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Usually we read an image as an entity and often in a given context, but when attempting to uncover its many layers of meaning and/or purpose it is also expedient to systematise and organise one’s reading of its formal elements in more phases:
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l. Formal data:Presenting facts |
2. Primary description:
Identifying the picture's subject. |
3.
Formal analysis: The effect of formal choices
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4. Interpretation:
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Describe as objectively as possible and in your
own words what you actually see.
On this level it is important to concentrate on what you actually see and leave out irrelevant subjective feelings or associations. |
All visual elements involved in picture analysis
are listed in the menu to the left and will be discussed and illustrated in further detail
below. You can jump to any of them directly from the menu. When all visual elements are properly analysed and compared, it is possible to determine which elements play the most important part in depicting the subject.
When all such observations are reassembled and seen
as an entity, |
Through a synthesis of the two
initial steps (description and formal analysis) one can make qualified
attempts at interpretation, using different approaches. a. Iconography (based on Erwin Panofsky) b. Semiotics (e.g. based on Roland Barthes) Especially Roland Barthes emphasises that an interpretation will never be completely objective, since both one's own personality and the context in which the picture was created will determine the outcome. It is therefore very important to substantiate one’s interpretation of a given picture by drawing upon concrete observations from the description and analysis, from one's knowledge of the sender, the context and purpose of the picture. Contextual data, such as philosophical, religious or aesthetic currents or time-specific use of symbols, references to politics and cultural codes is, of course, an integral part of any interpretation. |
Elements of Formal Analysis, Step by Step |
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A. COMPOSITIONWhen we speak of the composition of a given picture, we stick to a 2-dimensional
pattern and identify the pattern in which the various elements in the
picture are organised on the surface, that is, we identify the way colours,
form and lines are structured on the canvas/paper. An account of compositional principles and their characteristics is provided below. Its sections should be understood as rules-of-thumbs for reading the main structure of a picture, bearing in mind that more principles can - and most often do - appear in combinations. |
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Compositional principle |
Characteristics |
Examples & Exercises |
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STATIC / HARMONIC |
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| This compositional pattern is typically used
in depictions of open landscapes. Depending on the placing of the horizontal
lin, the landscape is endowed with different characteristics. |
In the examples to the right the Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael has placed the horizontal line two different places on the canvas, and the thumbnail sketches indicate the schematic governing principle behind the two compositional patterns he has used.
Exercise 1:Give an account of the effect of the position of the horizontal line Exercise 2:
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| Vertical lines create a strong sense of order
and stringent structure if they dominate the picture plane. Their distribution
across the picture plane can, however, create very different effects.
For example, if a vertical line is placed along the central axis of a
picture, the result is a symmetrical composition, signaling immobility
and perhaps even eternity.
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The two picture links below illustrate how one or more vertical axes can be distributed differently across the picture plane. In both pictures the subject is the crucifixion of Christ, and the dominating compositional principle is that of the vertical line, but the effect varies. How? Although the first painting by Perugino is symmetrically composed, there is still a sense of subtle movement in the painting. This effect is due to the circular movements of the four accompanying figures on the ground. The movement is, however, toned down due to the exact repetition of symmetrically arranged counter movements so that all movements in the end seem to neutralise each other as illustrated below. What is left is rather a sense of silent rhythm, keeping the central figure in focus.
Exercise 3: Describe the compositional principle in one of the ad photos below and account for its effect, including a comment on the sense of movement in the photograph.a. Ad photo for Evian )Photographer: Atul Kasbekar (http://www.atulkasbekar.com/commercial36.html) b.
Commercial for Perceive (by Avon) Photographer: Dean Isidro (http://www.imagesdeparfums.fr.st/) |
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The circle is especially used to emphasise divinity, eternity or plain rhythm. Especially the use of the circular arc as the main compositional principle can endow an image with a harmonic “reading” rhythm. Not only the divine connotations of the circular composition have a long history in the world of art, but also the allusion to the cyclic is often illustrated by means of the circle. |
Renaissance artists such as the painter Raphael and the architect Brunelleschi typically used the circular arc to combine a divine expression with a steady harmonic and rhythmic flow.
