it can seek and generate its true reality and phenomenon only within itself ^{[4, p. 150]}. The image is a detailed metaphor. An image arises when two independent phenomena or states are combined in such a way that one state represents a meaning comprehended through the image of another state ^{[4, p. 442]}. That is, the image arises in time, it can have as its meaning a whole cycle of states, activities, achievements, ways of existence, etc. ^{[1, p. 443]}.

Cinema has turned photography, the art that stops the moment, the moment, into an "image-movement", as defined by J. Deleuze ^[15]. In his opinion, in cinema, the visual image comes from Apollo ^{[15, p. 505]}, the musical image is "Dionysian" ^{[14, p. 66],[13, p. 243],[15, p. 505]}. S. Eisenstein came to this conclusion much earlier. In his opinion, the basis of cinematography is "Dionysus in its purest form" or "the method of Osiris" ^{[2, p. 241]}. The mysteries of Dionysus, the tearing of Dionysus into pieces, according to Eisenstein, is the threshold beyond which "the actual cult action gradually turns into a symbol of the rite in order to then become an image in art" ^{[2, p. 223]}. The forms of the ceremony, Eisenstein believed, were preserved in various forms of culture, including games and rituals: bullfighting in Spain followed by eating a "totem beast" in restaurants, as well as in such types of games as solitaire, crossword. Dionysism is reflected in sports festivals ? the creation of a certain figure from the bodies of gymnasts (pyramid). The "Osiris method" is also present in the literature. Eisenstein sees it in the centon, an essay composed of poems or prose passages taken from one or different authors, detective novels, especially in novels about Sherlock Holmes (creating the image of a criminal based on evidence). The Greek theater traces its origins to Dionysus. The chorus of tragedy is born out of the ritual lament for Dionysus. The "Osiris method", as we can see, is related to the game. The image is created by combining certain "pieces", in cinematography ? by combining frames ^{[16, pp. 301-302],[13, p. 243]}.

The film frame, according to S. Eisenstein, should be considered as an assembly complex, and not a separate plastic unit ^{[1, p. 393] [14, p. 69],[13, p. 245]}. S. Eisenstein's reasoning largely echoed P. Florensky's views on composition and perspective. P. Florensky defined composition as the form of the depicted image as such, as a way of interrelation and interaction of the visual means of the work in question ^{[17, p. 128],[13, p. 245],[14, p. 70]}. Construction, unlike composition, is a way of interrelation and interaction of the forces of reality perceived through this work ^{[17, p. 128],[13, p. 245],[14, p. 70]}. That is, it is not the work that is subordinated to the construction, but the reality depicted by this work, the composition is the work itself. In this case, we are talking about a painting. S. Eisenstein believed that it was in painting that one should look for the "ancestors" of the film frame. Paintings, in his opinion, already contain movement, but in order to see it, you need to decompose the still image into separate phases. The artists of the XI–XIII centuries have not yet been able to express the dynamics. Perfection in dynamics, in the transmission of movements, was achieved, according to S. Eisenstein, by his idol Leonardo da Vinci in the XV–XVI centuries, then Tintoretto, he sees further development in the work of O. Daumier in the XIX century. A classic example of dynamics, according to Eisenstein, is A. Watteau's "Journey to the Island of Cythera". It is noteworthy that P. Florensky gives a similar example.: "All these pairs are completely combined both plot-wise and picturesquely, so that all this movement from right to left seems to be a continuous stream..." ^{[17, p. 248],[13, p. 246],[14, p. 70]}. In the paintings of El Greco, S. Eisenstein also sees a cinematic technique. For example, in the "Toledo Plan" we see an architectural and landscape ensemble, where all the height ratios are given in reality, and not in perspective ^{[2, p. 409],[14, p. 69-70],[13, p. 245-246]}.

Similar thoughts are found in Lessing. He believed that the true perspective in paintings arose through scenic painting, when it reached its highest stage of development. Lessing saw the proof of his assumption in later paintings found between the antiquities of Herculaneum, in which there were still such gross errors in perspective that during Lessing would not have forgiven the student ^{[3, p. 140]}.

Sculpture, according to S. Eisenstein, uses an installation technique even more widely than painting. Michelangelo, in his opinion, such a technique is hidden by anatomical deformation and hypertrophy of human body forms ^{[2, p. 162]}. S. Eisenstein turns to the research of the French neurologist G. Duchene, who conducted experiments on electrical irritation of individual human muscles and described it in his work "The mechanism of movement of the human physiognomy or electrophysiological analysis of expression in 1876, G. Duchene presented the head of the "corrected Laocoon", and it turned out that in the "anatomically possible" Laocoon there is not even a fraction of the dynamics of suffering that "achieved by the film reception made Laocoon immortal for centuries!" ^{[2, p. 163],[13, p. 246]}. S. Eisenstein came to the conclusion that antiquity knew this method of installation, and not only along the line of raising the intensity of expression of the suffering person ^{[2, p. 163]}, but also used the same technique to increase the expressiveness of the characteristic ^{[2, p. 163]}. The contractions of the muscles of the "Laocoon" were taken at different time intervals, which is a cinematic technique ^{[14, pp. 70-71],[13, p. 246]}.

