Visual Rhetoric/Gender and Visual
Rhetoric
Introduction
Gendered images have been effective in perpetuating both the positive and negative connotations that we associate with
gender. The history of promotional images, along with the visual rhetoric of advertising sheds light on how the constructs
of masculinity and femininity contextualize fabrications of social role, power, status and sexual allure. Specifically,
appeals of glamour and the usage of nature images powerfully contribute to the influx of image-based advertising based
on gender identification. Additionally, childhood gender development contributes enormously to stereotypes regarding
masculinity and femininity.
History of Gendered Images
Historically, the nudes of European oil paintings portray women and men differently, in specific roles and purposes.
Traditionally, women have been seen and judged as sights, while men act as spectators. In other words, women appear
while men act. John Berger suggests in his work, Ways of Seeing, that this affects relations between men and women and
also the relations of women to themselves. The renowned painting of Adam and Eve was groundbreaking in introducing
the concept of nakedness in regard to women being seen as submissive to men. “… the woman is blamed and is punished
by being made subservient to the man. In relation to the woman, the man becomes the agent of God” (Berger 48). As
paintings became more worldly and had fewer religious undertones, the common denominator remained women
illustrated as being seen by a spectator. “She is not naked as she is; she is naked as the spectator sees her” (Berger 50).
The facial expressions of women in images also coincides with the notion that they submit to being surveyed. Berger
suggests that in poses of women, a woman’s gaze and facial expression sells her femininity. Paintings and photographs
often depict this by showing the woman looking over her shoulder at the viewer, rather than at the male shown in the
painting or photograph.
While these attitudes and ideals regarding the portrayal of women are rampant in photographs and paintings, it has also
seeped into popular culture, disseminating into various media, including current advertising, journalism and television.
Identification and Advertising
Identification fulfills an essential role as it allows advertisers to appeal to each viewer’s individuality. In the article,
"Defining Film Rhetoric: The Case of Hitchcock’s Vertigo," David Blakesley introduces the idea of identification as he
describes the notion as longing to find similitude between ones self and a particular idea, picture, object, etc. He explains,
“we pursue that identification as one way of expressing…pushed to its extreme, we desire to become the other, to inhabit
that psychological and physical space, to take ownership of some kind, to walk in someone else’s shoes for awhile”
(Blakesley 117). As a result of such desire for identification, women and men are often characterized in a generalized
manner, only to appeal to their own gender-specific identify.
Diane S. Hope suggests, in her chapter "Gendered Environments: Gender and the Natural World in the Rhetoric of
Advertising" from the book, Defining Visual Rhetorics, that advertising demonstrates and perpetuates gender-specific
attributes of men and women in order to identify with their gender-specific audiences. Hope comments, “visual rhetoric
depends on strategies of identification; advertising’s rhetoric is dominated by appeals to gender as the primary marker of
consumer identity. Constructs of masculinity or femininity contextualize fantasies of social role, power, status, and
security as well as sexual attractiveness” (155). Within the visual realm of advertising Hope observes how women are often
depicted in a way that promotes beauty, fertility and sexuality while men possess more ‘masculine’ attributes. Contrary to
feminine traits, masculine attributes include strength, adventurous nature, and physical prowess.
Although many of these characteristics and behavioral tendencies are thought to be innate, the advertising industry
reintroduces and reiterates such gender roles as the norm. People become conditioned to believe that there are specific
and isolated behavioral differences and attributes that define us either as men or women. Such differences have gone
beyond the obvious physiological makeup that separates male from female.
Glamour
Societal roles based on one's gender are defined and controlled by culture and have been reiterated through visual means.
See Visual Rhetoric/Cultural Theories of Visual Rhetoric. Such gender roles are especially evident within the visual realm
of advertising. Advertisers use visual means to communicate to their viewers feminine and masculine ideals. These
gendered ideals are closely linked to the concepts of envy and glamour. “Publicity persuades us of a transformation by
showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable. The state of being envied is what
constitutes glamour” (Berger 131). Predominantly, glamour is a tool used by advertisers and aimed at men and women in
an effort to increase consumerism. The language of publicity harps upon the concept of a spectator-buyer imagining
himself or herself transformed by a product, and thus an object of envy by others. People crave envy, and this advertising
tactic is aimed at both men and women to create consumption of various products. Women are generally persuaded when
glamour is presented as enhancing to their lives by making them more beautiful or desirable. Alternatively, men are
influenced by ads that appeal to their desire to be in power and in control.
Childhood Gender Development
Advertisers create ‘gendered environments’ in everything from children’s toys to motor vehicles. For example, early on
children are exposed to toy commercials that are set out to target a specific gender. As a result, society is conditioned to
believe that dolls and houses are for little girls because they represent the idea that females are to be fertile and nurturing.
Whereas little boys are conditioned to believe that they can only play with toys that will define their masculinity, such as
cars and toy weapons. Hope says, “masculinized environments present a natural world made for conquest and control”
(174). Much like the masculine ideal, toys for little boys often include cars, action figures, and sporting goods, all which
fulfill the idea of a conquest. These items and the advertisements redefine the gender role ideal that men are active,
strong, and courageous. On the other hand, little girls are raised to believe that their roles is to care for the family.
Typically, little girls toys include baby dolls and play houses.
Since the idea of identification carries immense weight in the targeting of specific audiences, advertisers begin promoting
the concept of gendered environments early on beginning with children's toys. However, as people grow older the gender
roles are only made more evident and are further perpetuated in advertising that is targeted towards adults. For example,
Hope discusses how the advertising of sport utility vehicles is a primary example of the gender role divide. She talks about
how an SUV reiterates the idea that men are conquerors of territory and must have a powerful vehicle to traverse through
their difficult journeys. She describes the more ‘masculine’ advertisements as a place where man can conquer land and
explore the vast wilderness. She states, “the features of these advertisements emphasize a mythic world where men play
[as] heroics and a vast environmental wilderness promises control and adventure” (161).
Nature images
Hope analyzes the characteristics of the specific visual environments that promote the sales of such masculine or feminine
products. She concludes that advertisers use certain natural environments within a commercial or print ad in order to
appeal to a specific gender. She observes in one advertisement how femininity is characterized using a picture of a
waterfall. Hope explains that the waterfall acts as, “a sign of nature’s unending fertility…images are exotic and lush with
icons of fertility and female sexuality” (157). In such advertisements women are one with nature. Advertisers also use
specific natural environments to appeal to males. However, these images depict a sense of acquisition unseen in feminine
advertisements. Hope suggests that for men "nature is the object of conquest or background for demonstrations of
power." "... there are no environmental problems in this space or in the fertile seas of feminized lands, there is only
opportunity to consume" (Hope 162). She observes in one advertisement how masculinity is distinguished using the image
of "Marlboro Country". In Marlboro Country, men are free from responsibility and routine. In one particular ad, two
cowboys are depicted riding wild horses. The mystical west is perceived as for "real" men (Hope 160). " . excepting the
occasional cowboy or Indian, the space is there for urban man to play at adventure" (Hope 161).
File:Marlboroman.jpg
Ultimately, Hope articulates, “advertising appropriates a rich visual history of nature images as sites of femininity and
masculinity in order to sell commodities" (Hope 173). Through the use of visual rhetoric and the natural world, gender
specific behaviors are promoted to appeal either to both genders. The existence of gender roles and gender identity
through images will continue to be present in the future of advertising.
Conclusion
Gendered images are omnipresent in modern society. Understanding the history of these images is important in
understanding how they are capable of persuading us. Gendered images are considered rhetorical because they have a
persuasive quality. It is important to remember that since birth, we have been conditioned to make the distinction
between men and women, masculinity and femininity, and to recognize both the positive and negative aspects of
Works Cited
Berger, John. "Ways of Seeing." London, England: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books, 1972. 45-64
Blakesley, David. “Defining Film Rhetoric: The Case of Hitchcock’s Vertigo.” Defining Visual Rhetorics. Ed. Charles A.
Hill. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004. 117.
