Page - 83 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/02

Unruly Images | 83www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 55–86 from “history”, the volume created an artificial distance from the viewer and allowed for the easy manipulation of the visual discourse. The selection, organisation, and manipulation of the images, sometimes more than the images themselves, is then particularly meaningful for an analysis of the kind of “orientalism” at work here – hinting at a type of visual “editorial orientalism”. Published at a time when photography was becoming increasingly pop- ular, the volume might represent one of the last examples of a large-scale reproduction of engravings, a medium particularly well-suited to show a decontextualised, ahistorical, and exotic world. A major shift arose with the ability to easily reproduce photographs with the use of half-tone printing techniques. The fact that printed photographs became mainstream in pub- lications removed some of the editorial control and became a way to invite the readers/viewers to a more realistic “imaginary travel”. Lithographs and engravings were increasingly criticised for not conveying a realistic impres- sion of the depicted topic, reflecting an inflection in the “visual culture”.48 The volume is thus an excellent witness to the long and tumultuous lives of images: not only are they frequently manipulated and modified, in more or less subtle ways, but they also travel from one editorial context to anoth- er, from one viewership to another, and from one visual culture to another. The gaps between an image’s production context and that of its various (re-)productions increase the hermeneutic space available to viewers: the larger the gaps, the more possible readings an image can generate. Thus, the images republished in the volume could take on new meanings, sometimes escaping the narrow missionary framework its editors had wanted to give them. This probably explains why the companion textbook was released in 1884, indicating that contrary to initial expectations, not all of the pictures were actually self-evident, indeed far from it: the viewers’ interpretation had to be guided in the right direction, and (perhaps) especially if the book was targeting a younger audience.49 In this context, it is conceivable that 48 Pinney 1997, 21. Of course, even with the reproduction of photographs using half-tone printing, it was still possible to ask for specific subjects to be photographed, to select the most fitting clichés, and/or to reframe photographs before publication. 49 Anonymous 1884, 2: “Some of the illustrations contained in those plates are so self-evident that any explanation of them would be superfluous; others, on the other hand, might hardly be understandable without an explanatory addition, especially to those viewers who have not yet dealt in detail with the customs of distant heathen peoples and the missions founded among them.”