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1. Chapter 1 is an introduction to visual methodologies. It shows us that there are ways to study images and break them down to better understand their content and the reactions they produce. Visual methodology allows us to become more than just spectators but it attempts to empower the viewer to critically analyze the image for more than what it portrays. Designers can utilize this method to create imagery whether ads or advertising that would create specific response from audience to produce positive or negative reactions on the subject matter. It is also beneficial to the designer to better know the content that is used to predict a final feedback from the viewer.
3. Chapter 3 is talking about compositional analysis and focuses on the site of the image itself. It forms a structure that looks on the image and elements that it is made of. To understand this, we need to study an image through the key components like Content, Color, Spatial Organization, Light, and Expressive Content. It also focuses on study of moving Images and technologies that are used to create them. This is a great concept for a designer who works in production. However, the whole analyses can relate to all designers because it includes basics of understanding how the design works, beginning from composition to color and content.
4. Content analyzes is a methodology that offers a way of conducting visual research by the means of collecting images that fall into preset categories or questions that has been researched. It allows the study of large amounts of images but it does not focus on the meaning of the image itself nor does subjectivity of the researcher. A designer can use this method to be able to research a specific topic and come up with ideas that are needed for his or her project. It is important especially for designer to be able to process the information fast enough so the work can be done in timeless manner. The example would be finding images for a magazine or traveling brochure.
5. Chapter 5 is on semiotics/semiology. It is a complex study of signs and the creation of some kind of visual meaning. The reason why it is complex is because of its use of technical vocabulary that describes how signs make sense. Simply put the signs are made of signifier and signified, an object and what describes the object without the need of a significant relationship between the two. Semiology has a strong focus on the site of the image and its compositional and social modalities. Designer can use this discipline to create ads with the meaning that is closely related to the advertised object or the viewer.
6. In Chapter 6 psychoanalysis attempts to show that every image creates an emotional effect on the viewer. This effect is based on human subjectivity, sexuality, and the unconscious reaction to images. Its strength is that it focuses on how an audience is portrayed in an image but not how it reacts to it, nor how the subject of the image feels about they’re own identity. As we can see psychoanalysis is typically used to describe sexual content of the image meaning that designer can use a specific model whether male or female to emphasize on the design and for whom the product was created. It can utilize the concept of male gaze to attract specific consumer to the product.
7. Discourse Analysis is similar to all analysis because it is also looking for specific details within the composition like text and language that image communicate to the viewer. However it is different to the Content Analysis because it does not collect masses of images in the same category. Discourse Analysis would be a good solution for a designer when applied directly to design, meaning that Discourse Analysis is a good way in creating powerful relations within the text in the ad or magazine to attract more viewers. Because this analysis were mostly used in deconstructing the political text for it’s meaning before but now it can be used in reverse to create a powerful growth in the designer career by utilizing this concept.
9. Audience Studies are important in defining the social site and audience for the image. It means that whether this image would be viewed in the social context where it was originally created or it would be moved out to the other social modality it would create different perception from the audience by which it is interpreted. So taking into consideration a social factor would greatly change the importance and meaning of the current image by the audience, meaning that Audience Studies would fit in interpreting it. It is beneficial for a designer to know what consumer thinks about their designs and products that is why setting up an interview with groups of people would help to receive feedback from them and improve on some details that consumer would not agree or would want to avoid.
10. The Anthropological approach is a discipline that is looking closer to the significance of visual images as objects and not as contextual material that needs decoding. It also utilizes at how people use visual materials by means of exchange and the social construct as a result of this exchange. In our design field it can be applied to the printing environment like packaging design. Because with packaging it is possible to create different feel and qualities to the object or artwork, this method would greatly benefit designers in this kind of work to provide consumer with not only look but also a feel of the product.
Wu Chen (Chinese, 1280-1354), Manual of Ink – Bamboo, 1350, ink on paper, National Palace Museum, Taipei.
