Characteristics of Pictorial Representation Symbol and Story in Art

Iconography

Iconography was developed by art historian Erwin Panofsky, equally a ways of expanding across formal assay, and focusing on analyzing subject area matter in artwork, specifically symbols whose meaning is understood by a people or culture in that specific time (Rose 202, Sayre 32). For example, in the Western world we are familiar with what a Buddha statue looks like, only most Western people likely have no idea that the position of the hands in the statue carries symbolic meaning (Sayre 33). If you are a Buddhist all the same, you lot would read a specific meaning into the paw gesture and position. Symbolic meanings in artwork may also be lost over fourth dimension even within the culture that created them (Sayre 35).

January van Eyck, Arnolfini Portrait, 1434, oil on canvas. Piece of work is in the public domain.

January van Eyck'south painting, Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife Giovanna Cenami, from 1434, is often used as a prototype example for iconographic analysis, and the conflicts that arise within it. Equally a painter, Van Eyck was revered for his incredible ability to mimic realism and the effects of lite. The painting'southward many symbols, some of Christian origin, have been a source of some debate. It was widely accustomed as a painting representing a marriage, but recent controversy suggests information technology is more a record of engagement than a wedding portrait. In van Eyck's time, a adult female laying her hands in the palm of a male person, as she and then conspicuously does in the painting, was understood to exist an agreement to wed (Sayre 35). Above the mirror in the heart of the groundwork are the words "Jan van Eyck has been here, 1434." To contemporary ears this almost sounds like a bit of playful graffiti, but it also clearly establishes the painter as a witness to the effect beingness painted (Sayre 35).

Additional resource:

• More on Jan van Eyck
• 
Image of Giovanni Arnolfini and his married woman Giovanna Cenami
• A recent article on the Arnolfini wedding portrait

Iconography shares similarities to semiotics in interpreting signs (in semiotics signs tin can be symbols) on both a denotive and connotative level. Iconography is typically used in analyzing works from the past, as Gillian Rose notes, typically Western figurative images from the 16th through 18th centuries (202). While semiotics is more than frequently used to clarify more contemporary visual culture, similar advertising.

Artists continue to use symbolic visual language. Though artist Jean-Michele Basquiat'southward life and career were tragically cutting short by a drug overdose, he developed a rich vocabulary of symbolism that mixed individual and public meanings. Using his neo-expressionist style he drew inspiration from prominent African Americans, such as Dizzy Gillespie, Muhammad Ali, and Sugar Ray Robinson (Rosenberg). Equally Sayre points out, central to his personal iconography was a three pointed crown, a symbol he related to himself, merely likewise his African American heroes (37). He was familiar with the Symbol Sourcebook: An Authoritative Guide to International Graphic Symbols, past Henry Dreyfuss, and was drawn to the department on "hobo signs," in particular the "X" which inside the hobo civilisation was a signal that a place was okay (Sayre 37). Of course, the 'X' is a common symbol with multiple meanings. An "X" could be used to mark a spot and constitute its importance, or in essence, to eliminate something by crossing it out. And, co-ordinate to Sayre, this is often the hard and ambiguous position Basquiat's African American heroes found themselves in, in 20th century America (37). In his 1982 painting Charles the First, Charles is a reference to both Charlie Parker and Charles I of England, who was beheaded by Protestants (Sayre 37). Included in the painting is the text, "Almost kings get their head cutting off."

Additional resources:

• Read more on Jean-Michele Basquiat
• Examples of his use of symbolism
• A more than in-depth reading "Iconographic Analysis" past Marjorie Munsterberg

Semiotics

The formalism yous skilful in module two is focused on compositional analysis by being descriptive. Semiotics offers another style of analyzing images, be they found in artwork or another type of visual civilisation, like advertising. Semiotics is the study of signs. In semiotics the basic unit is the sign. Signs are representations that have meanings beyond what they literally correspond. Signs can come in visual or auditory form- equally in linguistic communication or sounds. Signs are everywhere, non but in art. Semiotics offers a way to interruption an image into its constituent parts- its signs, and trace how they relate to each other, and other systems of meaning (Rose 105).

