Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

photograph” (9). Just as many of the traditional realist pictures Struth has
photographed attempt to blur the border between art and reality, so do these
photographs self-reflexively question the difference between painting and
photography. Transposing the paintings from their original medium and museum
context to a new context and medium, Struth’s Museum Photographs underscore
the similarities between the two media. In demonstrating the ability of
photography to adopt the signifying power of paintings and to adapt it to its own
medium, these photographs enter into a rivalry with painting, especially with
regard to color and composition, two “ancient privileges of painting” (Belting 8).
In short, by inviting the viewer to compare painting and photograph, Struth places
his work in the tradition of the paragone, the rivalry between the arts.
But his photographs not only provoke comparison with painting, but also
with one of the younger media: film. Belting has noted how Struth’s photos “are
reminiscent of film takes in which the camera position is fixed, and only the
people move as they enter or leave the field of vision” (8). Moreover, as a series
they represent a montage of different takes of similar motifs seen at different
distances and angles. Each photograph by itself can be seen as a film still or a
mise-en-scène of a moment in a narrative sequence. The combination of visual,
auditory and kinetic elements that I have discussed above further contributes to
the impression of a film image.
Seeing these photographs as mise-en-scène or film stills makes it possible
to interpret them as examples of visual ekphrasis in two ways. First, most of them
imply or even directly show instances of verbal ekphrasis, where museum visitors
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