In comparison to the Audience Studies, Anthropological approach is different in a way that it looks more to the actual materials and settings of the image rather than interviewing the audience. Audience Studies uses approach of interviewing a group of people or one-to-one interviews that explore how people make sense and understand the media. In Ethnography the research actually exists within the researched group to find factors that affect the group and lead them to specific responds. However, Anthropological approach differ from two because it does not look specifically on social aspects of the imagery but rather on the physical matter that it is made like paper, the quality of print or painting.
If we take the chosen image and apply the Anthropological approach to it we would be able to say that painting is the most historically used media for artists in China at that time. It is historically shown that Chinese people would pick specific colors and use them on the paper, cloth, and sometimes wood to create different texture and meaning to the finished artwork. If it was a silk cloth, than the value of the painting increase, but if the painting was done on the rice paper, than the value of it will decrease no matter how detailed the actual painting is.
The other factor that affects the context of the image is the way it is physically displayed. If the artwork is displayed in the emperor’s room or it was hang on the wall in the working class family. While the value of the artwork can fluctuate, the framing also can make a difference on the type of wood or type of material it was mounted.
However, the methods for interpreting image by this approach is universal for westerners, a researcher can add some of his or her values to the research depending on experience that can slightly change the ending result what is considered a weakness for this kind of approach.
Wu Chen (Chinese, 1280-1354), Manual of Ink – Bamboo, 1350, ink on paper, National Palace Museum, Taipei.
The methodologies that we discussed before mostly ignored the site of the imagery or the place where audience view the image while Audience Studies doesn’t. It means that this discipline focuses more on social qualities of the studied image and the audience site but sometimes ignores the image itself.
Interestingly, Audience Studies are important in defining the social site and audience for the image. It means that whether this image would be viewed in the social context where it was originally created or it would be moved out to the other social modality it would create different perception from the audience by which it is interpreted. So taking into consideration a social factor would greatly change the importance and meaning of the current image by the audience, meaning that Audience Studies would fit in interpreting it.
If we take the current Chinese image and view in original site that it was created than it would be more significant for the Chinese audience than if this image is viewed by Americans who does not have many associations with bamboo other than laminated bamboo floor and bamboo kitchenware. However, this painting would also change its significance if viewed in different social classes within China. If it was originally intended to viewed by emperors and high-class authorities (the proof is the quantity of seals in the painting) than it would be different for low class working people because depending on each family and their history they might have different connotations with the bamboo and painting in general. However in America people may not understand this artwork at all for the reason that they have no personal associations with anything that is drawn there. It may change the view on the original intention for what the painting was created making it worthless and useless for this society.
Wu Chen (Chinese, 1280-1354), Manual of Ink – Bamboo, 1350, ink on paper, National Palace Museum, Taipei.
Discourse Analysis is similar to all analysis because it is also looking for specific details within the composition like text and language that image communicates to the viewer. However it is different to the Content Analysis because it does not collect masses of images in the same category. It is also different to the Semiotics because it is not that technical and the core of Discourse Analysis to look for text not the signs. The last difference with Psychoanalysis is that it would not pick sexuality within the imagery as main component for its research. The most disadvantages would be that Discourse Analysis does avoid the setting and environment form where the imagery would be viewed and experienced.
Discourse Analysis would be a good solution for a designer when applied directly to design, meaning that Discourse Analysis is a good way in creating powerful relations within the text in the ad or magazine to attract more viewers. Because this analysis were mostly used in deconstructing the political text for it’s meaning before but now it can be used in reverse to create a powerful growth in the designer career by utilizing this concept.
Unfortunately it is no way to find out what the text in the Chinese image says but we know from history that most artistic compositions used poems in their imagery to describe a feeling or ideas of the artist who drew the painting. It is also known that the poem would mostly include philosophical meaning behind it to create a deeper feel to the whole artwork because people would interpret the message based on their background and cultural differences within Provinces in China. However if you take the message out of the cultural content of the image to the Europe for example, than it might loose its meaning and significance. The seals that are used in the painting would point out on how many people did appreciate it based on the quantity of seals around the image.
