Howells and Nergrieros make interesting points in the opening chapter about how pieces of art could be read in the same way as a text advertisement, something which I had never considered in this way before. An example: "If we are presented with a piece of printed text, we can easily begin to get to work on it. We can note it's content, style and structure. We can spot the literary and rhetorical devices used to present us with an argument, to persuade us of the writers' point of view. We read such texts critically. If it is a contract, we look for the small print. If it is a sales pitch, we look for the "weasel words", such as 'a chance to win' or 'savings up to 50%'. We ask, quite rightly, what is really being offered. We look for what is left out as much as what is included. We ask who the author of a particular text, and how that may influence what they are trying to say." (Howells, R and Nergerious, J, p5).
Following on from this the book touched upon the importance visual rhetoric and cultural setting in a person's understanding of subject matter in an art piece.
"If we look, for example, at a portrait of King Henry VIII, our knowledge that he has six wives (and beheaded two of them) certainly adds to the meaning of the painting. It is information, however, that exists both prior to and separate from, the text itself. If we didn't know that it was Henry VIII, much of this meaning would be lost." And then, a more up to date example of Annie Liebovitz' celebrity portraits for Rolling Stone magazine whereupon the relevance is reliant on celebrity culture and to an extent, cultural context. "Her photographs are, of course, fairly interesting in their own right, but unless we know, for example, that the sitter is John Lennon, then we are missing a vital slice of the point. Celebrity portraiture relies on us having prior knowledge of the subject." This is later summed up on the same page by the following: "The successful communication of these meanings, however, depends on shared cultural conventions between painter and viewer. Knowing the codes - or at least knowing there are codes in use - is all part of visual literacy."
Visual rhetoric is something I have been thinking about increasingly in the past week. I still feel a little bit all over the place with regards to what my honours project will be delivered as, even if I do know it would be within the branding framework, and I have been considering creating work that includes an element of rhetoric in order to further resonate with people. This is usually seen done by brands such as Coca-Cola, whose ad campaigns of happy people almost do not need the tagline "Open Happiness", such is the ingrained understanding that the coke drinker's lifestyle is carefree and happy, or companies such as ASDA whose name itself represents low price supermarket goods. Obviously I would not be able to create my own kind of existing brand rhetoric, and as I have said before my lecturers are not keen on me creating a straightforward brand identity for a product. I have seen visual rhetoric used very effectively in illustrations and similar graphic artwork, particularly in the cases of fan art or remixed art (such as the gifs shown here) as it is given an inherent value, because it represents something people already know about and are a lot of the time involved in the fan-culture surrounding it. Fan-culture is a different strand of visual rhetoric I won't really go into here but it might be worth looking at in related research.
In a slightly different but not entirely unrelated vein to fan culture, Howells and Nergrieros speak a lot about religious art when discussing visual rhetoric, as paintings depicting scripture are more often than not loaded with layered meanings and symbolism. "It is a useful example because understanding many of the canonical works of western art depends upon our working knowledge of Judo-Christian scripture and tradition. If we see an illustration of a semi-naked couple in a garden, and an apple and a snake are included, we can be fairly sure it is Adam and Eve from the book of genesis….(contd) A knowledge of the Christian scripture and tradition helps us identify these scenes from their familiar ingredients and characters. They are very much bound up in convention, and the physical appearance of the places and the people portrayed usually owes much more to art history than to scripture. Mary, the mother of Christ, for example, is frequently dressed in blue…the convention owes much more to the fact that the most expensive paint is reserved for the key figure…the convention caught on." The theme of religious iconography continues with the examples of the variance in physical appearances for saints. Biblical saints are never described as having particular physical appearances - though curiously, Jesus always has long hair, a beard and blue eyes, making him recognisable in any aesthetic placing. Instead they feature specific garments or hats, objects to carry or in some cases, animals, which make them recognisable in paintings and other depictions. One example: "Saint George, the (non-biblical) patron saint of England, for example, is instantly recognisable not by his facial features, but by the way he is nearly always shown killing a dragon. Without the dragon, it is probably not Saint George."(Howells and Nergrieros, 2012, p18). Again a reference to cultural, or in this case religious, understanding being key to the overall comprehension of the image.
Similarly, the case of the Beatles' Abbey Road album cover is looked at, with regard to how the cover image was used on its own to do the advertising with no text naming the band or the album. The cover is so famous now that it is still iconic today, many years after the Beatles have ceased to exist as a band. The image is of the four band members at the crossing in front of the famous Abbey Road studio in London, so "The Beatles - Abbey Road" is literally presented in visual format. Howells and Nergrieros (2012) write: "Often what is emitted is actually more revealing. What is missing from the Beatles' Abbey Road cover? Yes, it's extraordinary. What is missing here is normally the first thing we would normally expect to see on the cover of a record: the name of the band. Here, however, we have the cover to a Beatles album that says nothing about the Beatles. Why? Intrinsically, we can conclude that the Beatles were so famous in 1969 that they were instantly recognisable to everybody…"
"Visual Culture" brought up a lot of points for me to consider about the kind of graphic language I use in future work and the context I set it in. The idea of an image being "read" is one I often forget so this was a valuable read at a time when I am still considering a lot about practical work.
References:
Howells, R and Nergrieros, J. 2013. Visual Culture. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press
No comments:
Post a Comment