In the advertising industry, the circle is therefore often used to imply that the product is of unlimited endurance.
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Both the isosceles triangle and the equilateral triangle connote harmony or even divinity. Think, for example, of the Holy Trinity (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) or consider religious art and its depictions of divine saints, such as the Virgin Mary, St. John the Baptist with Christ. Such saints are very often depicted in triangular compositions due to the religious connotations of the triangle. Typically, Christ is placed at the apex.
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b. Dockers (From Luerzer's archive, http://www.luerzersarchive.com)
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| ”The Golden Section” is a compositional
principle that has interested philosophers and artists for thousands of
years and which has been believed for centuries to possess a certain unrivalled
beauty and harmony. The legend tells about a philosopher named Eudoxos who once wandered around with a stick and asked a random number of people to place a mark on his stick precisely where it would be most beautifully divided in their opinion. According to the legend, the vast majority put their mark exactly where the stick was divided in the golden section. Greek philosophers, e.g. Platon, Euclid and Pythagoras, who lived a few
centuries B.C., studied the golden proportions of the world order, whether
universally, in nature, in music or the human proportions.
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A mathematical definition of the divine proportion of the Golden Section: In the diagram below there are TWO lines, namely AC (the red line) and
CB
(the blue line). The point C is therefore the Golden section
This (divine) proportion between AC and CB is the exact equivalent to that of AB and AC. Example: Exercise 5:Comment on the use of the Golden Section in the advertisement below:
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| It can - and has - been argued that cropping an image is similar to the use of synecdoche in linguistic production. Sometimes cropping is
employed to let a fragment of a person, object, place or concept denote
the whole. The signifier is the fragment and the signified is the person, object, place or concept to which the fragment refers. |
My claim is that currently the use of what I propose to term "visual synechdoche" is very popular in the images that we encounter daily on the internet, in printed advertisements, and in contemporary art. It is difficult to explain why, but one explanation - and in my point
of view a very plausible one - could be that the lack of immediate overview
inherent in such visual effects mirrors contemporary life and our fluctuating
life style of TV zapping, superficial internet browsing and quick and
incomplete scanning of our surroundings.
Exercise 6: a.
The perfume named "Femme" by Rochas, 1989-1990 Exercise 6b: Account for the use of
cropping in the
ASB International Profile, 2003.
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DYNAMIC/DISHARMONIOUS COMPOSITIONAL PRINCIPLES: Dynamic balanceAlthough the examples of compositional principles above all show a certain degree of movement, they are still primarily static and movement - if any - mostly arises from steady rhythm. Certain compositional principles possess an implicit sense of movement or dynamism. Here are a few examples. |
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The diagonal composition is but a straight vertical or horizontal line that has been stretched and knocked off (static) balance, and for this reason it seems much more dynamic than the vertical or horizontal axis. In an image, the diagonal typically emphasises drama, movement or depth, which means that the diagonal works in both two and three dimensions. The examples to the right illustrate different use of these dramatic and spatial effects in baroque paintings by the Flemish painter Rubens and the Italian painter Caravaggio. Not surprisingly, the diagonal compositional principle was favoured by baroque artists. Barogue paintings typically emphasised drama and movement as an integral aspect of the politically and religiously unstable era the artists portrayed. They even contributed to this with “rhetorical” paintings that often functioned as religious propaganda, aiming to convert their audience to “the right faith".