Wu Chen (Chinese, 1280-1354), Manual of Ink – Bamboo, 1350, ink on paper, National Palace Museum, Taipei.
Chapter 6 talks about psychoanalysis and methods that are used to decode images. Through this discipline we can find that any image has an effect on the viewer through unconscious mind, sexuality, and human subjectivity. The viewer and his/her sexuality would generate the outcome depending on who is portrayed in the image, whether male or female, nude or not, and what is the setting in the image. Unfortunately psychoanalysis as a theory ignores all aspects of the image other than sexuality that creates a limited access and loss of information.
As we can see psychoanalysis is typically used to describe sexual content of the image. The most part it deals with defining the sexual difference within the image to be able to indentify the audience it was produced and created for. However, to be able to do that the visual imagery would have to contain people of some sort to create a statement. Because it is based on sexuality, the image that is reviewed would not contain enough data to support this definition.
In the book there are many examples of images containing human figures that are defined as follows. On the page 127 (Visual Methodologies) there is an image from the movie “Hitchcock’s Vertigo” that is described using the “male gaze” and “castration complex” approaches to the cinema. It has been said that the hero in the movie follows a woman and the degree of his obsession with her.
By these facts we can see that psychoanalysis would be successfully used in defining human characters in the cinema or images containing human figures (page 116, Visual Methodologies) and not images that contain purely vegetation or paintings that contain nature as a dominant structure to its visual because nature does not contain sexuality as sexuality is a human created definition that is used to describe sexuality of males and females or humans but not the environment and bamboos.
Wu Chen (Chinese, 1280-1354), Manual of Ink – Bamboo, 1350, ink on paper, National Palace Museum, Taipei.
Semiological analysis is basically a sign language that makes sense, which have scientific concept behind it to organize thoughts and have a detailed and more accurate analysis. While Content analysis is similar to Semiological analysis, the key difference is that it has consistent analysis accuracy in any country, in any place and can be repeated with as many times as possible. In contrast, Compositional analysis is based on the image itself as a source but social values are also taken into consideration.
The most obvious signs that are present on the painting above are Yellow color and Bamboo. As for the most Westerners, East was always associated with the icon of rising sun, hence the yellow color. The yellow color usually represents stillness. On the other hand, bamboo was associated with Asian cultures most of the time because it predominant in China. Bamboo is a spirit of summer and for the most Chinese people, the bamboo is associated with their home.
Yellow color was always considered as a warm color because it has a good visibility that is one of the reasons why the yellow is used in the road signs. Moreover, the yellow color brings happiness but can also represent dishonesty. In China, the yellow color is associated with ‘An’ – tranquility.
Bamboo is a very poplar luxuriant plant in China. It stands upright, evergreen that survives intense cold, therefore symbolizes strength, energy and vitality. Throughout the history of China, this plant was used by many artists in their paintings, calligraphy, and poetry to express their ideas and philosophies. When bamboo is portrayed with plum blossom and pine, it is called ‘Three Friends of Winter’, but when it is portrayed with plum blossom, orchid, and chrysanthemum, it is called ‘Four Gentlemen of Noble Character’.
The yellow color can be compared to the other signs from the same image – a seal. Yellow color contains spatial organization to the viewer as it fills the whole space of the image. It meant to be viewed and attracted to because of the attention connotation of a stoplight and sunlight embedded to it, where the seal color has the same qualities but it also contains history and meaning of the seal depending on the artist who draw the painting.
The bamboo sign in the image can be compared with calligraphy. The bamboo and bamboo leaves are designed with special attraction to the viewer as it has a spatial organization that contains specific arrangement of the icons within the image. It is balanced and the ‘weight’ feel is unified and stable. The bamboo is heading straight up the same way as the calligraphy that is placed from the left side of the image. The calligraphy itself has some resemblance of leaves with the bamboo axis going up creating the equilibrium between image and text in the given space.