Hope, S. Diane. “Gendered Environments: Gender and the Natural World in the Rhetoric of Advertising.” Defining Visual
Rhetorics. Eds. Helmer, Marguerite, Charles A. Hill. 155-174
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Visual Rhetoric/Ethics of Controversial
Images
Controversial Images and Emotional Responses
Little research has been done thus far concerning the emotional effects surrounding abrasive images. How are you
supposed to feel when you see a picture of child soldiers in Africa, or a composite image making a mockery of the
assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald? Images have the potential to elicit emotion from a viewer just as much, if not more
than text alone, so why hasn't the ethics of visual communication been studied more comprehensively? As images become
more and more a part of professional communication, we will see more research and ethical guidelines pertaining to the
use of ethically questionable images. But for the time being, what is currently out there in the real world? Research shows
that visuals play just as an important role as text, if not more important, in having an emotional impact on its audience
(Kienzler, 1997). However, the code of ethics that loosely governs images is highly under-developed compared to that of
its counterpart- written text. According to Stephen Casner, Ph.D., of the NASA Ames Research Center, visuals can
sometimes have more impact than text when coupled together, for three reasons. First, images have a direct and quick
emotional impact that linear text alone lacks. Also, when viewing a document, an audience is drawn to the images
accompanying the text before the view the text itself. Last, viewers remember images much longer than they remember
accompanying text. For these reasons it is important to study images and the effects that they may have on viewers just as
intensely as humans have scrutinized the ethics of the written word. Visuals have an increasing impact on today's highspeed society, especially in professional communication (Keinzler, 1997). This chapter will closely examine what abrasive
images are readily available to society today in advertisement, editorial cartoons, as well as manipulated composite
images. We will also discuss the emotion responses that are tied with images that cause irritation Emotionally stirring
images can conjure up a lot of feelings among their viewers, whether that is joy or anger. Although text has the ability to
do so, there is a much more comprehensive set of ethical codes that go along with them. Currently there are no real
standards set thus far for visuals beyond what is considered pornographic, and with a lack of these needed standards the
envelope will only be pushed farther and farther. As the ethical boundary is pushed, and line for what is considered ethical
will follow closely behind. If the current trend of abrasive and irritating images continues to move, the ethical standard
will continue to drop. It is the responsibility of the viewer to act as a critical thinker and determine if an image is unjustly
abrasive. The following sections will discuss the different aspects of controversial images listed above. Please use the
information below as an informational start to see how current issues and other controversial debates can be
manipulated. Although the ethical code of images may change soon to mirror the standards of text in public domains, for
now it is the responsibility of the reader to determine what they should consider ethical and stand against.
Composite Images, Photoshop & Irritation
Our life is filled with emotionally-charged images that may contradict our traditional ways of interpreting and thinking.
One way that we are challenged in our views is through images that shock, or surprise, an audience. Traditionally, these
images are found in advertisements, but more recently we find ourselves being challenged by the popular art of composite
images. Photoshop is growing trend in our culture, mostly among the younger generation, that allows our everyday
images to be turned into something extraordinary whether it’s a politically-charged message or just something that we like
to parody. This fairly new program opens up a world of possibilities when it comes to images and visual rhetoric given that
these images can be manipulated to portray a biased opinion or view. Oftentimes in a composite image the more shocking
the material, the better; and the more blatant or disturbing an image is, the more we question the ethics of the author and
their intentions. Given an uproar in composite images after the advent of Photoshop, we are often brought to ask
ourselves whether it is the fault of the program or audience for potentially abusing the power of the program.
Mostly, our questioning of these images leads us to a different way of thinking and a way of reflecting in upon ourselves;
on what it is that disturbs us about certain images and why. For example, in a recent class presentation, my partner and I
used a composite image of JonBenet Ramsey as a demonstration on how composite images strike a sort of “irritation”
between our social standards or ideals and our emotions. The composite is of a bartender’s body with JonBenet’s head
“photoshopped” onto the figure. The child appears to be mixing a cocktail in this up-scale environment with a martini
shaker made of a judicial figure. The author of the image wrote on his website Doctor Cosmo (http://www.doctorcosmo.c
om) that the he made the image because he thought the trial of the case “was a mockery of the judicial system, and how
money can’t buy you love…but it can certainly keep your ass out of jail.” This image stirs our beliefs and makes us
question if it’s morally correct to use an image of a child who died so young and horribly in an image that mocks our
system. When presenting material with my partner, we questioned if the image of JonBenet would offend our audience,
but we quickly realized that sometimes it is good to shock people with emotionally-charged images because we get more of
a reaction and we begin to question why it is that we get so offended.
Perhaps the reason why composite images are so controversial is because they often use subjects that are displaced from
their original contexts and transform them into a completely new perspective. As a result, we feel transplanted along with
the subject. This change in contexts is what initially draws our attention to the image, and it may be why we initially
become shocked when looking at a divisive image. Alternately, one of the reasons composite images can be rhetorical is
that they sometimes shed new light on a subject, almost as if to give us a fresh new outlook on what it is that we’re seeing.
When we see things as if we see them for the first time, we tend to think of them in an alternate way and may be easier
persuaded given we gain a different perspective. Often images that grab our attention the most are shocking and
controversial, so much so that we experience a sort of "irritation" between our cultural, social, and moral discourses. Craig
Stroupe describes his theory of the rhetoric of irritation as "inappropriate juxtapositions" that work together to create a
sort of dialog "among normally unrelated voices and contexts, produc[ing] both an irritation whether expressed visually,
verbally, or in some hybrid form like a Web page- as well as a social irritation in the audience who registers this friction as
a kind of disruption of "normal" discourse" (245). The "irritation" that we experience can offend or enhance our character
simply because it's a different outlook on an image that we are normally not accustomed to.
Unfortunately, with composite images, ethics is always in question. Is it appropriate to remove context from a subject or
image and transfer it to another? Is ethics still a problem if the image is overall rhetorical and better for the good of
society? Does a composite image have to go along with societal ideals? The answer to all these questions is subjective and
ultimately depends on who you ask, but in interpreting composite images, it is always crucial to get “the big picture” and
understand both sides of the argument being portrayed. Only then can you make an informed decision about the
rhetorical nature and purpose. Essentially, in the search for an even clearer answer to the ethical question, composite
image creators should be more aware and sensitive that audiences often view manipulated images with a naive eye and
audiences need to educate themselves and question what is being portrayed in a composite image in reference to what is
being said, what should be said, and what they believe is right.
Shocking Advertisements
File:Racist.jpg
Image:http://www.cadcomic.com/news.php?i=1153
Juxtaposition and irritation can be used in order to advertise products. This idea is
called “shock advertising”. You maybe be wondering, “Why would anybody use a
controversial image in an advertisement?” The answer is simple- “Any publicity is
good publicity.”
Two companies’ that are well known for their shock advertisement strategies are United Colors of Benetton and Calvin
Klein. Calvin Klein received a great deal of attention when they used an underage Brooke Shields in their advertisements
very provocatively. This controversy led to a great deal of free press covering the story. However, it is not only the free
press that encourages companies to use shock advertisements. This also markets their goods and services to a younger
more “socially conscious” age group. This type of shock advertisement makes the company seem edgy or youthful. Peter
Fressola, communications director for United Colors of Benetton, defended a Diesel Jeans advertisement, which depicted
a gun pointed at the audience, by saying “Jeans are about sex and danger. And the people who are offended by these ads
are probably not Diesel customers anyway.” However, it is not just clothing companies that have been known to use shock
advertisement. Barnardo’s, a London based charity, helps many different poverty stricken families all across Great
Britain, is also known for having very controversial ads. In the year 2000, they had an ad that depicted and infant baby
about to inject heroin. They also ran and ad campaign, which staged five death and suicide scenes. One of the passages
read, “From age three, Jane was neglected and a large part of her died. Her future died. 19 years later, after being lured
into prostitution, she was beaten so badly by her Pimp she died for real. What a waste.” Barnardo’s was asked to remove
the campaign due to criticism. However, donations increased by 5 percent to the charity. As much as these images may
illicit a negative emotional response, they will not be forgotten.
Editorial Cartoons: Pictures With a Point
An editorial cartoon, commonly referred to as a political cartoon, is an illustration or comic strip containing a political or
social message that usually relates to current events or personalities Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com). Cartoonists
most often rely on symbolism, exaggeration, labeling, analogy, and irony to demonstrate the point they are trying to make.
