Describing the Indescribable

Describing the lndescribable 143
Describing the lndescribable•
Gerhard Jaritz, Barbara Schuh
„People are sexually aroused by pictures and sculptures; they break pictures
and sculptures; they mutilate them, kiss them, cry before them and g() on
journeys to them; they are calmed by them, stirred by them and incited to
revolt. They give thanks by means of them, expect to be elevated by them,
and are moved to the highest Ievel of empathy and fear. They have always
responded in these ways; they still do.“1
While thinking about this more or less truism of a social history of art, the questions arise
which aspects of an image effect such reactions and how the effects can be attributed to
the images to be analyzed. Are those aspects definable andfor extractable? If so, to what
extent can they be described and analyzed by co!lventional means?
To ask such questions is particularly relevant for the analysis of medieval images and
not only from some art historian’s point of view. This also proves true, e.g., with regard
to a history of medieval everyday life and material cult ure for which ( religious) images are
to be used as one of the main sources for any interpretation.2 Especially Gothic art witb its ‚quasi-realistic‘ visual integration of the late medieval world into the world of scripture
and saints often seems to be a storehouse for a ‚reconstruction‘ of quotidiankursivy.
Medieval religious images narrate scripture clearly, they are to evoke suitable and
appropriate emotions, they impress the narrated matter on the memory. They are meant
to cause Iasting behavioural consequences.3 They are to be omnipresent, and not only in
• This paper summarizes different reßections and approacbes in the course of image analysis
with regard to the bistory of everyday life and material culture of the Middle Ages done at the
„Institut für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit“ of the Austrian Academy of
Arts and Sciences.
1 David Freedberg: The Power of Images. Sturlies in the History and the Theory of Response,
Cbicago and London 1989, I.
2 Cf. Elisabeth Vavra: Mittelalterliche Kunstwerke – Illustration oder Quelle der Sachkulturforschung,
Bericht über den 16. Österreichischen Historikertag in Krems an der Donau, Vienna
1985, 43D-447 (=Veröffentlichungen des Verbandes Österreicbischer Geschichtsvereille 25}; Gerhard
Jaritz: Finding the Signs: Pictures of Medieval Life, Computers in the Humankursivies and
tbe Social Sciences, ed. Heinrich Best, Ekkehard Mochmann, Manfred Thaller, Munich et al. 1991,
61-67.
3 Cf. Gerbard Jaritz: Zwischen Augenblick und Ewigkeit. Einführung in die Alltagsgeschichte
des Mittelalters, Vienna and Cologne 1989, 76.
144 Gerharrl Jadl; and Barbara Schuh
the church „as a focus for the mind at the most important moment of the devotion“ .4 In
a number of those aspects, secular images follow similar patterns.
Trying to extract something out of medieval images, which appears to be depicted so
realistically like everyday life, is a hard job out of a number of reasons:
1) We have to be aware of the fact that we are never dealing with a reality of everyday
life but with the reality of its visual representation.
2) Attempting to perceive images of the past, we must be conscious of the numerous
Ievels of cultural filters which are inßuencing reception and interpretation. They are
caused by differences in cognkursivive and reflective dispositions between the past and
the present cultures, different visual experiences and different conceptual structures:
“ … what one offers in a description is a representation of thinking about a picture
more than a representation of a picture.“􀂨
3) Of particular importance are the differences between the ‚participant’s understanding
and the observer’s understanding: the observer never will be able to have the sarne
view and knowledge as the participant.5 He has only the opportunkursivy to collect
fragments of standards or rules and might try to put together such pieces of a jigsaw
to get a more complex eye for the culture of the past.
4) To learn something out of images about other cultures, therefore, is comparable with
learning a foreign language. Images are visual translations of the written or spoken
word. Their description and analysis by the ( art) historian are an attempt of a
fragmentary retranslation of those visual translations. – Every translation naturally
means loss of information, caused either by ommission or by addition of ‚text‘. And
such a loss even must prove more drarnatic when (re)translating between different
kinds of representation – between the visual ‚text‘ and the written or spoken text.