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Exercise 6:
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The oval is but a circle that has been elongated, resulting in an increased sense of dynamism and movement. If the oval is placed diagonally in the picture plane it tends to intensify the expression of drama and movement because its length axis becomes diagonal rather than horizontal/vertical. Not lest for this reason the oval is often employed as the main compositional principle in pictorial compositions that wish to emphasise drama, staginess or exultation. |
Exercise 7:Above you have seen an example of a composition based on the harmonic and divine principle of the Golden Section, namely Alessandro Botticelli's "Birth of Venus". Botticelli did not exclusively base his Venus on static harmony (the Golden Section); he added some effects to his painting by contrasting the vertical and horizontal primarily harmonic compositional patterns with that of the oval.
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| The hyperbole combines the movement of the
straight diagonal with the rhythm of the When it follows the reading direction (from left
to right) in a descending manner, it often suggests a continuous, rhythmical
time sequence or time span. |
In the first example this principle is employed in Juan Cotan’s
still life with vegetables to symbolise the 4 ages of man (infantry, youth,
maturity, old age) as a natural and inevitable process.
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| All compositional principles covered so far are
in overall balance, whether static or dynamic. However, they can easily be knocked off balance, if one wishes to create
a chaotic or confusing pictorial space, in which instability is the leading
compositional principle. |
Typical unstable compositional patterns |
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Composition and movement: An overview of corresponding static and dynamic compositional principles |
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| As mentioned, shapes that have been dislocated from their resting or balanced zero position seem dynamic and in movement. To the right there are some typical examples of such dynamic dislocation. Dislocation and extreme instability was often used by modernist painters, such as
Especially in the period during and after World War 1, many German
expressionist painters used strong angular lines, crossing and colliding, to |
Exercise 9:Decide whether the images below are based on static or dynamic compositional patterns + discuss their effect on balance and movement as you compare the choice of composition to the type and name of the advertised product. a. Adidas
Adventure Team, photo album b. Evian
commercial. Photographer: Atul Kasbekar c.
United
colors of benetton. (from Killer Loop campaign 2004). Photographer:
Emmet Malmstrøm d. Sensi
- fragance for women by Giorgio Armani, 2002-3.
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B. SPACE: creating a perfect illusion of three dimensionsTwo dimensional art must always consider spatial representation, even if the artist chooses to negate space. Throughout history pictorial representations have oscillated between the two extremes of either repressing or creating perfect space. Creating space on a two-dimensional surface, however, involves choosing between - and/or- combining many different techniques, of which the most important are discussed and exemplified below. |
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Overlapping creates a very limited depth, and emphasises the flatness of an image. Throughout art history, it has typically dominated in art that has had
an explicit wish to move beyond reality, either into the religious (heavenly)
sphere or just into pure visual abstractions of colour and form. An example of the former is icons from the middle ages, whereas modern
art from the beginning of the 20th century is an example of the latter. |
Exercise 10: In Matisse's "Harmony in Red", spatial representation is clearly sacrificed in favour of aesthetic arrangements of colour, form and beautifully curved lines. Still, we do get an impression of what the artist has wanted to represent.
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| In contrast to the technique of overlapping the repoussoir technique creates an explicit sense of depth in an image. The name stems from French and relates to the idea of “pushing something
backwards”, and it refers to pictorial elements/objects which are
deliberately placed in the foreground to create the illusion of immense
distance between one or more depth planes of a picture. |
Example:
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| Shading (hatching) creates
Furthermore, it allows us to
It is therefore a very
realistic representation of space and three-dimensionality. |
Place the cursor on the two geometric figures on the rollover image below. Clearly, there is a world of difference between the way we perceive space
and volume, although the basic sizes of the forms are identical in the
two sketches, making up the image.
Exercise 12:
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The sense - and/or repression - of distance and depth can also be achieved by means of colour, since different colours tend to have each their “temperature”.