More often than not there is controversy surrounding an editorial cartoon because of the subject matter. The purpose of
an editorial cartoon is to make a point and to make people think. Although editorial cartoons are often funny if you
understand the underlying issue, their main purpose is to persuade the audience. Editorial cartoons thrive off of
controversy and offensive material because it creates debate and discussion of the issue presented. It is important to keep
in mind that a cartoon does not always portray the actual opinion of the publication, but is a reflection of the cartoonists’
interpretation of the surrounding world.
Editorial cartoons are communicative because the cartoonist uses visual symbols for the purpose of communicating to an
audience. Foss defines three characteristics that define artifacts or products conceptualized as visual rhetoric. An artifact
must be symbolic, involve human intervention, and be presented to an audience for the purpose of communicating (Foss,
p. 304). Editorial cartoons meet the stated criteria because of the symbolism the cartoonists use to portray particular
events, people, places, governments, religions, ideas, etc. The cartoons are created in response to recent events and are
made with the purpose of making a point to an audience. The cartoonist consciously decides to communicate about a
certain topic and conveys a message through the conscious decisions to utilize certain color, forms, and symbols. Editorial
cartoons use images and drawings to express a complex message in a simplified form.
A more recent editorial cartoon that has caused a lot of controversy is the series of images representing the Prophet
Mohammed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005. An editor, Flemming Rose, asked newspaper
cartoonists to draw the prophet Mohammed as they saw him. A few days later, twelve different cartoonists submitted their
depictions and were published in the paper. The images initiated controversy immediately because of the sensitive and
sacred subject being presented in an insensitive and offensive manner. Soon to follow the publication of the cartoons were
the burnings of the Danish flag, protests and boycotts of Danish products, and violence. The cartoons became famous
around the world because of the amount of controversy they had stirred up. Some newspapers reprinted the images while
others chose to describe the cartoons through words. The New York Times and many other U.S. newspapers chose not to
reprint the images, “saying they were motivated either by respect for or fear of those who might be offended” (Cannon).
There is a fine line between the freedom of expression and respecting the people, events, or issues depicted in the
cartoons. Although the purpose of editorial cartoons is to make a point, strike up conversation and make the readers
think, cartoonists should choose the messages they want to convey with care. It is ok for cartoonists to express a sensitive
message but it should be executed in a fashion that won’t lead to violence. It is impossible to draw something that is
completely void of controversy because somebody will always find something offensive. Editorial cartoons are not the
news and do not have to be fair and unbiased, however, the cartoonists have a responsibility to create their cartoons with
care. Cartoonists should not aim to generate tensions which could lead to violence, but should present their cartoon in a
tasteful manner.
On the other side of the paper, the readers of the cartoon need to be responsible in viewing and analyzing the image. It is
important for readers to keep in mind that the point of the editorial cartoon is to make people think. Sometimes the
images or content may be offensive, but the cartoonist is not drawing an image to target anyone or group in particular,
rather to express a message that is relevant to events and situations. Readers must remain critical viewers of these images.
Emotional Response
People are constantly being tested by outside stimuli such as the media and are faced with images and advertisements that
can sometimes be shockingly controversial. In some cases, such controversial ads do not feature the product, but rather
an idea. United Colors of Benetton, a clothing company discussed earlier in the chapter, is known for their emotionally
stirring advertisements. During the peak years of their controversial campaigns, many of their advertisements have been a
topic of discussion. A popular technique for the United Colors of Benetton is to take a unique but daring approach in their
advertisements by featuring sensitive issues rather than people wearing their product. One year, an advertisement ran
with a picture of a dying AIDS patient branded with the company’s logo.
Companies taking the shock approach in their advertisements do so in order to ultimately drive up product sales.
Companies know that controversy receives much publicity and thus creates attention. How does the shock approach in
advertising and images correlate to a customer making a purchase? These images and advertisements are created by
companies to spark debate and discussion among buyers in the hopes that the emotional response the advertisement
provoked was strong enough for people to make a purchase.
People are naturally inclined to pass judgment but are often psychologically influenced by the complexities of emotions.
Each individual has differing sets of emotions which stem from his or her life events and experiences. Because such a
range of emotions can exist, it allows room for differing interpretation. With this in mind, it is difficult to create any broad
assumptions when it comes to how one should view a shocking, irritating or controversial image. But there are certain
factors, both internal and external, that should be taken into account when understanding ones emotions towards these
visuals. People are also influenced by their environment. It might be
easy to say that consumers are able to perceive an object or person
without interference from the perception of the physical and social
surroundings of that object or person; however this is not always the
case. People bring their personality to the things they do in their daily
lives which involve other people whether it be through work, school,
nightlife, or church. Past experiences shape an individual’s personality
which can further influence and be influenced by one’s environment.
Lastly, people are influenced by their social centers. Social groups have a
huge impact on how images and advertisements are perceived. A
common interest is usually the core of what brings a social group
together. However, differing opinions may arise which can change
United Colors of Benetton AIDS Campaign
Image
http://press.benettongroup.com/ben_en/about/cam
people’s opinions and beliefs. It isn’t just the image or advertisement
that is being interpreted, it is the brand. The opinions that come from social circles can impact how one is influenced into
purchasing behavior.
We have discussed many mediums where controversial images may appear. However, this list is far from comprehensive.
Controversial Images can appear in a wide variety of public and private spheres. As an informed consumer of the above
mentioned mediums, you are responsible for the ethical standards you hold for the visuals you view. As said before, the
amount and severity of controversial images in the public sphere has continued to increase, and in turn the ethical
standards of said images has been slowly decreasing, and the proverbial ethical bar is following. For the time being, no
public policy change will occur regarding this issue. Informed consumers must act as the vigilante.
Works Cited
Cannon, Sara. "Controversial Cartoons Lead to Worldwide Concern For Speech, Press Freedom, and Religious Views."
Silha Center. 18 Apr 2007 .
"Ctrl-Alt-Del Designs Parody of Sony’s Controversial Ad." www.playfeed.com. 07 July 2006. 12 Apr 2007
.
"Dr.
Cosmo's
1999
Photoshop
Gallery."
www.doctorcosmo.com.
15
Apr
2007
.
Foss, Sonja K. "Framing the Study of Visual Rhetoric: Toward a Transformation of Rhetorical Theory." Defining Visual
Rhetorics. Ed. Charles A. Hill, Marguerite Helmers. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2004.
Kienzler, Donna (1997).Visual Ethics. Journal of Business Communication. 34, 171.
Lester, Paul M. 4th ed. United States: Holly J. Allen, 2006. 68-70.
McNally, Greer. "What Makes a Photograph Controversial?." www.photgraphyblog.com. 2003. Photography Blog. 12 Apr
2007 .
Merryman, John. Law, Ethics and the Visual Arts. 2. New York: M. Bender, 1979.
"Sony pulls controversial PSP ad campaign." Citycynic.net. 06 Aug 2006. 12 Apr 2007 .
Stroupe, Craig. "The Rhetoric of Irritation: Inappropriateness as Visual/Literate Practice." Defining Visual Rhetorics. Ed.
Charles A. Hill, Marguerite Helmers. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2004.
United
Colors
of
Benetton.
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Campaigns.”
Campaign
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Accessed
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April
2007.
.
Willenz, Pam. "Personality Influences the Brain's Responses to Emotional Situations more than Thought, According to
New
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American
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4
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Visual Rhetoric/Cultural Theories of
Visual Rhetoric
Cultural Theories of Visual Rhetoric
Introduction
Social structure often has a major influence on the ways of communication, the impact, and style of all rhetoric. Visual
rhetoric is not different in its impact and being impacted by society and different cultural values, ideology, and styles.
Symbols and other components of visual rhetoric vary in meaning from culture to culture, and even sometimes within
subgroups of cultures. This is reflected in the study of semiotics. Semiotics and Visual Rhetoric are in summary, signs that
can have different quantifiers such as color, perspective, line, etc. These are dictated to a culture through different
vehicles, the medians of rhetoric.