Conclusion
There are many factors that affect the way when the artist decides to create an artwork and arrange the objects within the image. However, because of many limitations that is present in the visual appearance and the lack of people in the image, the spatial organization usually used to attract the viewer to the composition and to the specific design of the artwork.
The content analysis is a system, a methodology, that is used to determine and analyze the content in communication through various of media such as magazines, television, paintings, books, and others. It is using a scientific method to determine, test, and analyze messages for the purpose of understanding social behavior of popular culture and how the presented media affects it.
http://www1.chinaculture.org/library/2008-01/14/content_77518_5.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admonitions_Scroll
http://antiquesandthearts.com/Antiques/TradeTalk/2007-08-21__10-25-51.html
http://www.interculturallearning.net/2007/10/21/chinese-perspetives-on-attraction-and-beauty/
http://arts.cultural-china.com/en/77Arts6190.html
http://www.artinlive.com/ricepaper-painting
http://arts.cultural-china.com/en/77Arts6571.html
1. World location
2. Age of those depicted
3. Surroundings of people photographed
4. Activity level of main foreground people
5. Activity type of main foreground figures
1. The world location is China and was observed in all of the given images – 100%
2. The age of the figures that are present on the paintings varies from age 30 to 85. Figures of 30 years of age presented in 10% out of 10 paintings; 35 years old in 85% out of 10 paintings and 85 years old in 5% of the paintings respectively.
3. The surrounding was clearly portrayed in 4 four pictures out of 10 and is indeed resemble the nature. The other 6 has neutral surroundings defined mostly by colors or the paper.
4. The activity level of main foreground people were observed in the pictures and can be described as a passive, calm, and spiritual state. It varies from 20% to 85%.
5. The conversation between groups of people was present in 2 out of 10 paintings and is therefore are 20%. The other 50% were figure posing. The rest 30% were meditative.
The overall activity was observed in all of the pictures provided. It varies on the complexity and load of the foreground figures and how they interact within the image. The most activity was found where the characters communicated with each other on the pictures 1 and 10. The least amount of activity was found in the image that has one character and almost none of the emotional load.
As it is seen in the chart above, the average age of those depicted is 35. About 85 percent of the total portrayed figures are in that age group. The youngest character in the artwork number 3 is 30 years old.
Wu Chen (Chinese, 1280-1354), Manual of Ink – Bamboo, 1350, ink on paper, National Palace Museum, Taipei.
Chapter 3 basically describes how the image should be described as someone perceives it focusing mostly on Spatial Organization and media effects that would not apply at this particular still image.
The Perspective category is clearly spotted while observing the bamboo shoots that are in the center of the image that attracts attention. The perspective can estimate by saying that the bamboo that is closer is bigger than the one that it further away. It would not apply to the middle stem because it meant to be thinner than the other two.
The light that is spread among the image is yellow, soft, and generally creates a warm feeling. The most dominated colors are yellow and orange with variation of shades. The actual spectrum gives and ambient feel to the whole composition that creates dynamic and movement of bamboo in the air.
The image is pretty much filled with the volume of objects that it contains. However, because of the right balance of dense spaces, the amount of bamboo and text would become relatively even.
The actual lines of the bamboo are mostly straight and sharp blending together with the smooth characters. The relation sense between them is very relative but visually creates rhythm of the pattern.
Measurements of the each particular objects were even and there is a way to say that the actual bamboo stays symmetrically in the center. To balance the heavy base of the bamboo with the heavy type placed on the left.
Also, the image does not create a feeling of distorted depth because it doesn’t have a particular background image.
The interval between the objects was created ahead as a compositional thought before the actual painting was made.
The actual feel of the whole image would be categorized as Expressive content. The artwork that is used in this particular example has very balanced feel to it as a whole. Most objects and texts are unified and the empty space between the objects creates stability and grounded sight to the plant and the whole composition.