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Example Exercise 13: a. Promotional postcard for Calvin Klein eyewear, 2000. Model: Chris Klein b. Ad for Calvin Klein Jeans. Model: Kate Moss. c.Promotional postcard for Calvin Klein, 2000. Model: Vinessa Shaw c. Promotional
Postcard for Calvin Klein Jeans, 2000. Model: Macy Gray. |
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| Differences in size can, of course, also be perceived as space
and distance. The size of objects in an image, which is constructed by means
of linear perspective, can be determined mathematically correct by means
of diagonal lines directed inwards to meet in the so-called “vanishing
point” in the horizontal line. In an image based on a mathematically constructed linear perspective, the illusion of perfect space can be very convincing.
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Example:
A mathematically perfect linear perspective was first constructed by humanists in the renaissance era, in which man felt in control of the universe, and – crudely put – artists constructed their pictorial universe accordingly. When the renaissance artist Rafael painted the “School of Athens”
for the Vatican in Rome, he chose the perfect linear perspective as the
governing spatial/compositional principle. The painting represents famous
classical thinkers, and not surprisingly, he placed two of the most famous
ones – Socrates and Plato – at centre, just like renaissance
philosophers placed man at centre of the universe. |
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| The implicit sense of order in the centralised linear perspective
can easily be suspended in favour of so-called ”Raumflucht”
or “spatial flight”, which is characterised by a much higher
degree of dynamism and movement than the centralised linear perspective.
If the vanishing point is dislocated, so is the overall sense of balance, symmetry and order, and the result is lack of order and overview, and thus a much more dynamic if not chaotic spatial representation.
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This example of a decentralised vanishing point illustrates how “Raumflucht” does not necessarily dispose of a certain compositional harmony: rather it extends space and diminishes the viewer’s sense of control over the pictorial space. |
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C. VIEWPOINT - VISUAL ANGLE: The relationship between viewer and viewed.It is no surprise that any perception of space, distance or depth depends
on where one is standing when perceiving. When the objects are shown in
the so-called frontal perspective, viewer and viewed object are located
on the same level, as in the centralised perspective, where the horizon
line is inevitably located at eye level. If an image is defined as a visual
narrative just like a written or oral text is defined as a verbal narrative,
it turns out that just like in textual analysis much, can be learned by
examining the visually "narrative" point of view and its manipulating
effects.
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Examples  Claude Monet (Click on the image)
Exercise: |
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The worm’s eye view makes the viewer lose
the sense of having an overview, that is, of being in charge of the scene.
The viewer is overwhelmed by the viewed, which - especially in example b – appears monumental, if not threatening. The viewer is given a humble
position in relation to the viewed. |
Examples: Click on the images |
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See the also the section |
The viewer is at level with the viewed, so that proportions are not distorted in any way. The horizon is at eye level, and the viewer is therefore "on equal terms" with that which is depicted. If it is a person, for example, the person would be your visual "equal" |
Example:  Yours truly |
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D. LIGHT &
light symbolism
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| The contrast between light and darkness, i.e. the black/white
contrast is fundamentally symbolic. In many cases we tend to transfer the
polarity of the binary opposition black/white to a realm of corresponding
existential and moral binary oppositions such as those mentioned in the
illustration to the right. |
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| “God is light” is a common saying. Religious artists have often taken the consequence by claiming that precisely for that reason, divine objects or beings could not be illuminated as they were light sources themselves. Subjecting a divine being to an external light source would mean acknowledging the existence of something bigger and more powerful than this being, and in religious art from the middle ages this would be heresy. |
Precisely for this reason, religious icons from medieval times - as the one below - represents saints and holy beings on a background of pure gold, thus utilizing the reflective properties of that material for a religious purpose. Example: Gold used to signify holiness
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| Modelling light is an even and regular daylight which models
figures and objects in a few smooth transitional zones of gradual transition
between light and darkness. Shadows are often one-sided only, and typically, a given object is circumscribed by a very thin and sharp contour. Every object in a given image is equally
in focus, equally visible and equally important, so a soft modelling light
is a visual “democracy of forms”, leaving the viewer with a
feeling of having an overview and being in control. |
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a. Sfumato
b.
