"[Mitchell] undertakes to explore the nature of images by comparing them with words, or, more precisely, by looking at them from the viewpoint of verbal language. . . . The most lucid exposition of the subject I have ever read."—Rudolf Arnheim, Times Literary Supplement Praise for the French Edition " Iconololgie: Image, Texte, Idéologie, first published in 1986, undoubtedly constitutes one of the most rigorous theoretical foundations for the growth in 'visual studies' of the 1990s. W. J. T. Mitchell, professor of literature and art history at the University of Chicago and director of the very influential journal Critical Inquiry, guides us through a subtle reflection on the structural differences between image and language, questioning the systems of power and the value regimes that underpin them, in order to reveal what prevents us from thinking of and with images." ― Les Prairies Ordinaires (Translated from French) This is a book about the things people say about images. It is not primarily concerned with specific pictures and the things people say about them, but rather with the way we talk about the idea of imagery, and all its related notions of picturing, imagining, perceiving, likening, and imitating. It is a book about images, therefore, that has no illustrations except for a few schematic diagrams, a book about vision written as if by a blind author for a blind reader. If it contains any insight into real, material pictures, it is the sort that might come to a blind listener, overhearing the conversation the sighted speakers talking about images. My hypothesis is that such a listener might see patterns in these conversations that would be invisible to the sighted participant. W. J. T. Mitchell is the Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago and editor of Critical Inquiry .