In any case, every analysis must be based on the documentation of the source material. At
the present state of the art in dealing with images this process still has to begin with some
kind of verbal description, preferably following some standards. Proposals for the usage of
such standards are numerous. Generally accepted is none of them. Manifold reasons for
this situation might be mentioned, e.g.,
1) Various shortcomings of formal language: „In fact, language is not very well equipped
to offer a notation of a particular picture. It is a generalizing too1.“7
2) Very different interests and, therefore, very different approaches to the sources by
different fields of ( art) historical research.
4 Michael Baxandall: Patterns of Intention. On the Historical Explanation of Pictures, New
Haven and London 1986, 106.
􀃢 Ibidem, S.
6 Cf. ibidem, 109.
7 lbidem, 3; see also Ronald Stenvert: Constructing the Past: Computer-Assisted Architecturai-
Historical Research, Utrecht 1991, 65.
Describing the Indescribable 145
3) Massive Iacks in certain areas of terminological research.8
4) The not unreasonable fear of loosing ßex.ibility and openness by using a system of
strict standards.
5) Necessarily different approaches caused by different amounts of pictures to cope with.9
This is not the place to repeat or to summarize the various efforts towards the standardization
of the verbal description of images – some of them partly accepted, partly realized
and partly used by more than one person or institution.10 In many cases compromises
are indispensable. International Standards on a higher Ievel of documentation and particular
terminologies out of the need of very specialized fields of research will often have to
be supplementing each other. In any case, when using different Standards for the verbal
descriptions of images the following conditions should be considered:11
1) To provide a high closeness to the source, context sensitive models should be used.12
2) The degree and depth of standardization must be defined or described respectively.
8 Cf. Gerhard Jaritz: Mittelalterliche Realienkunde und Fragen von Terminologie und Typologie.
Probleme, Bemerkungen und Vorschläge am Beispiel der Kleidung, Terminologie und
Typologie mittelalterlicher Sachgüter: Das Beispiel der Kleidung, Wien 1988, 7-19 (=Veröffentlichungen
des Instituts für mittelalterliche Realienkunde Österreichs 10).
g There certainly must be a difference between !arge scale image data bases, like, e.g., the
collection of photographs and illustrations in tbe ‚Witt Library‘ [cf. lohn Sunderland and Catherine
Gordon: The Witt Computer Index, Visual Resources IV /2 (1987) 141-151], the ‚Princeton
Index of Christian Art‘ [cf. Brendan Cassidy: The Index of Christian Art: Present Situation
and Prospects, Literary k Linguistic Computing 6/1 (1991) 8-14] or the ‚Bildarchiv Foto Marburg‘
[cf. Lutz Heusinger: Marburger Informationa-, Dokumentations- und Administrations-System
(MIDAS). Handbuch, Munich et al. 1989 (=Literatur und Archiv 4}] with some hundreds of
thousands of documents, and small image data bases following very specific aims of researcb, like,
e.g., the Los Angeles IMMI (Tbe Index of Medieval Medical Images in North America; cf. IMMINewsletter
lff (1989ff}] or the Krems REAL (Database of everyday life and material culture of the
Middle Ages; cf. Barbara Schuh: Historical Image Analysis – A Field of Various Limits, Conference
Paper beld at tbe 6th International Conference of the Association for History and Computing
in Odense 1991, in press).
10 The leading role of ICONCLASS certainly has to be emphasized [Leendert Couprie: Iconclass:
an iconographic clasifis cation system, Art Libraries Journal (1983) 8/2, 32-49j. For other systems
cf. Fran .. ois Garnier: Thesaurus Iconographique. Systeme Descriptif des Representations, Paris
1984; Jobn Sunderland: The Catalogue as Database: the Indexing of Information in Visual
Archives, Computers and the History of Art, ed. Anthony Hamber, Jean Miles, William Vaugbn,
London and New York 1989, 130-143; Colum Houribane: A Selective Survey of Systems of Subject
Classification, ibidem 117-129.
11 Cf. Gerhard Jaritz: Towards Standards of Very Different Materials: Problems of Standardization
in EDP-supported Research on tbe Material Culture of the Middle Ages, Standardisation
et ecbange des bases de donnees bistoriques, ed. Jean-Philippe Genet, Paris 1988, 153-160.
12 Cf. Manfred Thaller, Warum brauchen die Geschichtswissenscbaften fachspezifische datentechnische
Lösungen? Das Beispiel kontextsensitiver Datenbanken, Computer in den Geisteswis146
Gerhard Jarit; and Barbara Schuh
3) The depth of description must be standardized and defined as far as possible. Only
an extensive documentation with regard to the model of such depth can offer the
possibility to estimate to what extent we will be able to use the data for systematic
retrieval and research.
