What makes a work a narrative? What are the conditions for a narrative? Narratives according to Eric Zimmerman all have these in common an initial state, a change in state and an insight from that change. It is not simply a series of event but a personification of those events through a medium i.e. painting, language.
One can consider a painting a narrative in this case, looking at a painting you try to decipher the initial state of the subject matter and then draw insight by comparing what you perceive to be the initial state to the painting. But this is just my 2 cents on the subject.
Some good thoughts about Narrativity. I personally feel that almost everything bears some degree of narrativity regardless of what it is. Your observations about paintings as narrative is how I feel too 🙂
If a painting is a narrative, who creates the narrative? Is it a projection of our own experience? Or is it guided by the painter? Does it lie on a spectrum or are we looking at a plane experience from two different sides?