Simulacrum (pronounced sim-yuh-ley-kruhm)
(1) A slight, unreal, or superficial likeness or
semblance; a physical image or representation of a deity, person, or thing.
(2) An effigy, image, or representation; a thing which
has the appearance or form of another thing, but not its true qualities; a
thing which simulates another thing; an imitation, a semblance; a thing which
has a similarity to the appearance or form of another thing, but not its true
qualities
(3) Used loosely, any representational image of something (a nod to
the Latin source).
1590–1600: A learned borrowing of the Latin simulācrum (likeness, image) and a
dissimilation of simulaclom, the
construct being simulā(re) (to pretend, to imitate), + -crum (the instrumental suffix which was a
variant of -culum, from the primitive
Indo-European –tlom (a suffix forming
instrument nouns). The Latin simulāre was the present active
infinitive of simulō (to represent,
simulate) from similis (similar to;
alike), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European sem- (one; together). In
English, the idea was always of “something having the mere appearance of
another”, hence the conveyed notion of a “a specious imitation”, the
predominant sense early in the nineteenth century while later it would be
applied to works or art (most notably in portraiture) judged, “blatant flattery”. In English, simulacrum replaced the late
fourteenth century semulacre which
had come from the Old French simulacre. As well as the English simulacrum, the descendents from the
Latin simulācrum include the French simulacre,
the Spanish simulacro
and the Polish symulakrum. Simulacrum is a noun and simulacral is an adjective; the
noun plural is simulacrums or simulacra (a learned borrowing from Latin
simulācra). Although neither is listed,
by lexicographers, in the world of art criticism, simulacrally would be a
tempting adverb and simulacrumism an obvious noun. The comparative is more simulacral, the
suplerative most simulacral.
Simulacrum had an untroubled etymology didn’t cause a
problem until French post-structuralists found a way to add layers of
complication. The sociologist &
philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) wrote a typically dense paper (The Precession of Simulacra (1981))
explaining simulacra were “…something that replaces reality with its representation… Simulation
is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is
the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal....
It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It
is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real.”
and his examples ranged from Disneyland to the Watergate scandal. One can see his point but it seems only to state
the obvious and wicked types like Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Joseph Goebbels
(1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) said it in fewer words. To be fair, Baudrillard’s point was more
about the consequences of simulacra than the process of their creation and the
social, political and economic implication of states or (more to the point)
corporations attaining the means to “replace” reality with a constructed
representation were profound. The idea
has become more relevant (and certainly more discussed) in the post-fake news
world in which clear distinctions between that which is real and its imitations
have become blurred and there’s an understanding that through many channels of
distribution, increasingly, audiences are coming to assume nothing is real.
Advertising copy for the 1961 Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe (left) with graphical art by Art Fitzpatrick (1919–2015) & Van Kaufman (1918-1995) and a (real) 1961 Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe (right) fitted with Pontiac's much admired 8-lug wheels, their exposed centres actually the brake drum.
The work of Fitzpatrick & Kaufman is the best remembered of the 1960s advertising by the US auto industry and their finest creations were those for General Motors’ (GM) Pontiac Motor Division (PMD). The pair rendered memorable images but certainly took some artistic licence and created what were even then admired as simulacrums rather than taken too literally. While PMD’s “Year of the Wide-Track” (introduced in 1959) is remembered as a slogan, it wasn’t just advertising shtick, the decision taken to increase the track of Pontiacs by 5 inches (125 mm) because the 1958 frames were used for the much wider 1959 bodies, rushed into production because the sleek new Chryslers had rendered the old look frumpy and suddenly old-fashioned. It certainly improved the look but the engineering was sound, the wider stance also genuinely enhanced handling. Just to make sure people got the message about the “wide” in the “Wide Track” theme, their artwork deliberately exaggerated the width of the cars they depicted and while it was the era of “longer, lower, wider” (and PMD certainly did their bit in that), things never got quite that wide. Had they been, the experience of driving would have felt something like steering an aircraft carrier's flight deck.
Fitzpatrick & Kaufman’s graphic art for the 1967 Pontiac Catalina Convertible advertising campaign. One irony in the pair being contracted by PMD is that for most of the 1960s, Pontiacs were distinguished by some of the industry’s more imaginative and dramatic styling ventures and needed the artists' simulacral tricks less than some other manufacturers (and the Chryslers of the era come to mind, the solid basic engineering below cloaked sometimes in truly bizarre or just dull bodywork).
This advertisement from 1961 hints also at something often not understood about what was later acknowledged as the golden era for both the US auto industry and their advertising agencies. Although the big V8 cars of the post-war years are now remembered mostly for the collectable, high-powered, high value survivors with large displacement and induction systems using sometimes two four-barrel or three two-barrel carburetors, such things were a tiny fraction of total production and most V8 engines were tuned for a compromise between power (actually, more to the point for most: torque) and economy, a modest single two barrel sitting atop most and after the brief but sharp recession of 1958, even the Lincoln Continental, aimed at the upper income demographic, was reconfigured thus in a bid to reduce the prodigious thirst of the 430 cubic inch (7.0 litre) MEL (Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln) V8. Happily for country and oil industry, the good times returned and by 1963 the big Lincolns were again guzzling gas four barrels at a time (the MEL in 1966 even enlarged to a 462 (7.6)), although for the customers there was the courtesy of the engineering trick of off-centering slightly the carburetor’s location so the primary two throats (the other two activated only under heavy throttle load) sat directly in the centre for optimal smoothness of operation. Despite today’s historical focus on the displacement, horsepower and burning rubber of the era, there was then much advertising copy about (claimed) fuel economy, though while then as now, YMMV (your mileage may vary), the advertising standards of the day didn’t demand such a disclaimer.