4) Flexibility and openness must not be narrowed by using Standards.
5) The value of a system of standardization must be doubted, if it could not be used as
a documentation tool, an information tool and a research tool at the same time.
Dealing with images certainly also means the need of quite a Iot of additional contextual
knowledge about cultural, social, religious and symbolic concepts – comparable with
Panofsky’s third Ievel of „intrinsic meaning or content“ 13. It is indispensable for every
image-analysis, but cannot and must not be part of the description of every single image.
Recent developments in the computer-assisted application of ‚historical background
knowledge‘ data bases14 show a vast amount of new possibilities to combine various Ievels
of the mentioned third-level-information with the {first and second Ievel) description of the
images during the process of analysis. To narne an example: A recently developed dictionary
of medieval dress can be consulted while working with the data base.15 Informations
out of this dictionary as any other additional information can be overtaken in a kind of
separated private notebook without changing the actual description of an image or adding
room consuming ‚ballast‘ to it.
• • •
But, we certainly must be conscious of the Iimits and the inability of creating a comprehensive,
unambiguous, intrinsic, objective and accurate reflection of images by verbal
means. What still remains rather indefinable through words are many aspects of „the pictorial
grammar, based upon current rules for the representation of images within a given
culture“ .16 This proves particularly true for those phenomena which im press above all by
their relation and/or antagonism to other phenomena. In the course of different research
projects in the field of everyday life and material culture of the Middle Ages the followings
aspects proved specially relevant:
1) The possibility of comparing objects in the course of analysis is certainly one of the
most important parts of the historical research process. In connection with context
manipulation – creating kinds of meta-sources – it seems to be most essential to be
able to extract details out of the images (getting them out of their original context)
as well as to increase the closer context between the image and its verbal description.
senschalten. Konzepte und Berichte, ed. Manfred Thaller and Albert Müller, Frankfurt and New
York 1989, 237-264 (=Studien zur Historischen Sozialwissenschaft 7).
13 Erwin Panofsky: Meaning in the Visual Arts, Harmondsworth 1987, 55ff.
14 Cf. Manfred ThaUer: The Daily Life of the Middle Ages, Editions of Sources and Data
Processing, Medium Aevum Quoticüanum-Newsletter 10 ( 1987) 26f.
15 Cf. Schuh: Historical Image Analysis, in press.
16 Stenvert: Constructing the Past, 28.
Describing the lndescribab/e 147
This may be done either by simply cutting out objects and creating user-defined
archives with specific contents (Figure 1) or by connecting the verbal description with
the corresponding part of the image (Figure 2), which delivers at any kind of retrieval
based on the description the text as weil as the referring digitized part of the image.
Today, producing typological image-archives of objects at least allows visual comparisons.
lt might be helpful to realize adequa􀂺e applications, when the long awaited
‚better world‘ of automatic pattern recognkursivion will have come.
Another field of such context manipulation is highly important in the case of doing
research on illuminated manuscripts or illustrated texts. The binding of parts of
digitized text to the corresponding details of an image (Figure 3) offers a number of
new possibilities concerning the analysis of problems like, e.g., the relevance of the
depiction of certain objects being dealt with in the text, the accuracy, patterns and/or
topoi being used to visualize the written word, etcP
2} Comparable with the above mentioned Jexical background knowledge it is useful to
provide users of the system with certain Ievels of visual background knowledge. Considering
the intentions which underly the certainly not accidentally chosen positions uf
religious images, it might be helpful to get informatious about the (spatial) contexts
in which the images appear(ed): as part of an image set (e.g., winged altarpieces),
as part of series of images, as part of a church decoration in relation to other images
(Figure 4), etc.13
3) In the course of analysis it sometimes also seems to be of advantage to use image
processing routines, which reduce the information in a way which makes comparisons
easier and clearer to visualize. Such routines may Iead to the result of getting just the
outlines of the objects to be dealt with, may they be Ornaments, gestures or pots and
jugs111 (Figure 5).
