Notes on Frederic Stout "Visions of a New Reality"

Frederic Stout, “Visions of a New Reality: The City and the Emergence of Modern
Visual Culture,” (first published in 1999), The City Reader, (Fifth Edition) Richard T.
LeGates and Frederic Stout, eds., (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 150-
153.

In "Visions of a New Reality" Frederic Stout chronicles emergence of a new visual culture, one fostered by and focused on the city. Drawing from Marx, Stout begins with the observation that "each historical era creates characteristic forms of expression and explanatory discourse that reflect, indeed construct, the social reality of the period." Focusing mainly on the realm of visual arts, Stout begins his story with the "dramatic and rapidly changing social realities" embedded within the cities of the Industrial Revolution. It was during this turbulent period that new "forms of expression and modes of discourse arose" and a "whole new kind of visual culture emerged, rooted in the observation of the new urban reality, both social and physical."

Not surprisingly this new visual culture traces its beginnings to the popular newspapers of the day. Stout reviews the early development of illustrated journalism and its role in meeting "the growing demand for information and entertainment on the part of a marginally literate but fully enfranchised working class and petit bourgeoisie." While establishing a characteristic style of static composite picture, it was soon supplanted by a new technology of representation - photography. Stout argues that it was this technological turn which established the importance of the social reality of urban life to the new visual culture. Photography "perfectly exemplified the spirit of the modern age" - ubiquitous, immediate, democratic and kinetic. While all aspects of the human subject found their way into the frame, it was the urban subjects - "the inescapable social and physical reality of the modern city" that took prominence. From the spectacles of disaster, to the frenetic city sketches, to the monumental architecture, to the plight of human suffering and injustice, photography embraced and uplifted them all as subject; a subject in which the viewer often recognized herself and her own experiences. As living and working conditions deteriorated Through the Great Depression photographers gradually turned to "the intersection of art and social protest."

While photography did not complete the project of understanding cities visually, it did set the stage for future developments. Soon it was connected to narrative, particularly to the "urban narrative" and with the new kinetic visual representation morphed into cinema. But still, in "the modern city, it is the image ... that is paramount both as spectacle and revelation."