Cultural rhetoric is defined by the standards or values that culture attaches to things. This sort of value attachment can
even vary within a culture and amongst different groups of people. We see in modern society in America that culture
defines the roles of its entire membership and where an acceptable place in society is for these people. The struggle
between sexes is one in particular that is perfect for this example. Culture has dictated in the past the placement of men
above women, and therefore the power of men’s rhetoric over that of a woman. Gender and Visual Rhetoric roles are an
ideal example of cultural rhetoric viewing the two genders as sub groups of the American culture.
Simply put, cultural rhetoric is a way of framing the words or ideology of a group through a lens that filters or can judge
another group’s rhetorical power and value. Cultural rhetoric theories state that a culture is able to dictate values and
standards through cultural rhetoric practice. With an interdisciplinary approach to understanding cultural theories of
visual rhetoric, below is a more in-depth explanation of culture as understood by sociologists and communications
scholars.
Sociological-Cultural Theories
Culture affects how we see things. Different cultures perceive things differently. According to Laura Desfor Edles' Cultural
Sociology in Practice, “Culture” can be defined in several capacities; (A) humanistic and artistic activities, (B) the manner
in which a particular group of people live, their way of life, (C) systems or patterns of shared symbols (1). It is this last
method of defining “culture” with which we are most concerned. It is through these systems of shared patterns and
symbols that individuals understand their environment, their reality, their life and everything related to their life.
Cultural Frames
Each individual has their own subjective frame through which they see reality. These frames are created through unique
cultural experiences specific to the individual. Cultural frames reject an objective reality. Cultural frames shape how we
see ourselves, others and our world. Cultural frames are cumulative they accumulate over time with experience and are
constantly changing based on these experiences. The sum of our cultural frames is called our cultural prism. Because each
individual experiences life through their own cultural frames, it can be said that there is no one universal objective reality.
Each person has their own reality.
How does this relate to visual rhetoric?
Often, the focus in both learning as well as teaching visual rhetoric is the need to make certain universal claims regarding
its power, uses and meanings. However, if we consider visual rhetoric from the “cultural frames” perspective, there is no
universal application of visual rhetoric. Each individual’s cultural frames dictate how they use as well understand visual
rhetoric. For example, consider traffic signs. Traffic signs vary from country to country and even sometimes from region
to region. Depending on an individual's cultural background, he or she will understand traffic signs differently.
A Japanese "bumpy road" sign [1] (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Japanese_Road_sign_%28Bumpy_road
%29.svg) looks strikingly similar to the European sign for "dip" in the road [2] (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ima
ge:Zeichen_112.svg). Two different concepts represented by the same image in different geographical locations. The
interpretation of these signs therefore will vary based on the cultural prism from which an individual views them.
Language is Arbitrary and Culture-Specific
The language we use to describe our world is completely arbitrary. There is no reason that certain words represent certain
things. There is no clear connection between the signifier (word/symbol) and the signified (“object in world”). But more
importantly, the construction of language is extremely culture-specific. Not only do varying cultures use different words
but also these cultures see words differently. For example, consider a tree, a tree can be seen many different ways from
varied subject positions and cultural frames. For an environmentalist, a tree is something to be preserved, a relic. For a
timber company, a tree is profit. For a politician, a tree can represent a political platform.
How does this relate to visual rhetoric?
Visual rhetoric can be considered a language, a visual language and similar to verbal language it is often arbitrary and
definitely culture-specific. Consider brand logos. A company's logo is often well-recognized as representing a particular
brand but it's actual connection to the brand is somewhat arbitrary. For example, the Starbucks logo ; [3] (http://common
s.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Starbucks_in_Nagoya.jpg#file)a green and white Nordic goddess has no relation to coffee
products, the brand logo is arbitrary. In addition to being arbitrary, often logos are culture-specific as well arbitrary.
While Starbucks is probably a universally recognized logo, an image such as the Duke Dog, James Madison University's
mascot is not. The Duke Dog [4] (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:James_Madison_University_3.jpeg)is a
culturally-specific symbol, easily understood and recognized by the James Madison University (JMU) culture as their
noble mascot and spirit guru, yet most likely considered just a dog to individuals outside the JMU culture.
Hegemony
“The ideas of the ruling class are, in every epoch, the ruling ideas: i.e. the class, which is the ruling material force of society
is at the same time its ruling intellectual force (Edles 33).” This description of Hegemony is quoted by Edles from Karl
Marx and Friedrich Engels' German Ideology. Although the description sounds somewhat convoluted, Marx and Engel
touch upon the important idea of the connections between the ruling class and the ruling intellectual force. Hegemony is a
fairly simple concept with very complicated definitions. In essence, Hegemony is a theory regarding how dominant classes
control the order of society by making their own views appear to be the accepted views. Subordinate classes accept certain
ideas, actions or structures as natural when in reality they are actually social constructs created by the dominant classes.
“Hegemony is thus the sum of the cultural processes through which ruling groups universalize their own worldview in
order to emerge as dominant (Rumbo).”
How does this relate to visual rhetoric?
Deconstructing hegemonic constructs is extremely important when investigating any form of rhetoric. To understand
certain forms of visual rhetoric, it is necessary to be aware of any potential hegemony. In addition, when participating in
visual rhetoric one should be sure not to further any hegemonic constructs that may exist within the culture. Often, media
perpetuates hegemonic structures by portraying individuals, the world and life as a particular way. While cultural groups
such as African Americans, Hispanics and Asians continue to flourish within the United States, television, movies and
advertising continue to portray America as a dominantly White society with little diversity. By constantly being exposed to
often "colorblind" media, we accept it is as natural the Hegemony that The United States is a dominantly White country.
In interpreting and creating visual rhetoric, it is important to keep in mind the potential Hegemonies.
Communication-Cultural Theories
Culture (from a communications standpoint) deals mostly with the rules that govern the understood, misunderstood,
acceptable, unacceptable, expected and unexpected ways messages are relayed within a certain community. This
community can be as small as an intimate group of friends or as large as a continent. The community is the culture. The
message and it's delivery methods is the rhetoric. While theories on cultural rhetoric are usually explained in regards to
verbal communication, they adapt well into visual rhetoric.
When verbal literacy is used, it follows guidelines set forth by the governing body and is designated as the national
language. Visual literacy is also governed by culture specific values, but which are set for by national groups, they can
vary. To be completely visually literate, one must understand all cultural aspects that may play a role in the interpretation
of the image. This is where the knowledge and understanding of semiotics is important. The role of nonverbal
communication in visual rhetoric connects closely to semiotics and the understanding of a visual argument.
Nonverbal behavior is typically analyzed in-depth in regards to communication. Nonverbal communication itself is
culture-based. The cultures one associates with will influence their interpretation and use of non-verbal codes. Nonverbal
cues, as explained by Mark P. Orbe and Carol J. Bruess in Contemporary Issues in Interpersonal Communications, can be
split up into seven categories, four of which translate well into visual rhetoric (138).
Facial and eye communication
Facial and eye communication through expressions can tell a lot about the message a person is conveying in a picture. The
importance of the face can be traced back to the simple fact that when communicating verbally, a person typically looks at
the communicator’s face for extra feedback. However, much of facial communication is culture bound (Orbe 142). The
seven common facial expressions (sadness, anger, disgust, fear, interest, surprise, and happiness) are innate in people as
children. Yet, as a person is socialized into their cultures as adults, these expressions are sometimes hidden or
accentuated. For example, Asian cultures teach one to hide any highly emotional thoughts such as sheer excitement. In a
painting, it is important to take note of the cultural setting of the characters because their facial expressions may be
skewed to fit the culture.
Proxemics
Proxemics study the use of space in communications (Orbe 145). Proxemics are also highly culture bound. A photo of a
mother and child in each other’s personal space, embraced in a hug automatically brings thoughts of intimacy to an
American. This is because intimate distance (touching up to 18 inches apart) is considered primarily inappropriate in U.S.
culture. A good example of the extent to this used in recent popular culture is the film, Borat, where a foreign man from
Kazakhstan tries to introduce himself to Americans by invading their intimate space [5] (http://flickr.com/photos/mattro
thphoto/382360271/). Borat is not welcomed by Americans who see this as an invasion of their personal space. Proxemics
tie in closely with visual rhetoric because the distance between the two objects in a narrative representation may give clues
to the relationship and argument conveyed.