4} The attempt to extract messages out of images has to be made with special regard to
medieval symbolic oppositions concerning colour sequences like, e.g., light and dark,
flashy and gloomy colour shades, intensity, combination and gradation, which might
have been intended to evoke certain impressions and visual classification in the eyes
ofthe beholders. Moreover, colours themselves play an important and sometimes ambivalent
roJe in medieval sign language.20 An impressing example and result about the
relation between depicted social groups, image themes and certain colours of depicted
17 Cf. Gerhard Jaritz: Images and Text, Text of Images, ALLC-ACH ’92. Conference Abstracts
and Programme, Oxiord 1992, 4.
13 Cf. Casaidy: The Index of Christian Art, 12.
111 The (art) historian often Iooks enviously at the possibilities opened to archaeologists deallog
with ceramies for whom the automatic tracing of contours and their comparison is not anymore a
real problem. Cf. Ulrich Kamplrmeyer: Das Archäologie Computer System „ARCOS“. Ein rechnergestütztes
Dokumentations- und Datenbanksystem, Computer in den Geisteswissenschaften,
see note 12, 18r.-192.
2° Cf. Michel Pastoureau: Figures et Couleurs. Etudes sur Ia symbolique et Ia sensibilite
m6dievales, Paris 1986; idem: Couleurs, Images, Symboles. Etudes d’histoire et d’anthropologie,
Paris 1988.
148 Gerhard Jarjt; and Barbara Schuh
dress with the help of duster analysis was given by .Manfred Thaller.21 The basis
of his research was the verbal description of a sarnple of panel paintings of Austrian
provenance. Being confronted with his results the question arises if those results might
even become more striking by the application of tools of digital image processing. This
certainly demands data base systems or software respectively which offer more than
the possibility of defining colours as ‚red‘, ‚green‘, ‚blue‘, but are able to differ, group
and compare (user defined) colours with regard to their intensity, shade and gradation
by means of pixel values. 22 The realization of tbis aim is certainly strongly connected
with hardware pre-conditions like processing 24-bit images, with reftections about the
scanning resolution and therefore with handling storage capacities, etc. The greater
challenge, though, is the definkursivion of those objects for which colour comparison
should be applied – either by cutting out segments corresponding to the objects or by
automatic pattern-recognkursivion.
5) Another group of information, which hardly can be verbally described in a formalized
way, are the spatial relations between depicted aspects – again bearing highly symbolic
connotations. While it is rather difficult or impossible respectively to verbally
describe, e.g., the position of persons and attributes without referring to their relation
to others, digital image processing offers the opportunkursivy to define positions and
their relation by means of Coordinates. Possible questions to be answered that way
might be:
– How is bierarchy represented witbin an image?
– Which roles do size and proportians play?
– What constitutes center and periphery of an .image?
– Can depicted spatial closeness or distance of persans be recognized as a sign of
social closeness or distance?
– Does social rank of persons correlate with their spatial position in the image?
– Which connotations underly criteria like ‚left and right‘, ‚above and below‘, ‚distance
and neighbourhood‘?
6) Although ‚automatic pattern comparison‘ and ‚automatic pattem recognkursivion‘
were mentioned several times in this paper, it does not seem to be the appropriate
place and time to deal with them more detailed. We are more or Jess forced to be
patient until further developments on the technical side become applicable for the
historian.
In our reftections, certainly only a few aspects of tbe ‚lndescribable‘ could be touched.
Moreover, the results achieved by some of tbe presented routines naturally will not allow
in any way to define or to describe the emotions and the feelings of people evoked by living
with and being inftuenced by images. They might serve as tools, though, helping to create
manifold meta-sources allowing to verify or falsify various assumptions about the ‚how‘
and ‚why‘ on which not only a history of mentality is to be based on.
21 Manfred Tballer: Zur Formalisierbarkeit hermeneutischen Verstebens in der Historie, Mentalitäten
und Lebensverhältnssi e. Rudolf VierhauJ zum 60. Geburtstag, Göttingen 1982, 441-453.
22 Cf. William Vaughan: Paintings by Number: Art History and the Digital Image, Computers
and the History of Art, see note 10, 74-97.
