Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
Renaissance and Rhetoric tacens

Rhetoric is usually studied from the viewpoint of Aristotle: persuasion, based upon erroneous logical deduction (enthymeme). Aristotle mentioned other considerations relevant to rhetoric, other means of persuasion, including the deportment of the rhetor, the audience, etc. Rhetoric is a large subject, with other special considerations including invention, memory, figures, tropes, etc.

However, other rhetoricians such as Cicero, Quintilian, Longinus, etc. have emphasized other aspects of rhetoric that are of central importance to Renaissance art. The deportment of the rhetor, his very gestures, use of his eyes, facial expressions (of emotions), arms, and hands are very persuasive. Gestures, however, are silent.

When the rhetor uses vivid, life-like descriptions to "paint a scene", this is so persuasive that the term "enargia" (vividness, actuality) is used to name this rhetorical technique. Sometimes this is referred to as "figuration": giving an outward, visible shape to emotions, thoughts or memories. The term "ekphrasis" is used in this sense.

Alberti discusses the use of a "witness" in paintings. The figure of a "witness" functions as a means of focusing (through gesture, eyes, facial expression, etc.) the viewer on an very important idea in a painting. Just as the rhetor uses "apostrophe" to turn from one topic or person to another, the painter makes his figures turn away from the pictorial space they inhabit, instead to the viewer. Thus the viewer of a painting feels as though he/she is in the present of the scene depicted: what Alberti calls "istoria" (the shared emotions of a culture).

Similarly, the use of "linear perspective" has the ability to fool (persuade) the viewer that the painting is reality, not a painting. Linear perspective is in itself a form of "trompe l'oeil". This ability to fool or persuade the viewer is precisely what Plato objected to, as proportions were distorted in "linear perspective", thus departed from Plato's ideal of "truth". Thus a "rhetoric tacens", a silent rhetoric not focused upon written or spoken text, rather a "rhetoric tacens" that becomes central in a "performative rhetoric". A "rhetoric tacens" that becomes the focus of art, perspective theatre design, dance, music, architecture, sculpture, costume, palace gardens, etc. This discussion focuses upon the rhetoric tacens (silent rhetoric) found in art.

Perspective of Ancient Greece and Rome
Discovery of Perspective: Views of Liner Perspective
Familiarity used to persuade the viewer of art: 1
Familiarity used to persuade the viewer of art: 2
Gestures (of an Alberti "witness") used to engage the viewer of art 1
Gestures (of an Alberti "witness") used to engage the viewer of art 2
Gestures (of an Alberti "witness") used to engage the viewer of art 3
The gestures (of "linear perspective") used to engage the viewer of art 4
Linear Perspective used as a gesture in anti-Semitism
Anamorphisms and Trompe l'oeil
Renaissance Art Outside of Europe

References, especially:

"Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student", Fourth Edition, by Edward Corbett and Robert Connors", Oxford Univ. Press, 1999

"Classical Rhetoric and the Visual Arts in Early Modern Europe", by Caroline van Eck, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007

"Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice", by Ruth Webb, Ashgate, England, 2009

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