Clair obscur |
Typically the term covers two ways
of employing light, namely sfumato and clair obscur: As the root of the Italian term “sfumato” suggests, this lightening effect is characterised by a smoke-like quality, modeling shapes and objects very softly from strongly lit areas to almost pure black – just like a smoke screen tends to blur transitions. All contours are thereby suspended, and consequently details such
as corners of the eyes and mouth are endowed with a certain mysterious air. |
Example: Sfumato is said to be the main reason for the secret and mysterious smile of perhaps the most famous painting in the world: Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa”, making her a universal object of admiration and contemplation, of adoration almost to the extent that all modern media, from end of the year calendars to advertising, have used her and sometimes excessively so. In Leonardo da Vinci’s celebrated Mona Lisa the glaze, skilfully worked, heightens the effects of light and shade on the face, constituting what Leonardo himself called "sfumato". This technique enables the perfect imitation of living flesh, due to refined treatment of the human figure plunged into half-obscurity and results in a high degree of realism.
Click to study Caravaggio's use of clair obscur.
Exercise 14: |
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| Impressionist light emphasises the play of light in the tactile
surface of an object. This play of light seems if not more important, then
equally important to the object on which it plays.
In impressionist light depictions, pure light tends to break up the colours in complementary colour
dots so that light and colours are united in a flickering unity, whereas
form is only of secondary importance. |
Example: In Renoir's swarms of people, light and light play is equally important to the people posing for the picture - if not more important!
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E. COLOUR AND COLOUR RELATIONSThe most important characteristic of colours is that they are RELATIVE.
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| Among the spectral colours – the ones we
perceive when we see a rainbow, a spot of oil on a street or a light beam
reflected through a prism – there are three colours we need to
single out; red, blue and yellow. These three colours form the basis of all other spectral colours and for that reason they are named “primary colours”. If the primary colours are mixed according to the formula below, they form the so-called “secondary colours” orange, green and purple. The secondary colours are complementary colours to the primaries. Mixing secondary colours from primaries: Red + yellow = orange Blue + yellow = green Red + blue = purple A special characteristic of all spectral colours is that they are the clearest, the purest and the most saturated colours that the human eye can possibly perceive. They work directly and actively in our visual perception, because their colouristic expression is so unambiguous and intense. |
Example:
P = primary colours (red, blue, yellow) S= secondary colours (green, orange, purple) T= tertiary colours (middle tones) |
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| In opposition to the colour intensity of the
spectral colours we find the achromatic (non-)colours black and white,
which
are not real colours but achromatic, since they do not contain any hint
of spectral colour and are purely neutral.
Still, the achromatic
white, grey and black are extremely important, partly in their pure quality,
partly because they can be used to either strengthen or weaken the intensity
of accompanying colours. The colour grey in its many tones is said to bring
out the very best in other colours when functioning as background. |
Example:  A Gucci screen saver. |
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| The intensity of a spectral colour can be reduced by “breaking” it with achromatic colours or mixing it with its complimentary colour. When a spectral colour is broken, it will lose some of its intensity and saturation, but it will gain in richness of nuances. It is often a very good idea to use broken colours in visual presentations, because too many spectral colours tend to end up looking like a poster from an amusement park, diverting the viewer’s attention from any accompanying linquistic messages. |
Example: The illustration below illustrates different degrees of
colour intensity,
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| Intense colours can be broken in different ways. Here are a few examples | |||
a. Breaking spectral colours with black and white |
When colours are broken by adding black or white,
the main colour hue stays the same but becomes darker or lighter. If white
is added, for example, light intensity is strengthened. This is called a
change in tone. By gradually darkening or lightening a given colour, one can chose between a wide range of intermediary colour tones which are more discrete than fully saturated colours. |
Examples:
Exercise15: |
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b. Breaking spectral colours with their complementary colours. |
When primary colours are broken by means of their complementary colours (the secondary colours) a similar thing happens; the intensity is weakened in favour of a colour spectre which is very much like earth colours. |
• Upper row: primary colour blue mixed with its complimentary secondary
colour, orange |
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| COLUR RELATIONS: | |||
Mutual colour relationsIn the upper sections, the different colour groups and their characteristics
have been presented. |
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As described above, a colour broken by means
of its complementary colour loses its former intensity. As a result, a pair of complementary colours is in itself often sufficient
to create a colourful and intense visual experience. |
Examples:
Exercise 16:a. Account for complementary contrasts in an
advertisement
for Evian b. Another fashion photo by Atul Kasbekar also makes
use of c. Account for the colour contrasts and their overall
effect in this
Calvin Klein Swimwear ad. |
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b.