Describing lhe Indescribable 149
Figure 1: Visual comparison of Fernale headgears by using user-defined archives
!50 Gerhard Jatit; and Barbara Schuh
Figure 2: Connection between the digitized representation o( a jug and its verbal
description
Describing the lnde$cribable 151
Figure 3: Combination of original text and corresponding illumination in digitized
manuscripts
152 GerharrJ Jadt; aad Barbara Schuh
Figure 4: Possibility to show the position of an image as part of a „whole“
Describing the lndescribable 153
Figure 5: Reduction of image information to produce the out/in es of objects
Halbgraue Reihe
zur Historischen Fachinformatik
Herausgegeben von
Manfred Thaller
Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte
Serie A: Historische Quellenkunden
Band 14
Erscheint gleichzeitig als:
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
HERAUSGEGEBEN VON GERHARD JARITZ
26
Manfred Thaller (Ed.)
Images and Manuscripts
in Historical Computing
Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte
In Kommission bei
SCRIPTA MERCATURAE VERLAG
St. Katharinen, 1992
© Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte, Göttingen 1992
Printed in Cermany
Druck: Konrad Pachnicke, Göttingen
Umschlaggestaltung: Basta Werbeagentur, Göttingen
ISBN: 3-928134-53-1
Table of Contents
lntroduction
Manfred Tb aller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
I. Basic Definitions
Image Processing and the (Art) Historical Discipline
.Jörgen van den Berg, Hans Brandhorst and Peter van Huisstede ……………. , .. 5
II. Methodological Opinions
The Processing of Manuscripts
Manfred Tballer …….. . ……….. . . . … …. . . .. . . . ……………… . . .. …… 41
Pietonal Information Systems and the Teaching Imperative
Frank Colson and Wendy Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . .. … . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 73
The Open System Approach to Pictorial Information Systems
Wendy Hall and Frank Colson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … . …….. . . . . . . .. . . . 87
111. Projects and Case Studies
Tbe Digital Processing of Images in Archives and Libraries
Pedro Gonzi.lez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
High Resolution Images
Anthony Hamber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
A Supra-institutional Infrastructure for Image Processing in the Humanities?
Espen S. Ore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Describing the Indescribable
Gerhard Jaritz and Barbara Schub . . . . . …. . … . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . 143
Full Text / Image DBMSs
Robert Rowland . . . . . .. . …. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
lntrosluctjon
lntroduction
Manfred Thaller
This book is the product of a workshop held at the International University Institute
in Firenze on November 151h, 1991. The intention of that workshop has been to bring
tagether people from as ma.ny different approaches to „ima.ge processing“ as possible.
The reason for this „collecting“ approach to the subject was a feeling, tha.t wbile image
processing in many ways has been the „hattest“ topic in Huma.nities computing 1n recent
years, it may be the least weil defined. It seems also much barder to say in this area., wbat
is specifically important to historia.ns, tha.n to other people. In that situation it was feit,
that a foruin would be helpful, which could sort out what of the various approaches can
be useful in historical resea.rch.
To solve this task, the present volume has been produced: in ma.ny ways, it reflects
the discussions which actually have been going on less, than the two compa.nion volumes
on the workshops at Glasgow a.nd TromS0 do. This is intentional. On the one band,
the pa.rticipa.nts at the workshop in Firenze did strongly feel the need to have projects
represented in the volume, which were not actually present at the workshop. On the other,
the discussions for quite some time were engaged in cla.rifying what the metbodological
issues were. That is: what a.ctua.lly a.re the topics for schola.rly discussion beyond the
description of individual projects, when it comes to the processing of images in historical
resea.rch?
The situation in the a.rea is made difficult, because some of the underlying a.ssumptions
are connected with vigoraus research groups, who use fora of schola.rly debate, which are
only slightly overlapping; so, what is ta.citly a.ssumed to hold true in one group of research
projects may be considered so obviously wrang in a.nother one, that it sca.rcely deserves
explicit refutation.
We hope, that we have been succes:.ful in bringing some of these hidden diJferences
in opinion out into the open. We consider this extremely importa.nt, because only that
cla.rification allows for a fair evaluation of projects which may have sta.rted from different
sets of a.ssumption. So importa.nt, indeed, that we would like to catalogue here some of the
basic differences of opinion which exist between image processing projects. Tbe reader will
rediscover them in many of the contributions; as editor I think however, that suma.rizing
tbem at tbe beginning may make the contributions- which, of course, have been striving
for impartiality – more easily rccognizable as parts of one coherent debate.