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Wu Chen (Chinese, 1280-1354), Manual of Ink – Bamboo, 1350, ink on paper, National Palace Museum, Taipei.
In the first Chapter of Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials, Rose describes of how the society changed views especially in Western Society. That is why she argues that Westerns accept visual as the center part of their society because we are all surrounded by imagery more than in our “antique times” and it plays a greater role in understanding and interpreting the world around us.
Later on in the Chapter, Rose mentions about Visual Culture and five aspects of it and the way the image “works”. Then she moves to the way she uses to interpret and describe images and it should be taken seriously, as she says. The viewer has to view the image from his or her own way of seeing to be able to understand it. Rose describes Sites and Modalities to further illustrate her point and how to go about the image, its production, and audience. The three modalities are Technological, Compositional, and Social.
1. I would apply my views and explanation of the first image based on Gilian Rose detailed techniques that she mentions in the first Chapter.
As we can see the image is from China and done by Wu Chen around 1280-1354. At that time there were a great influence of Yuan Dynasty on the all major artworks and social structure (1). The first thing that is seen on the paining is bamboo, then the text, and the seals all around it. The yellow color adds some warmth and exceptional ambient feel to image as a whole. It appears that the image was created for emperor and his visitors because of the quantity of the seals that are present on the painting.
The paining itself praises a big commitment of the author and the way he wants to represent his ideas to the public or emperor. The fist thing is concentration or meditation was used to be able to focus and imagine how the layout would look on paper when it is finished. The other thing is to have enough of talent and experience to be able to place that thought on the paper. It was usually done by using a rice paper with watercolors and a good variety of brushes to work with.
The composition of image that we see is well balanced by using bamboo in the middle and text from the left. The whole composition has depth to it and it can be seen that some part of the plant are closer than the other because of the thickness of the ink applied on paper.
The main important part of the image is seals. Seals for the most part can describe a feeling, a person, or the wish. Just by seeing the artwork it is easy to tell that there are a lot of seals used and that means that the social modality here is present and that work has come a long way and is very appreciated by the audience. More seals = more value to the painting and that means a lot for the social surroundings and audience.
In conclusion I would say that these kinds of paintings posses great challenge like the time period it was created not only for the author but for the viewer as well. It combines mental stability, organization, concentration, and various paining techniques that create such an artwork that stays with audience for many years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erUMp1WZ6l4&feature=related
2. We can also apply all of this information for the second image. A “Second Wind” is actually a cartoon video that was originally created by few people on www.aniboom.com. It is a website created specifically for artistic people who can create videos and short clips depending on the assignment from aniboom.
The actual visual presentation of the artwork is quite unique. As we can see from the first seconds of the movie the style resembles Asian motives. A big cat as a main character, the pound with Japanese Koi Carp fish, and later an anime style glowworm will proof the claim of overall visual comes or inspired from Asian culture.
It seems that the author tried its best to mimic a kind of abstract atmosphere by using music and creating exaggerated characters with a specific kind of cubic forms. The actual composition seems balanced with dull colors and the contrast that is used throughout the video. However, the actual place where the action takes place is unknown. It is very mystic, magical but at the same time is believable. The green nature with trees, ponds and fields make me think of something not very far away but away from civilization. The only thing that distorts the view is that in the middle of the movie the characters play a soccer ball that looks kind of out of place because how the author created the perception at the beginning of the video and mood with it.
The complete idea of the art piece is clear. Two best friends where all the time together travelling around, eating, fishing, and playing. But, at some point when the old man was playing soccer with cat he found a glowworm with which he enjoyed the game even more. After cat has found out that the old man is busy with the game, he became mad and felt offended. By taking of the ball and killing a glowworm the cat was not punished, the one who got punished is the old man.
An interesting fact is that the even though the story ends at the happy point of the old man being alive, my feeling toward this is that the cat actually got punished and from now on to keep the man alive he always have to blow a wind. It is like a second chance for the cat for what he did by killing the glowworm.
(1) http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/XYZ.html#anchor1056095
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