The Concept of Intervisuality in Historical Thought

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show some uses of the concept of intervisuality in contemporary historiography. Questioning the suggestion of Peter Burke that intervisuality undermines the credibility of images as historical evidence, I argue that a role of relations between images is more important when the image is ‘true’ and ‘realistic.’ Two examples confirm it very clearly: the Courtine’s research on the photos taken at the Abu Ghraib prison as well as the Chéroux’s analysis of pictures of September 11. In both cases, although the images refer directly to the reality of events, they evoke different iconographic material in many aspects. The phenomenon of intervisuality hides behind the reality effect created by the power of visual representations.