Signified and Signifier

In semiotics the image itself is the focus and the most important site of significant (Rose 108). The signs in an paradigm are analyzed into ii parts, the signified and signifier. The signified is the concept or thing the representation stands in for. The signifier is the representation. For example, in a photo with a baby in it— the infant is the signifier, and the signified could be youth, or the time to come, or some other clan that we make with the representation of a baby.

Icon, index, symbol

There are three basic types of signs: icon, index, and symbol. Icons acquit a very close visual relationship to the thing they represent. An icon of a woman might be a photograph of an actual adult female. An indexical sign points to the matter it represents or bears some relationship to the thing it represents, but is ane step removed. An example of an indexical sign of a adult female is the elementary illustration of a woman that you find on restrooms designated for women. A symbol is arbitrary, and bears no relation to the affair information technology represents. An instance of a symbol for women is the circle/cross shape that signifies the female gender.

Female gender symbol

A curt video on Semiotics and the Icon/Index/Symbol distinctions:

Some other example of a symbol is the American flag. If you were raised in America, you are taught that it stands for the land America and national pride, and perchance other meanings like freedom, but how the flag looks is capricious. It could just as easily have taken on some other graphic representation, and still have been coded with those meanings, just like the flags of other countries share a similar national significance in those other cultures.

Denotative and Connotative meanings

Signs can have denotative, or literal pregnant, and connotative meanings that are in addition to their literal meaning. Signs exist in relationship to other signs. Signs also connect to wider systems of meaning that are conventionalized meanings shared past detail groups of people or cultures (Rose 128). This is referred to as codes. Because signs tin can often be polysemic, or have multiples meanings, unpacking their meanings fully can be very complex. Information technology is accepted, withal, that within specific groups/cultures, and particular times, at that place are frequently preferred or dominant readings of signs that are interpreted in ways intended to retain the institutional/political/idealogical order imprinted on them for that time (Rose 133).

Advertisers brand design choices with transference in mind. They intend for specific meanings to be transferred from i sign to some other. Think of how oftentimes you take seen a new motorcar advertisement where the car and some kind sexualized representation of a woman are paired together. What is the intended transference of meaning between these two signs, the car and the woman? Consider how focus groups are used to figure out what will be the most effective tactic to use in selling a product to the target consumer. Focus groups are a way of researching the target consumer's codes. What signs will they pay attention to and translate in such a way that will ultimately manufacture desire for that production?

Steps in Conducting a Basic Semiotic Analysis:

• Decide what the signs are.
• Decide what they signify 'in themselves'.
• Consider how they relate to other signs.
• Explore their connections to wider systems of pregnant, from codes to ideologies.

Consider these questions in relation to this 2009 Levis Ad for their "Go Forth" campaign directed by Cary Fukunaga for Portland'south Weiden+Kennedy Advertising Agency.

Styles of dress are kinds of signs. In Western culture nosotros consider the suit to be a visual indicate for business. In connectedness, people who work in white neckband jobs are sometimes referred to informally as "suits." In the ad there is a man in a suit, presumably a white collar worker. We might infer past other signs like the limousine that he is wealthy or powerful. How does the handling of the man in the conform compare with the other figures who announced in the advertizing? The neon sign of the discussion "America" is partially submerged. What does this signify? Through out the ad their are loud banging sounds. What do these auditory signs signify? Considering the signs in this advert, what do you think Levi'southward wants you to acquaintance with their brand and products?

Works Cited

Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching Visual Materials. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2012. Print.

Rosenberg, Bonnie. Jean-Michele Basquiat, American Painter. The Art Story. Spider web. xviii August 2015.

Sayre, Henry. A World of Art, Sixth edition. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2010. Impress.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/masteryart1/chapter/reading-the-fourth-level-of-meaning-iconography/

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