Physical appearance and artifacts
Physical appearance and artifacts affect communications on a cultural level similar to facial and eye communication. This
includes the choice of dress, choice of objects, decoration and the like. Even certain colors are more important than others
in a culture (Orbe 154). For example, red, white and blue will have a different emotional connection to an American,
Britain or Frenchman than to an Iraqi or South African. To an American, a photograph of a woman in a revealing dress
will stimulate a different reaction than the reaction to the same photograph by a group of men from India. Similarly, in
this photo [6] (http://flickr.com/photos/webmink/71651/) of a Japanese wedding ceremony, the bride has her hair
covered. Understanding that this has the same effect as wearing a wedding veil in western culture adds to the viewers
understanding of the image.
Environment
The environment can be affected by culture in visual rhetoric. Architecture, room arrangements and colors fall into this
category (Orbe 150). This relates closely to time and space in regards to visual rhetoric. Different cultures will react
differently in certain environments. A person who grew up in the culture of the "city that never sleeps", New York, will
react to a painting of the Swiss Alps differently than a person who travels the world hiking and mountain climbing.
Conclusion
Culture is both influential in how a reader interprets visual rhetoric as well as how a writer composes visual rhetoric.
Understanding how cultural theories can influence visual rhetoric is essential. Although this discussion included only
Sociological as well as Communication-based theories of culture and visual rhetoric, these theories can be considered the
underlying base upon which other cultural theories are developed and understood.
Works Cited
Edles, Laura D. Cultural Sociology in Practice. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 2002.
Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich. The German Ideology. New York: International Publishers., 1965.
Orbe, Mark P. and Carol J. Bruess. Contemporary Issues in Interpersonal Communications. London: Oxford UP, 2004.
Rumbo, Joseph D. [Lecture]. Vocabulary Weeks 1-8. Sociology/Anthropology 368-Contemporary American Culture,
James Madison University, 2007.
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title=Visual_Rhetoric/Cultural_Theories_of_Visual_Rhetoric&oldid=2244281"
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O Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos
JOHN
Berger
John Berger (b. 1926), like few other art critics, elicits strong and contradictory
reactions to his writing. He has been called (sometimes in the same review) "pre
posterous" as well as "stimulating,""pompous" yet "exciting." He has been accused
of falling prey to "ideological excesses" and of being a victim of his own "lack of
objectivity," but he has been praised for his "scrupulous" and "cogent" observa
tions on art and culture. He is one of Europe's most influential Marxist critics, yet
his work has been heralded and damned by leftists and conservatives alike.
Although Berger's work speaks powerfully, its tone is quiet, thoughtful, measured.
According to the poet and critic Peter Schjeldahl, "The most mysterious element
in Mr. Berger's criticism has always been the personality of the critic himself, a
man of strenuous conviction so loath to bully that even his most provocative ar
guments sit feather-light on the mind."
The first selection is Chapter 1 from \Nays of Seeing (1972), a book that began
as a series on BBC Television. In fact, the show was a forerunner of those encyclo
pedic television series later popular on public television stations in the United
States: Civilization, The Ascent of Man, Cosmos, The Civil War. Berger's show was less
glittery and ambitious, but in its way it was more serious in its claims to be
educational. As you watched the screen, you saw a series of images (like those in
the following text). These were sometimes presented with commentary, but
sometimes in silence, so that you constantly saw one image in the context of
another—for example, classic presentations of women in oil paintings inter
spersed with images of women from contemporary art, advertising, movies, and
"men's magazines."The goal of the exercise, according to Berger, was to "start a
process of questioning," to focus his viewer's attention not on a single painting
in isolation but on "ways of seeing" in general, on the ways we have learned to
look at and understand the images that surround us, and on the culture that
teaches us to see things as we do. The method of Ways of Seeing, a book of art
history, was used by Berger in another book, A Seventh Man (1975), to docu
ment the situation of the migrant worker in Europe.
After the chapter from Ways of Seeing, we have added two brief passages
from a beautiful, slight, and quite compelling book by Berger, And Our Faces,
My Heart, Brief as Photos (1984). This book is both a meditation on time and
space and a long love letter (if you can imagine such a combination!). At
140
1
mmm
141
WAYS OF SEEING
several points in the book, Berger turns his (and his reader's) attention to
paintings. We have included two instances, his descriptions of Rembrandt's
Woman in Bed and Caravaggio's The Calling of St. Matthew (and we have in
cluded reproductions of the paintings). We offer these as supplements to
Ways of Seeing, as additional examples of how a writer turns images into
words and brings the present to the past.
Berger has written poems, novels, essays, and film scripts, including The
Success and Failure of Picasso (1965), A Fortunate Man (1967), G. (1971), and
About Looking (1980). He iived and worked in England for years, but he cur
rently lives in Quincy, a small peasant village in Haute-Savoie, France, where he
wrote, over the course of several years, a trilogy of books on peasant life, titled
Into Their Labours. The first book in the series. Pig Earth (1979), is a collection of
essays, poems, and stories set in Haute-Savoie. The second.
Once in Europe (1987), consists of five peasant tales that take
love as their subject. The third and final book in the trilogy. Lilac
and Flag: An Old Wives' Tale of the City (1990), is a novel about the
migration of peasants to the city. His most recent books include
three essay collections. The Shape of the Pocket (2001), Selected
Essays (2001), and Portraits: John Berger on Artists (2015); Here Is
Where We Meet: A Fiction (2005), a series of autobiographical
vignettes; Hold Everything Dear: Dispatches on Survival and
Resistance (2007), a meditation on poiitical resistance; Why Look
at Animals? (2009), essays on the relationship between humans
and animals; and Bento's Sketchbook (2011), a meditation on the
practice of drawing.
Note: The paintings referenced in Berger's essays are, of
course, in color, while our reproductions are in black and white. Ali of these im
ages can be found online in full-coior reproductions. We recommend that you
track down at least some of them.
II
I.
I.
It
h
Ways of Seeing
Ren4 Magritte, "The Key to Dreams," 1927 © bpk, Berlin/Art Resource,
NY/© 2016 C. Herscovici/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can
speak.
142
But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is
seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain
that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are sur
rounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is
never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is
turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits
the sight. The Surrealist painter Magritte commented on this always-present
gap between words and seeing in a painting called The Key of Dreams.
The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we be
lieve. In the Middle Ages when men believed in the physical existence of
Hell the sight of fire must have meant something different from what it
means today. Nevertheless their idea of Hell owed a lot to the sight of fire
consuming and the ashes remaining — as well as to their experience of the
pain of burns.
When in love, the sight of the beloved has a completeness which no
words and no embrace can match: a completeness which only the act of
making love can temporarily accommodate.
Yet this seeing which comes before words, and can never be quite
covered by them, is not a question of mechanically reacting to stimuli. (It
can only be thought of in this way if one isolates the small part of the pro
cess which concerns the eye's retina.) We only see what we look at. To look
is an act of choice. As a result of this act, what we see is brought within
____
___
our reach —though not
necessarily within arm's
reach. To touch some
thing is to situate oneself
in relation to it. (Close
your eyes, move round
the room and notice how
the faculty of touch is
like a static, limited form
of sight.) We never look
at just one thing; we are
always looking at the
relation between things
and ourselves. Our vision
The Key of Dreams by Magritte [1898-1967].
is continually active, con-
143
WAYS OF SEEING
tinually moving, continually holding things in a circle around itself, con
stituting what is present to us as we are.
Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen. The eye
of the other combines with our own eye to make it fully credible that we
are part of the visible world.
If we accept that we can see that hill over there, we propose that from
that hill we can be seen. The reciprocal nature of vision is more funda
mental than that of spoken dialogue. And often dialogue is an attempt to
verbalize this — an attempt to explain how, either metaphorically or liter
ally, "you see things,” and an attempt to discover how "he sees things."
