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| Anon, French postcard, portrait of Bismarck |
The term ambiguity is commonly misunderstood. It doesn't imply a lack of meaning, but refers instead to the potential of multiple meanings. It comes from the same etymological root (ambi, meaning "both" or "on both sides") as ambidextrous, ambivalence, ambitious, ambience, amphitheater, and so on. In practice, it has lots to do with embedded figures (such as the pun-embellished portrait of Otto, Prince of Bismarck, shown above), with metaphors, and, by extension, camouflage.
Moore's essay is a wonderfully wide-ranging discussion of various kinds of word play, from which she moves on to examples of extraordinary visual puns (dare we call them image play) by such masterful practitioners as Christoph Niemann, Guy Billout, and, of course, René Magritte.
