Spectators in Jerusalem: urban narrative in the scenic tradition

Abstract

This investigation of the narrative prospects of urban pictures in the scenic tradition is devoted co Hans Memling's painting depicting a sequence of Passion scenes set in a topographical view of Jerusalem. In refuting Goodman's view that the painting offers 'not only no direction but no order of telling at all', attention is drawn to the celling rhetoric of certain 'micro-scenic' core motifs, whose mature typiconic features emerged only with the formation of che scenic tradition's full array of picture types. Ir is conjectured chat aposcopic vision may well be a source of scenic parallels between distance and proximity, and hence also of narrative parallels between prospector and sightseer roles implicic in various scenic piccure types.