Cold/warm contrast: |
In the colour circle the area containing the
yellow, orange and red hues seems close, warm and glowing in contrast to
the area of the cool and distant bluish colour hues. These two areas are placed opposite of each other in the colour circle due to their contrasting “temperature”. Working with colour temperature in visual representation is not only very common in art but also in advertising/ marketing. It is worth noticing, however, that even if a colour in one connection seems distinctly cool, the very same colour may seem distinctly warm in another connection, which basically means that the concept of colour temperature is a relative one. That warm colours seem close and cool colours seem distant has already been mentioned in the section on space , “colour perspective”. However, other associations are very often connected to colour temperature.
For example, a warm colour can suggest intimacy and perhaps even cosiness,
whereas a cool colour may suggest freshness, professionalism or distance. |
Example:
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Below you will find an
overview of relevant concepts and keywords within colour theory |
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Colours included in the light spectre, |
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red, yellow, blue (the "holy trinity" of the colour palette) |
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Are created by mixing the primary colours. Are complementary colours to the primaries. |
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The remaining colour hues in the colour circle are less pure and intense than the primary and secondary colours. |
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These face each other in the colour circle. They create contrast and dynamism. When juxtaposed two complementary colours strengthen each other. When mixed they weaken each other. |
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BLACK, WHITE and GREY |
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The grey tone scale gradually moves from pure black to pure white and can, for example, be used to break spectral colours. |
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Pure colours whose intensity has been reduced (i.e. broken) by means of black and white, or by means of other colours, lose intensity and saturation.
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Exercise 18:Account for the colour scheme in the advertisements below: a. Calvin Klein Jeans ad from Vogue, 1985 b. Calvin
Klein ad: Obsession (for men), from Vanity Fair, 1986 |
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(the "porn palette") |
The "porn palette” is
a common
name for a colour expression which deliberately combines colours that
do not naturally work well together in an attempt to provoke the eye by
means of colouristic disharmonies. |
Example:
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Red/orange and green/blue are warm/cold opposites, but
how they work together depends on their context. |
Example:
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The light radiation from a colour depends on
its intensity and diminishes from yellow to blue in the course of the colour
circle.
If colours are to be balanced in a visual design, two colours should
not always occupy identical amounts of space, because they have varying
specific density. |
Example: Exercise 20:
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G. Colour Symbolism |
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| In the Middle Ages colours were not regarded as aesthetic
elements with which the artist could work ad libitum. In contrast, colour was regarded an attribute of the thing itself, signalling its divine character. Colour was God’s means of concretising the phenomenal world, making it attractive to the eyes of man. Colour was basically nothing but fragmented white light flooding all sensuous objects, endowing them with a profound significance. The use of intense and saturated colours in medieval art is therefore analysed as an established pictorial convention. However, the use of such a conventional colour symbolism has gradually
dissolved. Nevertheless, colour symbolism has been – and still is – used intensively in all kinds of artistic productions, but more subjectively and for more expressive reasons. Expressive art, for example, relies heavily on colour as an expression of inner sentiments. Some conventional symbolic values of colour( or colour codes in Roland Barthes' terminology) inherited from the Middle Ages still exist, however and are heavily utilised in contemporary art and visual communication as examplified in the examples and exercises below.