Lessing compared two ways of serving the same "Laocoon". The poet has more advantages here than the painter. The whole field of perfection is open to Him to be imitated. When we look at the sculptural image of "Laocoon", we see his suffering. In Homer, the Laocoon "screams" ^{[3, pp. 31-32]}, but one cannot condemn the poet for this. Lessing believed that if the artist did well by not allowing his Laocoon to scream, then the poet did just as well by making him scream ^{[3, p. 33]}.

According to P. Florensky, sculpture, if it is an imitation of an external object, then imitation is internally musical ^{[17, p. 84]}. In music, according to P. Florensky, the spatial characteristics are tempos, rhythms, accents, meters, harmony ^{[14, p. 71],[13, p. 246]}. Like Eisenstein, he saw the connection between music and poetry. Nevertheless, P. Florensky believed that all arts grow from the same root ^{[17, p. 61]}. A pictorial work, in his opinion, is nothing more than a recording of some rhythm — images, and in the recording itself the keys to its reading are given ^{[17, p. 231]}. A three-dimensional image gives a spatial shape. To read a work of art, one more coordinate is needed — time. Time is introduced into a work of art "by a cinematic technique, i.e. by dividing it into separate moments of rest" ^{[17, p. 233]}. The deeper the image is in the "fourth coordinate", i.e., the more noticeable the movement in it, the more pronounced the anatomical and physical inconsistency of distorted images should be..." ^{[17, p. 258]}. Instant photography does not convey distorted images ^{[14, p. 71],[13, p. 246]}, but the real state of things, but this, according to P. Florensky, is the contradiction: instant photography of a moving image is not able to convey movement and is a spectacle of frozen bodies ^{[17, p. 55]}. The artwork contains a number of distortions, but it contains a number of time intervals and therefore is able to convey movement ^{[14, p. 71],[13, p. 246-247]}.

According to J. Deleuze, cinema is a system of "pre-linguistic images and signs" ^{[15, p. 532]}. This system includes the readable image of a silent movie, the audio component of a visual image, and the audio image itself. The gap between silent and sound cinema seems to be Deleuze is insignificant, but he divides two types of images ? visual and sound - into "images-movement" and "images-time" ^{[15, p. 532]}. "Film structures and chronogenesis", according to Deleuze, are "two consecutive chapters of pure semiotics" ^{[15, p. 532]}.

Eisenstein had asked himself this question even earlier. He believed that the symbolism of cinema should not be sought in a number of fine arts, i.e. spatial (painting and theater) ^{[2, p. 479]}. The understanding of cinema, according to Eisenstein, is now entering the "second literary period", the phase of approaching the symbolism of language, i.e. speech. "Speech that gives a symbolic meaning (that is, not a literal one), "imagery" to a completely specific material designation ? through an unusual literal contextual comparison, that is, by montage" ^{[2, p. 479]}. When compared unexpectedly or unusually, it acts as a "poetic image", that is, cinema has its own language, and the film frame is a certain "sign", a hieroglyph. The meaning is born in the installation, but the installation is not a thought composed of interlocked pieces, but a thought arising from the collision of two independent pieces from each other ^{[2, p. 520]}. S. Eisenstein draws an analogy with Japanese hieroglyphics, where two independent ideographic signs ("frames") placed side by side, they form a new concept. He gives examples: "eye + water = cry", "door+ear=listen" ^{[2, p. 520]}, etc.

Cinema, according to Eisenstein, is a spectacular art ^{[14, p. 73],[16, p. 304],[10, p. 248]}. The viewer is included in the creative act, which is achieved by the power of editing. The individuality of the viewer is not only enslaved by the individuality of the author, but also revealed to the end in fusion with the author's meaning ... ^{[1, p. 171]}. That is, the image that the art of cinema shows us is an image that was conceived and created by the author, but this image was simultaneously created by the viewer's own act ^{[14, p. 73],[13, p. 248]}.

Conclusion

The basis of the doctrine of the "image of becoming" was laid by G. E. Lessing. S. Eisenstein, based on the experience of Lessing and Hegel, deduces his theory of cinema as a comparison of two methods: the method of image and the method of figurative formation, emphasizing the method of becoming. The meaning in cinema is born in editing by connecting frames. The image in the cinema is the "image of becoming".