Roland Barthes The Rhetoric Of The Image Analysis

III. Purpose and stance; Here’s where we “read” the ad and describe it – visual rhetoric

It is said that “The true content of a photograph is invisible, for it derives from a play not with form but with time”. This makes me think that the real content of a picture, which is what the photographer tried to express, is not evident to perceive unless an explanatory text is provided. In fact, I believe that our perceptions of pictures changes over time as the historical context do. In addition, our opinions are never fixed as they are influenced by our environment. Therefore, when looking at a particular picture at a given time, it is certain that our perception of it will be different in the future based on what happen between the first time and second time we saw it.

Questions reader should ask when trying to determine symbolic meaning: “what’s the writer doing with this image, this object, this act; what possibilities are suggested by the movement of the narrative or the lyric; and most important, what does it feel like it’s doing?” (Foster 59).

1. Foster refers to “language of reading” as the set of rules readers used to analyze the piece of writing. He believes that readers must be alert of the real intentions of the writing by following three important items: memory, symbol, and pattern. As the word suggests memory means remembering information, for instance, professors have the ability to associate the reading to a previous work they had read. In the same way, readers have to be aware of a symbol in which they can “predispose to see things presented how they are but also simultaneously they can represent something completely different.” In the chapters devoted to the symbol, he selected motives such as food in the sense of communion or drowning, to train the reader to forecast by the appearance of these and other elements with the idea of encouraging their “symbolic imagination.” On the other hand, a pattern is a phenomenon that permits us to predict what will happen in the story by comparing it to other pieces of work. This last item, it is strictly related to “symbolic imagination”, because from this ability to detach of the story “and look beyond” the next pages it results pattern recognition. Overall, we can say that memory, symbol, and pattern are significant for the “language of reading” due to the increase these items caused for a better

“Masque of the Red Death”, “The Lady of Shallot” and Edward Scissor hands are replete with symbolism universal symbols help readers gain a deeper meaning out of a text and can help readers make connections using several texts. The color black and works of art are symbols that can be found in all three works; in each work each symbol has a different purpose. while these three words have some symbols in common, they also have important symbols that are unique to each literary piece. These symbols are important because they reveal ideas and concepts that enrich meaning in literature.

In John Berger’s essay “Ways of Seeing,” he shares his view on how he feels art is seen. Mr. Berger explores how the views of people are original and how art is seen very differently. By comparing certain photographs, he goes on to let his Audience, which is represented as the academic, witness for themselves how art may come across as something specific and it can mean something completely different depending on who is studying the art. The author goes into details of why images were first used, how we used to analyze art vs how we do today, and the rarity of arts. He is able to effectively pass on his message by using the strategies of Rhetoric, which include Logos, Pathos, and Ethos.

“Function, which I have made central to the evaluation of imagery from a rhetorical perspective, is not, then, the function its creator intended but rather the action the image communicates, as named by the critic.” (Foss, 1994; 216)

Today’s quick-moving world of technology has media texts such as advertisements to make sure that people understand with just a glance. Having adverts on magazines, social media and billboards allow them to use tools such as semiology, genre and narrative because it makes their messages clear instantly. These signs allow us to carry meaning through advertisements, connotations and the signification process. These tools let brands, mainly celebrities, and the option to produce and create a myth of the product such as “Be daring. Be an inspiration” to sell it to the world. We are in a time where advertisers use ‘simplicity’ in their adverts; there are no more paragraphs. It is mainly down to the person and the few words shown in that advert.

Secondly, the medium that Hoch and Rosenquist use witnesses how mass media, industrialization, and mass consumption marched. The photomontage is like a poster or a magazine page while the oil painting is like most large-scale billboard paintings. The Beautiful Girl and The Light That Won’t Fail I are given the feel of an advertisement. In Hoch’s photomontage and Rosenquist ‘soil painting, we see Hoch and Rosenquist were engaging with the new forms of mass media of their time periods. Hoch, as Dadaist, made a great contribution to developing photomontage as medium of representation. Dada artists replaced paint all together, making use exclusively of ready-made

Photographs are also manifestations of time and records of experience. Consequently, writings on photographic theory are filled with references to representations of the past. Roland Barthes (1981, 76), for instance,

Like the Abstract Expressionist paintings of the tormented artist son in Pasolini's TEOREMA (1968), the received cultural baggage and semiotic referentiality of the image is eliminated until all that remains is purest subjectivity of the spectator. And so, picture-making technology mediates reality only up to a point: once the threshold of referentiality has been crossed, the suspicion of a murder in the park gleaned from a series of enlarged photographs would seem to say more about Thomas' own paranoid state of mind than what his camera may or may not have

When analysing all of the advertising around us, sometimes we don’t look at what the true message of a commercial really is. We live in a world that is controlled by mass media and because of this advertisers are trying harder each year to outdo themselves and their competitors. Rhetors use techniques in their advertisements such as fantasies or surrealism to catch the attention of their audience. Companies like Audi pour millions of dollars into their marketing teams to make sure their cars look the best and attract consumers. Commercials that are shown on television today are great examples of rhetorical artifacts because of the many techniques being exercised by the rhetor. Analyzing this through the lens of rhetorical

The essay written below disputes the literary devices of imagery and tone in order to provide background and symbolism in

Analytic philosophy had major influences on theories of meaning and the discussion of language. In this paper, I will discuss some of the most significant people in this period and analyze the success or lack of success for each theory in the period of analytic philosophy. The names of discussion are Bertrand Russell, Alfred Ayer, and Saul Kripke. While other influencers of analytic philosophy certainly exist, I will focus on these authors. Each writer was a founder of a movement of thought or a beginning step to change in analytic philosophy, so their theories have major consequences on the understanding on language and meaning. In particular, Russell was a major voice in the circles of descriptivism, Ayer was a logical empiricist, and Kripke focused on modality and possibility. Rather than describe each of these authors’ views on their respective movements, I will focus on the consequences of their views on a particular model in the philosophical discussion of meaning: the iron triangle. This model is a description of meaning with three points based on knowledge, the method of learning that knowledge, and the possibility of that knowledge. In this paper, I will describe each philosopher’s ideas on the iron triangle, Ayer’s specific project on the model, and Kripke’s subsequent challenges to Ayer.

This essay will discuss Roland Barthes’ ideas and his semiotic tools, and will also look at how Barthes uses these tools to analyse images and how they make us think.