Three basic differences in opinion seem to exist today:
(1) Is ima.ge processing a genuine and independent field of Computer ba.sed resea.rcb in
the Humanities, or is it an auxiliary tool“? Many projects a.ssume tacitly – a.nd some do so
quite outspokenly- that imag􀃣 on the computer act as illustrations to more conventional
applications. To retrieval systems, as illustrations in catalogues and the like. Projects of
this type tend to point out, that with currently easily available equipment a.nd currently
clearly understood data processing technologies, the analysis of images, which can quite
easily be ha.ndled as illustrations today, is still costly and of uncertain promise. Wb ich is the
rea.son why they a.ssume, that such analytical approaches, if at all, should be undertaken
2 Introductjon
as side effects of projects only, which focus upon the relatively simple administration of
images. Their opponents think, in a nutshell, that while experiments may be needed, their
overalJ outcome is so promising, that even the more simple techniques of today should be
implemented only, if they can later be made useful for the advanced techniques now only
partially feasible.
(2) Connected to this is another conflict, which might be the most constant one
in Humanities data processing during the last decades, is particularly decisive, however,
when it comes to image processing . Shall we concentrate on Ievels of sopbistication, which
are available for many on today’s equipment or shall we try to make use of the most
sophisticated tools today, trusting that they will become available to an increa.singly !arge
number of projects in the future? This specific battle has been fought since the earliest
years of Humanities computing, and this editor has found bimself on both sides at different
stages. A „right􀅁 answer does not exist: the debate in image processing is probably one
of the best occassions to understand mutually, that both positions are full of merit. It is
pointless to take permanently restrictions into consideration, which obviously will cease to
exist a few years from now. It discredits all of us, if computing in history always promises
results only on next years equipment and does not deliver here and now. Maybe, that is
indeed one of the more important tasks of the Association for History and Computing:
to provide a link between both worlds, Jending vision to those of us burdened down by
the next funding deadline and disciplining the loftier projects by the question of when
sometbing will be affordable for all of us.
(3) The third major underlying difference is inherently connected to the previous ones.
An image as such is beautiful, but not very useful, before it is connected to a description.
Shall such descriptions be arbitrary, formulated in the traditionally clouded langnage of
a historian, perfectly unsuitable for any sophisticated technique of retrieval, maybe not
even unambigously understandable to a fellow historian? Or shall they follow a predefined
catalogue of narrow criteria, using a carefully controlled vocabulary, for both of which it is
somewbat unclear how they will remain relevant for future research questions which have
not been asked so far? – All the contributors to this volume have been much to polite to
pbrase their opinions in this way: scarcely any of them does not have a strong one with
regard to this problem.
More questions than answers. „Image processing“, whether applied to images proper
or to digitalized manuscripts, seems indeed to be an area, where many methodological
questions remain open. Besides that, interestingly, it seems to be one of the most consequential
ones: a project like the digitalization of the Archivo General de Indias will
continue to influence the conditions of historical work for decades in the next century.
There are not only many open questions, it is worthwhile and neccessary to discuss them.
While everybody seems to have encountered image processing in one form or the
other already, precise knowledge about it seems to be relatively scarce. The volume starts,
therefore, with a general introduction into the field by· J. v.d. Berg, H. Brandhorst and
P. v. Huisstede. While most of the following contributions have been written to be as self
supporting as possible, this introduction attempts to give all readers, particularly those
lntroductjon 3
with only a vague notion of the techniques coucerned, a common ground upon which the
more specialized discussions may build.
The contributions that follow have been written to introduce specific areas, where
handling of images is useful and can be integrated into a !arger context. All authors have
been asked in this part to clearly state their own opinion, to produce clearcut statements
about their methodological position in the discussions described above. Originally, four
contributions were planned: the first one, discussing whether the more advanced techniques
of image processing can change the way in which images are analysed and handled by art historians, could unfortunately not be included in this volume due to printing deadlines:
we hope to present it as part of follow up volumes or in one of the next issues of History
and Computing.
