Picture Analysis

REPRESENTATION Reality is the basic and dominating visual experience. We have the general category of the bird — a bird can be identified through a general shape. General idea of a bird with shared characteristics. Specific bird identified though detailed factors, color, proportion, size, movement, and markings. All this visual information can be obtained by seeing. We are the original camera. The photograph is the most technically dependable means of representing reality. A bird can be fixed in time and space by the camera. ABSTRACTION The process of abstraction is the process of distillation — the reduction of multiple visual factors to only the essential and most typical features of what is being represented. Audubon made drawings intended as technical reference. He studied and recorded many varieties of birds. His work is lifelike. His intention was to make the bird look as much as possible as it looks naturally. He was making a picture and recording and supplying data that was dependable for identification He removed extraneous detail, emphasized distinguishing features. This is the beginning of a process of abstraction. SYMBOLISM Further deletion of detail toward total abstraction can take two paths: abstraction toward symbolism (with experienced meaning or arbitrarily attached meaning) and pure abstraction, reducing of the visual statement down to the basic elements, bearing no connection to any representation information drawn from experience of the environment. Abstraction toward symbolism requires ultimate simplicity. ****** STORY, Peale, Fall 2018 1. Examine the photo. 2. Make an exhaustive list of words and short phrases describing the image. Consider its composition, its explicit and implicit messages. What symbol systems are at work? Is there any written language in the image? Iconography? What do you recognize as fact and what ideas do you infer? Do you recognize the image as a piece of fine art, a photographic reproduction of a piece of fine art, is it photojournalism, fashion photography, advertising, a casual snapshot, or is it something else? Aim to address every discernible aspect of the image. 3. After you have analyzed the photograph, write a paragraph that aims to completely report what the photograph does and which could be used as a replacement for it.                                                                                                                                                  

Sample Solution