Defining Visual Rhetorics Book

This was a stimulating book that taught me a great deal. The articles were wide ranging from samplers to Victorian architectural advice books. The power of photographs was demonstrated in the article about the way in which the photo of young Robert Jr. saluting his father's coffin was used at the death of Jackie Kennedy as well as at the death of Robert himself in a plane accident. The photo resonated with the American people because of its innocence in a time of national tragedy. The article on campaign video biographies seemed to me to show that a visual document could make an a persuasive argument. The way in which women represented nature in images of women lying prone on the beach while being caressed by men, contrasted with the rugged nature to be conquered by men with mountains and deserts to be dominated was another example of how ads use images to deceive. There was also an article about how unhealthy cigarettes were sold by showing the rugged Marlboro man. Over and over again the different authors showed how global corporate capitalism urged consumerism on us. The discussion of the Wild Oats grocery store set up images to try and make people comfortable with the exploitation of farmers throughout the world to feed their customers at high prices. Recreating a more neighborly time with a butcher slicing the meat and fruit and vegetables not in packages. There was also an interesting article on the evolution of charts and figures to simply show complex information such as the economics of immigration and migration. These visual aides were not objective as they might have seen. They also conveyed ideology as they used different shapes and colors to explain economic and social material. The article on the sampler was interesting, connecting it with the Bayeux Tapestry. Embroidery was at one point women's way of expressing ideas visually. By the 18th and 19th centuries, text dominated the sampler instead of images. This book made me think of all the visual images that existed throughout time, the graffiti on Roman tombs, the statues in Greece and who wasn't among those depicted, stained glass windows in churches and paintings and murals. In a non-literate world there were many images it seems to me. Those prehistoric drawings on the cave walls. There is the rhetoric of the word and the image as well as the rhetoric of their interaction. Some of the earlier articles laid out the theory while most chapters gave specific examples of how visual rhetoric worked in so many different venues such as the charts we see throughout textbooks and articles. Always look beyond the surface and ask what is the message that the image is conveying. The constant echo of that image of the flag being planted in Iwo Jima. Think of the different power of the image of a beheading and that of execution by lethal ejection. Now that is an article that would almost write itself. The article on Vertigo was an example of how the close-up was used as well as some of those other shots for which Hitchcock was famous. This is a book that leaves one with a great deal more to think about.