|
August 4, 2009
If rhetoric is not stylistic ornamentation but persuasive discourse, then rhetorical forms are deeply and unavoidably involved in the interpretation of realities by visual media.
Andrew Wyeth, Christina's World, 1948, Tempera
The painting shows a woman named Christina Olson, who had an undiagnosed muscular deterioration that paralyzed her lower body, dragging herself across the ground to pick flowers from her garden.
Photographs can also be seen as subtle rhetorical constructions, and ultimately rhetoric and photography are intellectual twins.
Helmut Newton, Madonna Dancing on Bar with Bottle, Hollywood, 1990
So we have the idea of visual rhetoric, which refers to the ways that visual images communicate meaning. Visual rhetoric is broader than the specific concepts of design or aesthetic theory as it describes how images reflect, communicate, and even shape cultural meaning. Visual literacy involves all the processes of knowing and responding to visual images as well as the ideas that inform the construction or manipulation of cultural images.
But what sort of rhetoric?
|