In the sense in which we use the word in this book, all images are
man-made [see below]. An image is a sight which has been recreated or
reproduced. It is an appearance, or a set of appearances, which has been
detached from the place and time in which it first made its appearance
and preserved — for a few moments or a few centuries. Every image em
bodies a way of seeing. Even a photograph. For photographs are not, as is
often assumed, a mechanical record. Every time we look at a photograph,
we are aware, however slightly, of the photographer selecting that sight
from an infinity of other possible sights. This
is true even in the most casual family snap
EVERY IMAGE EMBODIES A WAY OF
shot. The photographer's way of seeing is
reflected in his choice of subject. The
SEEING. EVEN A PHOTOGRAPH.
painter's way of seeing is reconstituted by
the marks he makes on the canvas or paper. Yet, although every image
embodies a way of seeing, our perception or appreciation of an image
depends also upon our own way of seeing. (It may be, for example, that
Sheila is one figure among twenty; but for our own reasons she is the one
we have eyes for.)
JOHN BERGER
144
Images were first made to conjure up the appearance of something
that was absent. Gradually it became evident that an image could outlast
what it represented; it then showed how something or somebody had once
looked — and thus by implication how the subject had once been seen by
other people. Later still the specific vision of the image-maker was also
recognized as part of the record. An image became a record of how X had
seen Y. This was the result of an increasing consciousness of individuality,
accompanying an increasing awareness of history. It would be rash to try
to date this last development precisely. But certainly in Europe such con
sciousness has existed since the beginning of the Renaissance.
No other kind of relic or text from the past can offer such a direct
testimony about the world which surrounded other people at other times.
In this respect images are more precise and richer than literature. To say
this is not to deny the expressive or imaginative quality of art, treating it
as mere documentary evidence; the more imaginative the work, the more
profoundly it allows us to share the artist's experience of the visible.
Yet when an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look
at it is affected by a whole series of learned assumptions about art.
Assumptions concerning:
Beauty
Truth
Genius
Civilization
Form
Status
Taste, etc.
Many of these assumptions no longer accord with the world as it is. (The
world-as-it-is is more than pure objective fact, it includes consciousness.)
Out of true with the present, these assumptions obscure the past. They
145
5
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cn
O
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1/1
m
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Z
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Regentesses of the Old Men's Alms House by Hals [1580-1666].
mystify rather than clarify. The past is never there waiting to be discov
ered, to be recognized for exactly what it is. History always constitutes the
relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present
leads to mystification of the past. The past is not for living in; it is a well
of conclusions from which we draw in order to act. Cultural mystification
of the past entails a double loss. Works of art are made unnecessarily
remote. And the past offers us fewer conclusions to complete in action.
When we "see" a landscape, we situate ourselves in it. If we "saw" the
art of the past, we would situate ourselves in history. When we are pre
vented from seeing it, we are being deprived of the history which belongs
to us. Who benefits from this deprivation? In the end, the art of the past
is being mystified because a privileged minority is striving to invent a his
tory which can retrospectively justify the role of the ruling classes, and
such a justification can no longer make sense in modern terms. And so,
inevitably, it mystifies.
Let us consider a typical example of such mystification. A two-volume
study was recently published on Frans Hals.^ It is the authoritative work
to date on this painter. As a book of specialized art history it is no better
and no worse than the average.
The last two great paintings by Frans Hals portray the Governors and
the Governesses of an Alms House for old paupers in the Dutch seven
teenth-century city of Haarlem. They were officially commissioned por
traits. Hals, an old man of over eighty, was destitute. Most of his life he had
been in debt. During the winter of 1664, the year he began painting these
pictures, he obtained three loads of peat on public charity, otherwise he
would have frozen to death. Those who now sat for him were administra
tors of such public charity.
The author records these facts and then explicitly says that it would
be incorrect to read into the paintings any criticism of the sitters. There is
146
V3
CE
IM
no evidence, he says, that Hals painted them in a spirit of bitterness. The
author considers them, however, remarkable works of art and explains
why. Here he writes of the Regentesses:
Each woman speaks to us of the human condition with equal importance.
Each woman stands out with equal clarity against the enormous dark
surface, yet they are linked by a firm rhythmical arrangement and the
subdued diagonal pattern formed by their heads and hands. Subtle modu
lations of the deep, glowing blacks contribute to the harmonious fusion of
the whole and form an unforgettable contrast with the powerful whites and
vivid flesh tones where the detached strokes reach a peak of breadth and
strength. [Berger's italics]
The compositional unity of a painting contributes fundamentally to
the power of its image. It is reasonable to consider a painting's composi
tion. But here the composition is written about as though it were in itself
the emotional charge of the painting. Terms like harmonious fusion, unfor
gettable contrast, reaching a peak of breadth and strength transfer the
emotion provoked by the image from the plane of lived experience, to that
of disinterested "art appreciation." All conflict disappears. One is left with
the unchanging "human condition," and the painting considered as a mar
vellously made object.
Very little is known about Hals or the Regents who commissioned
him. It is not possible to produce circumstantial evidence to establish
what their relations were. But there is the evidence of the paintings them
selves: the evidence of a group of men and a group of women as seen by
another man, the painter. Study this evidence and judge for yourself
The art historian fears such direct judgment:
As in so many other pictures by Hals, the penetrating characterizations
almost seduce us into believing that we know the personality traits and
even the habits of the men and women portrayed.
147
What is this "seduction" he writes of? It is nothing less than the paint
ings working upon us. They work upon us because we accept the way Hals
saw his sitters..We do not accept this innocently. We accept it in so far as it
corresponds to our own observation of people, gestures, faces, institutions.
This is possible because we still live in a society of comparable social rela
tions and moral values. And it is precisely this which gives the paintings
their psychological and social urgency. It is this — not the painter's skill as
a "seducer" — which convinces us that we can know the people portrayed.
The author continues:
cn
This, he suggests, is a libel. He argues that it was a fashion at that time
to wear hats on the side of the head. He cites medical opinion to prove
that the Regent's expression could well be the result of a facial paralysis.
He insists that the painting would have been unacceptable to the Regents
if one of them had been portrayed drunk. One might go on discussing
each of these points for pages. (Men in seventeenth-century Holland wore
their hats on the side of their heads in order to be thought of as adven
turous and pleasure-loving. Heavy drinking was an approved practice.
Etcetera.) But such a discussion would take us even
farther away from the only confrontation which mat
ters and which the author is determined to evade.
In this confrontation the Regents and Regentesses
stare at Hals, a destitute old painter who has lost his
reputation and lives off public charity; he examines
them through the eyes of a pauper who must neverthe
less try to be objective; i.e., must try to surmount the way
he sees as a pauper. 'This is the drama of these paintings.
A drama of an "unforgettable contrast."
Mystification has little to do with the vocabulary
used. Mystification is the process of explaining away
what might otherwise be evident. Hals was the first portraitist to paint the
new characters and expressions created by capitalism. He did in pictorial
terms what Balzac did two centuries later in literature. Yet the author of
the authoritative work on these paintings sums up the artist's achieve
ment by referring to
Hals's unwavering commitment to his personal vision, which enriches
our consciousness of our fellow men and heightens our awe for the
ever-increasing power of the mighty impulses that enabled him to give us
a close view of life's vital forces.
That is mystification.
In order to avoid mystifying the past (which can equally well suffer
pseudo-Marxist mystification) let us now examine the particular relation
Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem,The Netherlands/
Peter Wllli/The Bridgeman Art Library
In the case of some critics the seduction has been a total success. It has,
for example, been asserted that the Regent in the tipped slouch hat, which
hardly covers any of his long, lank hair, and whose curiously set eyes do
not focus, was shown in a drunken state, [below]
JOHN BERGER
148
which now exists, so far as pictorial images are concerned, between the
present and the past. If we can see the present clearly enough, we shall
ask the right questions of the past.
Today we see the art of the past as nobody saw it
before. We actually perceive it in a different way.
This difference can be illustrated in terms of
what was thought of as perspective. The convention
of perspective, which is unique to European art and
which was first established in the early Renaissance,
centers everything on the eye of the beholder. It is
like a beam from a lighthouse — only instead of light
traveling outwards, appearances travel in. The con
ventions called those appearances reality. Perspec
tive makes the single eye the center of the visible
world. Everything converges on to the eye as to the vanishing point of
infinity. The visible world is arranged for the spectator as the universe
was once thought to be arranged for God.
According to the convention of perspective there is no visual reci
procity. There is no need for God to situate himself in relation to others:
he is himself the situation. The inherent contradiction in perspective was
that it structured all images of reality to address a single spectator who,
unlike God, could only be in one place at a time.