The paper of M. Thaller argues that scanning and presenting corpora of manuscripts
on a work station can (a) save the originals, (b) iutroduce new methods for palaeographic
training into university teaching, (c) provide tools for reading damaged manuscripts, the
comparison of band writing and general palaeographic studies. He further proposes to
build upon that a new understanding of editorial work. A fairly long tr.chnical discussion
of the mechanisms needed to link images and transcriptions of manuscripts in a wider
context follows. ·
F. Colson and W. Hall discuss the role of images in teaching systems in university
education. They do so by a detailed description of the mechanism by which images are
integrated into Microcosm I HiDES teaching packages. Their considerations include the
treatment of moving images; furthermore tbey enquire about relationships between image
and text in typical stages in the dialogue between a teaching package and a user.
W. Hall and F. Colson argue in the final contribution to thill part the general case
of open systems, exemplifying their argument with a discussion of the various degrees in
which control about the choices a user has is ascertained in the ways in which navigation is
supported in a hyper-text oriented system containing images. In a outshell the difference
between „open“ and closed systems can be understood as the following: in an „open
system“ the user can dynamically develop further the behaviour of an image-based or
image-related system. On the contrary in static „editions“ the editor has absolute control,
the user none.
Following these general description of approaches, in the third part, several international
projects are presented, which describe in detail the decisions taken in implementing
„real“ image processing based applications, some of them of almost frigthening magnitude.
The contributors of this part were asked to provide a different kind of introduction to the
subject than those to the previous two: all of them should discuss a relatively small topic,
which, however, should be discussed with much greater detail than the relatively broad
overviews of the first two parts.
All the contributions growing out of the workshop came from projects, which had
among their aims the immediate applicability of the tools developed within the next 12-
24 months. As a result they are focusing on corpora not much beyond 20.000 (color) and
100.000 (blw) images, which are supposed to be stored in resolutions manageable within
:::; 5MB I image (color) and :::; 0.5 MB I image (blw). The participants of the workshop
feit strongly, that this view should be augmented by a description of the rationale behind
4 lntroductjon
the creation of a !arge scale projt’Ct for the systematic conversion of a complete archive.
The resulting paper, by P. Gonza!ez, describes the considerations which Iead to the design
of the .’\rchivo General de Indias projt’Ct and the experiences gained du ring the completed
stages. That description is enhanced by a discussion of the stratrgies selected to make the
raw bitmaps accessible via suitable descriptions I transcriptions I keywords. A critical
appraisal, which decisions would be made dilferently after the developments in hardware
tecbnology in recent years, augments the value of the description.
The participants of the workshop feit furthermore strongly, that their view described
above sbould be augmented by a description of the techniques used for the handling of
images in extremely high resolution. A. Hamber’s contribution, dealing with the Vasari
project, gives a very thorough introduction into the technical problems rncountered in
handling images of extremely high quality and also explains the economic rationale behind
an approach to start on purpose with the highest quality of images available today on
prototypical hardware.
As these huge projects both were related to iustitutions which traditionally collect
source material for historical studies, it seemed wise to include also a view on the roJe
images would play in the data archives which traditionally have been of much importance
in the considerations of the AHC. E.S. Ore discusses what implications this type of machine
readable material should bave for tbe infrastructure of institutions specifically dedicated
to Humanities computing.
Image systems which deal with the archiving of pictorial material and manuscript
systems have so far generally fairly „shallow“ descriptions. At least in art history, moreover,
the rely quite frequently on pre-defint’d terminologies. G. Jaritz and 8. Schuh describe
how far and wby historical research needs a different approacb to grasp as much of the
intemal structure and the content of an image as possible.
Last not least R. Rowland, who acted as host of the workshop at Firenze, describes tbe
considerations which currently prepare the creation of another largescale archival database,
to contain !arge arnounts of material from the archives of the inquisition in Portugal. His
contribution tries to explore the way in which the more recent developments of image
processing can be embedded in the general services required for an archival system.
This series of workshop reports shall attempt to providr a broader basis for thorough
discussions of current methodological questions. ‚fheir main virtue shall be, that
it is produced sufficiently quick to become available, before developments in this field of
extremely quick development make them obsolete. We hope we have reached that goal:
the editor has to apologize, however, that due to the necessity to bring this volume out in
time, proofreading has by neccessity be not as intensive as it should have been. To which
􀂰nother shortcoming is added: none of the persons engaged in the final production of this
volume is a native speaker of English; so while we hope to have kept to the standards of
what might be described as „International“ or „Conti111mtal“ English, the native speakers
among the readers can only be asked for their tol(‚rance.
Göttingrn, August 1992