Grammaire élémentaire de l’image (Elementary Grammar of the Image) by Albert Plécy (review)

474 Books-Livres who owned the world's finest private collection of Newton papers, wrote, [2] '... Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumarians , the last great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago'. REFERENCES 1. S. Freud, Leonardo (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, No. A519, 1963). 2. J. M. Keynes, Newton the Man: in The World of Mathematics, Ed. J. R. Newman (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1956) Vol. 1, p. 277. Grammaire elementaire de l'image (Elementary Grammar of the Image). Albert Plecy. Editions Estienne, Paris, 1968. 278 pp., illus. Reviewed by : David Haberstich* The author sets out to perform at least three functions: (1) to classify and demonstrate some major photographic techniques and to identify their expressive potential; (2) to indicate the additional expressive possibilities which extra-photographic elements such as typography, drawing and painting provide when used in combination with photographs as exemplified by many of the graphic devices employed in contemporary advertising and (3) through a discussion of visual symbols and codes, multiple imagery and picture 'reading', to adduce the concept of a 'universal language' based on photography and advanced methods of utilizing photographs and other visual stimuli. Plecy's McLuhanesque prophecies are pithily and convincingly presented in words and pictures. The latter chapters build admirably into a crescendo of propaganda. His conclusions are that our increasingly picture-inundated culture must find methods to manage, index, retrieve and use the millions of images which it spawns, and that visual 'literacy' most be promoted. He makes a plea for the sophisticated understanding of photographs and other images, for he regards this skill as essential to cultural survival in an age in which miniaturized-photograph 'hieroglyphs ' may someday supplant the written word. Without the management, indeed the codification of a visual grammar and syntax and a method' of assimilation, the prospect of this irresistible and ever-widening flood of pictures is thoroughly frightening. Plecy possibly believes that one of his major contributions is his 'reading grid' ('la grille de lecteur') or 'Grille Plecy' for the inspection of photographs. He advocates that this grid of intersecting vertical and horizontal lines with its attendant marking system, be superidtposed over photographs for it 'permits methodical * Smithsonian Institution, U.S. National Museum, Washington, D.C. 20560, U.S.A. exploration for the photograph; facilitates framing; provides valid motivation for retouching; determines the coefficient of reducibility [i.e. helps to determine the essential and non-essential portions of a composition]; [and] makes possible the disintegration of the photograph, a necessary stage in the elaboration of a synthetic picture'. This way of studying a picture is not new, for art directors, picture editors and graphic designers have worked with various types of translucent overlays on visual materials for years. The 'Grille Plecy' is perhaps more advanced and systematized but still represents a rather simple and straightforward concept. At least his treatment of this subject is adequate and lucid, while certain other portions of the book are not. In his discussion of the use of non-photographic elements such as text and typography, drawing and 'graphic punctuation' in conjunction with photographs , the author makes his most notable contribution to the language of vision. In his 'Photographisme ' section, particularly in the 'Picture Word' ('Le mot image') and 'coding' ('Le codage') chapters, he begins to solve one of the problems set by Roland Barthes in his Elements de slmiologie (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1964). Barthes was not convinced that a system of visual signs could be devised which would function in the complex manner that language signs can, nor was he certain that linguistic signs and visual constructs could be effectively integrated to form a distinct system of signs. In his text and examples, Plecy suggests various ways in which the altered or embellished photograph may forge a new language. Despite such virtues plus an admirable conscientious attempt to organize his material 'into a reasonable, coherent system, Plecy's book has a sketchy, unfinished quality which is curious in a 'revised...