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| Colour/hue | Symbolism / connotation | Examples: When you move your cursor over the image, watch the effect | |
Gold |
Symbolic of the most pure light, the sun itself, divine radiance, holiness. Pure gold was used in medieval and Byzantine art (icons) as background for saints as well as for their halos. |
 Cimabue |
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Yellow
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Is very close to gold and is used when gold is not available. The colour often symbolises light, spiritual power, wisdom and the highest dignity when it is pure and WARM. However, a cold yellow often connotes deceit as exemplified below. |
Rubens: King Salomon's judgement: Which is the real mother? |
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"Dirty" bilious yellowish/greenish |
Symbolists the ill and bilious. This colour often symbolises illness, decay, deceit, betrayal, contempt or danger. |
 Kvium (Dirty Colours for a depraved human being) |
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Green |
Green is generally considered a soothing and calming and
is thus often positively charged. It is used to symbolise the “earthly”/terrestrial
(as opposed to the heavenly), growth, hope, initiation. It is, by the way, no coincidence that green (and NOT yellow) is the colour of the cloth covering the examination table! |
Raphael's "Small Cowper Madonna" is a very earthly and harmonious
version of the Madonna-Child motif. The virgin is the terrestrial humble
mother rather than the elevated saint, wearing no halo, and placed in a
fairly realistic and lush green landscape. The stable triangular/pyramidal
composition works well together with the colour green to signal harmony.
Raphael |
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Blue |
Blue is a “high status” colour, originally considered the
most perfect of all colours.
Since the Middle Ages it has been used to symbolise the heavenly and spiritual sphere, but also faith and trust. It is the conventional colour of the Virgin’s cloak, popularly called her “heavenly cloak”. In modern times blue has also come to symbolise sadness or melancholy as
we know it from the expression “feeling blue” or “having
the blues”. |
Cimabue
A more modern symbolism of "melancholy blues" was exploited by Picasso in his period of depression, his “blue period”, in which his paintings were monochrome.
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Purple |
In antiquity, purple - which is a combination of red and blue with an overweight of red - was reserved for the emperor. Its hue is cool, and has been said to symbolise sincerity and seriousness. It has also been used often in depictions of Jesus Christ and the Virgin. | ||
Violet |
Violet - which is a combination of blue and red with an overweight of blue - is generally considered distanced, serious and spiritual. It has often been seen a symbol of asceticism, grievance and passion. | ||
Red(Crimson and Scarlet) |
The warm dominating red has been said to symbolise passion, love, sexuality,
aggressiveness, war and, In religious imagery the prostitute Mary Magdalene is often wearing a
warm spectral red cloak to signal her deep passion. |
 In
Ivanov's depiction of Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene, it is not only
the use of colour that adds passion and drama to the scene. It is also the
choice of compositional principle, namely the use of the diagonal.
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White |
White is considered a symbol of the highest form of light, both intellectually
and religiously. Just like an established metaphor within the field of
linguistics, the symbolism of white is so conventionalised (at least within
western culture) that it is known to laymen. White can - however - also symbolise death, the anaemic, the extinct or even mourning. In some Asian countries, for example, people in mourning wear white. |
Ivanov |
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Black |
In western culture, black symbolises death, sin and sometimes even Hell. The devil, black magic, mourning, melancholy and danger are also common connotations of this achromatic colour. When combined with red, black tends to signal a very high degree of danger and often, the image of the "femme fatale" (the fatally seductive woman) is dominated by red and black. |
Exercise 21: Analyse the ads below, comparing product type/advertising company to selected colour scheme and its effect. a. Men's fashion by Provogue. Photographer: Atul Kasbekar b."
Y" by Yves Saint Laurent. 1990 (women's fragance). |
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Layout, content, graphics by Lise Mark ©2003-2005, Home |
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(Click
on the image)