Portrait of Oliver Cromwell (1650), oil on canvas by Samuel Cooper (1609-1672).
Even if it’s something ephemeral, politicians are often
sensitive about representations of their image but concerns are heightened when
it’s a portrait which, often somewhere hung on public view, will long outlive
them. Although in the modern age the
proliferation and accessibility of the of the photographic record has meant
portraits no longer enjoy an exclusivity in the depiction of history, there’s
still something about a portrait which conveys, however misleadingly, a certain
authority. That’s not to suggest the
classic representational portraits have always been wholly authentic, a good
many of those of the good and great acknowledged to have been painted by
“sympathetic” artists known for their subtleties in rendering their subjects
variously more slender, youthful or hirsute as the raw material required. Probably few were like Oliver Cromwell
(1599–1658; Lord Protector of the Commonwealth 1653-1658) who told Samuel
Cooper to paint him “warts and all”.
The artist obliged.
Randolph Churchill (1932), oil on canvas by Philip de László (left) and Randolph Churchill’s official campaign photograph (1935, right).
There have been artists for whom a certain fork of the simulacrum
has provided a long a lucrative career.
Philip Philip Alexius László de Lombos (1869–1937 and known professionally
as Philip de László) was a UK-based Hungarian painter who was renowned for his sympathetic
portraiture of royalty, the aristocracy and anyone else able to afford his fee
(which for a time-consuming large, full-length works could be as much as 3000
guineas). His reputation as a painter suffered
after his death because he was dismissed by some as a “shameless flatterer” but in more
recent years he’s been re-evaluated and there’s now much admiration for his
eye and technical prowess, indeed, some have noted he deserves to be
regarded more highly than many of those who sat for him. His portrait of Randolph Churchill
(1911-1968) (1932, left) has, rather waspishly, been described by some authors
as something of an idealized simulacrum and the reaction of the journalist Alan
Brien (1925-2008) was typical. He met
Churchill only in when his dissolute habits had inflicted their ravages and
remarked that the contrast was startling, “…as if Dorian Gray had changed places with his picture for
one day of the year.”
Although infamously obnoxious, on this occasion
Churchill responded with good humor, replying “Yes, it is hard to believe that was me,
isn’t it? I was a joli garçon (pretty boy) in those days.” That may have been true for as his official
photograph for the 1935 Wavertree by-election (where he stood as an “Independent
Conservative” on a platform of rearmament and opposition to Indian Home Rule)
suggests, the artist may have been true to his subject. Neither portrait now photograph seems to have
helped politically and his loss at Wavertree was one of several he would suffer
in his attempts to be elected to the House of Commons.
Portrait of Gina Rinehart (née Hancock, b 1954) by Western Aranda artist Vincent Namatjira (b 1983), National Gallery of Australia (NGA) (left) and photograph of Gina Rinehart (right).
While some simulacrums can flatter to deceive, others are simply unflattering. That was what Gina Rinehard (described habitually as “Australia’s richest woman”) felt about two (definitely unauthorized) portraits of which are on exhibition at the NGA. Accordingly, she asked they be removed from view and “permanently disposed of”, presumably with the same fiery finality with which bonfires consumed portraits of Theodore Roosevelt (TR, 1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) and Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955), both works despised by their subjects. Unfortunately for Ms Reinhart, her attempted to save the nation from having to look at what she clearly considered bad art created only what is in law known as the “Streisand effect”, named after an attempt in 2003 by the singer Barbra Streisand (b 1942) to suppress publication of a photograph showing her cliff-top residence in Malibu, taken originally to document erosion of the California coast. All that did was generate a sudden interest in the previously obscure photograph and ensure it went viral, overnight reaching an audience of millions as it spread around the web. Ms Reinhart’s attempt had a similar consequence: while relatively few had attended Mr Namatjira’s solo Australia in Colour exhibition at the NGA and publicity had been minimal, the interest generated by the story saw the “offending image” printed in newspapers, appear on television news bulletins (they’re still a thing with a big audience) and of course on many websites. The “Streisand effect” is regarded as an example “reverse psychology”, the attempt to conceal something making it seem sought by those who would otherwise not have been interested or bothered to look. People should be careful in what they wish for.
Variations on a theme of simulacra: Four AI (artificial intelligence) generated images of Lindsay Lohan by Stable Diffusion. The car depicted (centre right) is a Mercedes-Benz SL (R107, 1971-1989), identifiable as a post-1973 North American model because of the disfiguring bumper bar.
So a simulacrum is a likeness of something which is
recognizably of the subject (maybe with the odd hint) and not of necessity “good”
or “bad”; just not exactly realistic. Of
course with techniques of lighting or angles, even an unaltered photograph can similarly
mislead but the word is used usually of art or behavior such as “a simulacrum or pleasure” or “a ghastly
simulacrum of a smile”. In film and biography
of course, the simulacrum is almost
obligatory and the more controversial the subject, the more simulacral things
are likely to be: anyone reading AJP Taylor’s study (1972) of the life of Lord
Beaverbrook (Maxwell Aitken, 1879-1964) would be forgiven for wondering how
anyone could have said a bad word about the old chap. All that means there’s no useful
antonym of simulacrum because one
really isn’t needed (there's replica, duplicate etc but the sense is different) while the synonyms are many, the choice of which should be
dictated by the meaning one wishes to denote and they include: dissimilarity, unlikeness,
archetype, clone, counterfeit, effigy, ersatz, facsimile, forgery, image, impersonation,
impression, imprint, likeness, portrait, representation, similarity, simulation,
emulation, fake, faux & study. Simulacrum
remains a little unusual in that while technically it’s a neutral descriptor,
it’s almost always used with a sense of the negative or positive.