After the invention of the camera this contradiction gradually became
apparent.
I m an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way
only I can see it. I free myself for today and forever from human immobil
ity. I'm in constant movement. I approach and pull away from objects. I
creep under them. I move alongside a running horse's mouth. I fall and
rise with the falling and rising bodies. This is I, the machine, maneuvring
in the chaotic movements, recording one movement after another in the
most complex combinations.
Still from Man with a Movie Camera by Vertov [1895-1954],
149
The camera isolated momentary appearances and in so doing destroyed
the idea that images were timeless. Or, to put it another way, the camera
showed that the notion of time passing was inseparable from the experi
ence of the visual (except in paintings). What you saw depended upon
where you were when. What you saw was relative to your position in time
and space. It was no longer possible to imagine everything converging on
the human eye as on the vanishing point of infinity.
This is not to say that before the invention of the camera men believed
that everyone could see everything. But perspective organized the visual
field as though that were indeed the ideal. Every drawing or painting that
used perspective proposed to the spectator that he was the unique center
of the world. The camera — and more particularly the movie camera —
demonstrated that there was no center.
The invention of the camera changed / tHE INVENTION OF THE CAMERA
the way men saw. The visible came to mean f
something different to them. This was im\ CHANGED THE WAY MEN SAW.
mediately reflected in painting.
For the Impressionists the visible no longer presented itself to man in
order to be seen. On the contrary, the visible, in continual flux, became
fugitive. For the Cubists the visible was no longer what confronted the
single eye, but the totality of possible views taken from points all round
the object (or person) being depicted [below].
The invention of the camera also changed the way in which men saw
paintings painted long before the camera was invented. Originally paint
ings were an integral part of the building for which they were designed.
Sometimes in an early Renaissance church or chapel one has the feeling
that the images on the wall are records of the building's interior life, that
Still Life with Wicker Chair by Picasso [1881-1973],
WAYS OF SE E IN G
Freed from the boundaries of time and space, I coordinate any and
all points of the universe, wherever I want them to be. My way leads
towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. Thus I explain in
a new way the world unknown to you.^
JOHN BERGER
150
together they make up the building's
memory — so much are they part of the
particularity of the building [at left].
The uniqueness of every painting
was once part of the uniqueness of the
place where it resided. Sometimes the
painting was transportable. But it could
never be seen in two places at the same
time. When the camera reproduces a
painting, it destroys the uniqueness of its
image. As a result its meaning changes.
Or, more exactly, its meaning multiplies
and fragments into many meanings.
This is vividly illustrated by what
happens when a painting is shown on a
television screen. The painting enters
each viewer's house. There it is sur
rounded by his wallpaper, his furniture,
his mementos. It enters the atmosphere
of his family. It becomes their talking
point. It lends its meaning to their mean
Church of St. Francis at Assisi.
ing. At the same time it enters a million
other houses and, in each of them, is
seen in a different context. Because of the camera, the painting now travels
to the spectator rather than the spectator to the painting. In its travels, its
meaning is diversified.
One might argue that all reproductions more or less distort, and
that therefore the original painting is still in a sense unique. Here [on the
next page] is a reproduction of the Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da
Vinci.
Having seen this reproduction, one can go to the National Gallery to
look at the original and there discover what the reproduction lacks.
Alternatively one can forget about the quality of the reproduction and
simply be reminded, when one sees the original, that it is a famous paint
ing of which somewhere one has already seen a reproduction. But in ei
ther case the uniqueness of the original now lies in it being the original of
a reproduction. It is no longer what its image shows that
strikes one as unique; its first meaning is no longer to be
found in what it says, but in what it is.
This new status of the original work is the perfectly
rational consequence of the new means of reproduction.
But it is at this point that a process of mystification again
enters. The meaning of the original work no longer lies in
what it uniquely says but in what it uniquely is. How is its
unique existence evaluated and defined in our present
culture? It is defined as an object whose value depends
151
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Ln
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® National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY
upon its rarity. This market is affirmed and
gauged by the price it fetches on the mar
ket. But because it is nevertheless "a work
of art" —and art is thought to be greater
than commerce — its market price is said to
be a reflection of its spiritual value. Yet the
spiritual value of an object, as distinct from
a message or an example, can only be
explained in terms of magic or religion. And
since in modern society neither of these is a
living force, the art object, the "work of art,"
is enveloped in an atmosphere of entirely
bogus religiosity. Works of art are discussed
and presented as though they were holy
relics: relics which are first and foremost
evidence of their own survival. The past in
which they originated is studied in order to
prove their survival genuine. They are de
clared art when their line of descent can be
certified.
Before the Virgin of the Rocks the visitor Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci
to the National Gallery would be encour [1452-1519].
aged by nearly everything he might have heard
and read about the painting to feel something like this: "I am in front of it.
I can see it. This painting by Leonardo is unlike any other in the world. The
National Gallery has the real one. If I look at this painting hard enough, I
should somehow be able to feel its authenticity. The Virgin of the Rocks by
Leonardo da Vinci: it is authentic and therefore it is beautiful."
To dismiss such feelings as naive would be quite wrong. They accord
perfectly with the sophisticated culture of art experts for whom the National
Gallery catalogue is Avritten. The entry on the Virgin of the Rocks is one of
the longest entries. It consists of fourteen closely printed pages. They do not
deal with the meaning of the image. They deal with who commissioned the
painting, legal squabbles, who owned it, its likely date, the families of its
owners. Behind this information lie years of research. The aim of the
research is to prove beyond any shadow of doubt that the painting is a
genuine Leonardo. The secondary aim is to prove that an almost identical
painting in the Louvre is a replica of the National Gallery version.
French art historians try to prove the opposite.
The National Gallery sells more reproductions of Leonardo's cartoon
of The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist [on the next
page] than any other picture in their collection. A few years ago it was
known only to scholars. It became famous because an American wanted
to buy it for two and a half million pounds.
Now it hangs in a room by itself. The room is like a chapel. The drawing
is behind bullet-proof perspex. It has acquired a new kind of impressiveness.
152
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e
Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci
® National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY
[1452-1519]. Louvre Museum.
The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci
[1452-1519].
The bogus religiosity which now surrounds original works of art, and which
is ultimately dependent upon their market value, has become the substitute
for what paintings lost when the camera made them reproducible. Its
function is nostalgic. It is the final empty claim for the continuing values of
an oligarchic, undemocratic culture. If the image is no longer unique and
exclusive, the art object, the thing, must be made mysteriously so.
The majority of the population do not visit art museums. The following
table shows how closely an interest in art is related to privileged education.
National proportion of art museum visitors according to level of education:
Percentage of each educational category who visit art museums
Greece Poland France Holland
With no
educational
qualification 0.02
0.12
0.15
-
Greece Poland France Holland
Only
secondary
education
10.5
10.4
10
20
Only
primary
education
Further and
higher
0.30
1.50 0.45
0.50 education
11.5 11.7
12.5
17.3
Source: Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Darbel, L’Amour de I'art, Editions de Minuit, Paris 1969,
Appendix 5, table 4.
The majority take it as axiomatic that the museums are full of holy
relics which refer to a mystery which excludes them: the mystery of unac
countable wealth. Or, to put this another way, they believe that original
masterpieces belong to the preserve (both materially and spiritually) of
Of the places listed below which does a museum remind you of most?
Manual workers
Skilled and white
collar workers
Professional and
upper managerial
%
%
%
66
9
45
34
4
30.5
28
4.5
—
7
2
2
2
4.5
Church
Library
Lecture hall
Department store or
entrance hall in public
building
Church and library
Church and lecture hall
Library and lecture haU
None of these
No reply
9
4
—
__
4
8
2
4
100 (n = 53)
100 (n = 98)
Source: as above. Appendix 4, table 8.
2
19.5
9
100 (n = 99)
WAYS OF SEEING
Not because of what it shows — not because of the meaning of its image.
It has become impressive, mysterious, because of its market value.
154
«9
the rich. Another table indicates what the idea of an art gallery suggests
to each social class.
