Breaking the silence

If easel paintings tend to be ‘still’, pictorial narratives are fluid and articulate. ³¹³ Accessing such visual sequences was a complex process even in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as studies of mural decorations in Italian churches have shown. The pioneering book by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin documented a remarkable repertoire of expressive designs, with intricate criss-cross patterns undermining linear chronology. ³¹⁴ Building on this research, the approach adopted by James Elkins distinguishes between three principles underlying traditional pictorial narratives: ‘occurrence’ (the order in which events happened), ‘telling’ (the order in which events are told), and ‘reading’ (the order in which the viewer experiences the narrative). Taking the example of Giotto’s narrative cycle in the Arena Chapel, he illustrates the complexity of the reading process. The relationship between the order of occurrence and the order of telling is so convoluted that the viewer has to walk round and round inside the chapel several times as if ‘surrounded by a scroll’. Applying this approach to modern works by Beckmann and Balthus, Elkins concludes that a comprehensive reading is impossible, since — unlike works of the Christian era — they are not sustained by an ‘original text’. ³¹⁵