In the age of pictorial reproduction the meaning of paintings is no
longer attached to them; their meaning becomes transmittable: that is to
say it becomes information of a sort, and, like all information, it is either
put to use or ignored; information carries no special authority within
itself. AAThen a painting is put to use, its meaning is either modified or
totally changed. One should be quite clear about what this involves. It is
not a question of reproduction failing to reproduce certain aspects of an
image faithfully; it is a question of reproduction making it possible, even
inevitable, that an image will be used for many different purposes and
that the reproduced image, unlike an original work, can lend itself to them
all. Let us examine some of the ways in which the reproduced image lends
itself to such usage.
Reproduction isolates a detail of a painting from the whole. The detail
is transformed. An allegorical figure becomes a portrait of a girl.
Venus and Mars by Botticelli [1445-1510].
155
WAYS OF SEEIN G
When a painting is reproduced by a film camera it inevitably becomes
material for the film-maker's argument.
A film which reproduces images of a painting leads the spectator,
through the painting, to the film-maker's own conclusions. The painting
lends authority to the film-maker. This is because a film unfolds in time
and a painting does not. In a film the way one image follows another, their
succession, constructs an argument which becomes irreversible. In a
painting all its elements are there to be seen simultaneously. The specta
tor may need time to examine each element of the painting but whenever
he reaches a conclusion, the simultaneity of the whole painting is there to
reverse or qualify his conclusion. The painting maintains its own author
ity [below]. Paintings are often reproduced with words around them.
Procession to Calvary by Breughel [1525-1569].
This is a landscape of a cornfield with birds flying out of it. Look at it
for a moment [below]. Then turn the page. [See page 157].
It is hard to define exactly how the words have changed the image
but undoubtedly they have. The image now illustrates the sentence.
In this essay each image reproduced has become part of an argument
which has little or nothing to do with the painting's original independent
meaning. The words have quoted the paintings to confirm their own ver
bal authority....
Reproduced paintings, like all information, have to hold their own
against all the other information being continually transmitted.
Consequently a reproduction, as well as making its own references to
the image of its original, becomes itself the reference point for other im
ages. The meaning of an image is changed according to what one sees
Wheatfield with Crows by Van Gogh [1853-1890].
157
WAYS OF SEEING
IfUs
ihet^ Von
pemtecL
bejbft, tUL kt'tuj hMTisiJf-
immediately beside it or what comes immediately after it. Such authority
as it retains, is distributed over the whole context in which it appears.
Because works of art are reproducible, they can, theoretically, be used
by anybody. Yet mostly — in art books, magazines, films, or within gilt frames
in living-rooms - reproductions are still used to bolster the illusion that
nothing has changed, that art, with its unique undiminished authority, jus
tifies most other forms of authority, that art makes inequality seem noble
and hierarchies seem thrilling. For example, the whole concept of the Na
tional Cultural Heritage exploits the authority of art to glorify the present
social system and its priorities.
The means of reproduction are used politically and commercially to
disguise or deny what their existence makes possible. But sometimes
individuals use them differently [See page 158].
Adults and children sometimes have boards in their bedrooms or
living-rooms on which they pin pieces of paper: letters, snapshots, repro
ductions of paintings, newspaper cuttings, original drawings, postcards.
On each board all the images belong to the same language and all are
more or less equal within it, because they have been chosen in a highly
personal way to match and express the experience of the room's inhabit
ant. Logically, these boards should replace museums.
What are we saying by that? Let us first be sure about what we are
not saying.
We are not saying that there is nothing left to experience before origi
nal works of art except a sense of awe because they have survived. The
way original works of art are usually approached — through museum cat
alogues, guides, hired cassettes, etc. - is not the only way they might be
approached. When the art of the past ceases to be viewed nostalgically, the
works will cease to be holy relics — although they will never re-become
what they were before the age of reproduction. We are not saying original
works of art are now useless.
158
so
oa
L
Original paintings are silent and still in a sense that information
never is. Even a reproduction hung on a wall is not comparable in this
respect for in the original the silence and stillness permeate the actual
material, the paint, in which one follows the
traces of the painter’s immediate gestures.
ORIGINAL PAINTINGS
This has the effect of closing the distance
in time between the painting of the picture
ARE SILENT AND STILL IN A SENSE
and one's own act of looking at it. In this
THAT INFORMATION NEVER IS.
special sense all paintings are contempo
rary. Hence the immediacy of their testimony.
Their historical moment is literally there before our eyes. Cezanne made
a similar observation from the painter's point of view. "A minute in the
world's life passes! To paint it in its reality, and forget everything for
that! To become that minute, to be the sensitive plate ... give the image of
what we see, forgetting everything that has appeared before our time__ '
What we make of that painted moment when it is before our eyes de
pends upon what we expect of art, and that in turn depends today upon
how we have already experienced the meaning of paintings through
reproductions.
Nor are we saying that all art can be understood spontaneously. We
are not claiming that to cut out a magazine reproduction of an archaic
Greek head, because it is reminiscent of some personal experience, and to
pin it to a board beside other disparate images, is to come to terms with
the full meaning of that head.
The idea of innocence faces two ways. By refusing to enter a conspiracy,
one remains innocent of that conspiracy. But to remain innocent may also
be to remain ignorant. The issue is not between innocence and knowledge
(or between the natural and the cultural) but between a total approach to
art which attempts to relate it to every aspect of experience and the eso
159
Woman Pouring Milk by Vermeer [1632-1675].
WAYS OF SEEIN G
teric approach of a few specialized experts who are the clerks of the nos
talgia of a ruling class in decline. (In decline, not before the proletariat,
but before the new power of the corporation and the state.) The real ques
tion is: to whom does the meaning of the art of the past properly belong?
to those who can apply it to their own lives, or to a cultural hierarchy of
relic specialists?
The visual arts have always existed within a certain preserve; origi
nally this preserve was magical or sacred. But it was also physical: it was
the place, the cave, the building, in which, or for which, the work was
made. The experience of art, which at first was the experience of ritual,
was set apart from the rest of life — precisely in order to be able to exer
cise power over it. Later the preserve of art became a social one. It entered
the culture of the ruling class, while physically it was set apart and iso
lated in their palaces and houses. During all this history the authority of
art was inseparable from the particular authority of the preserve.
What the modern means of reproduction have done is to destroy the
authority of art and to remove it — or, rather, to remove its images which
they reproduce - from any preserve. For the first time ever, images of art
have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless,
free. They surround us in the same way as a language surrounds us. They
have entered the mainstream of life over which they no longer, in them
selves, have power.
Yet very few people are aware of what has happened because the
means of reproduction are used nearly all the time to promote the illusion
that nothing has changed except that the masses, thanks to reproductions,
can now begin to appreciate art as the cultured minority once did. Under
standably, the masses remain uninterested and skeptical.
If the new language of images were used differently, it would, through
its use, confer a new kind of power. Within it we could begin to define our
experiences more precisely in areas where words are inadequate. (Seeing
comes before words.) Not only personal experience, but also the essential
historical experience of our relation to the past: that is to say the experi
ence of seeking to give meaning to our lives, of trying to understand the
history of which we can become the active agents.
The art of the past no longer exists as it once did. Its authority is lost. In
its place there is a language of images. What matters now is who uses that
language for what purpose. This touches upon questions of copyright for
reproduction, the ownership of art presses and pubhshers, the total pohcy of
public art galleries and museums. As usually presented, these are narrow
professional matters. One of the aims of this essay has been to show that
what is really at stake is much larger. A people or a class which is cut off from
its own past is far less free to choose and to act as a people or class than one
that has been able to situate itself in history. This is why — and this is the only
reason why — the entire art of the past has now become a political issue.
J. LL. Banus/Age Fotostock
Many of the ideas in the preceding essay have been taken
from another, written over forty years ago by the German
critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin.
His essay was entitled The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction. This essay is available in
English in a collection called Illuminations (Cape, London,
1970).
Walter Benjamin
NOTES
^ Seymour Slive, Frans Hals (Phaidon, London), [All notes are Berger's.]
^ This quotation is from an article written in 1923 by Dziga Vertov, the revolutionary Soviet film
director.
We were unable to reproduce all of the images from the original text of "Ways of Seeing." If
you would like to track them down, you might look for a copy of Berger's book Ways of See
ing in your college or university library. You'il find them there. — Eds.
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