Here is a visual analysis of a child abuse advert produced by a company trying to address the issues of child abuse through a very controversial image, of two young children who are represented as broken china dolls. Roland Barthes Rhetoric of Image, article untangles all the obvious and not so obvious meanings to some people underneath the image itself, creating a representation producing a system of signs. Within the photograph featured is two captions repeated ‘You can lose more than your patience’ the repetition makes the viewer think about what the caption really means, it’s almost threatening.
This is a key example of a linguistic message where the caption relates to the problem and meaning of the photograph in place. Which then also provides anchorage to the images meanings, which then directs the reader through the signifieds of the image, also then relaying the text and image, working together to convey more meanings, when the anchorage leads us to a maze of other meaning waiting to be uncovered. Another code Barthe uses is a coded iconic message for example the white, light colours signifies the pureness and angelicness of the young children being abused.
Another coded iconic message is the children being represented as china dolls signifying the children being abused by the broken china, and not being treated as human beings just as a china doll, as if their life is not real. Another message is the little girls facial expression it signifies as if she’s lifeless, betrayed and she’s not representing being childlike at all. The little boy crying signifies the pain that he is suffering and showing that he is human not a china doll which has no emotion.
Another message is the empty house it signifies no life especially those of children living in the environment it’s not a homely environment it’s very uneasy. The caption featured “You can lose more than just your patience” Signifies that you could not only lose your patience but lose your child through it. From Barthes essay another type of message stated is the non- coded iconic message which is basically the signifier is the signified for example within the photography the child is the signifier and the signified.
Barthe identifies that photography is truly the only medium that relies on characteristics to convey meanings throughout a piece of work. Barthe just quite simply observes the message of what the image entails and examines the image. It can be seen from reading “John Berger – The Ways of Seeing” That the way we first see things are affected by our knowledge and beliefs. From as early as the 1900’s the photograph became the main medium of visual art. For example it can seen from this photograph quite simply that it is in awareness of child abuse by the young children acting as broken china dolls.
Within Berger’s essay he is very blunt and has given the impression of being very sexist. For example stated within his essay females are seen as prime and ideal clients to work with opposed to men for an advertisement. Within this advertisement it is obvious that very cute innocent children would be the key client to be used for this advertisement to get the key message across to the viewers and to cause the most controversy to help children getting abused, as to if a fully grow man for example was used within the advertisement it would not get quite the same affect.
According to Berger also conventions have been established that the social present of man is completely different to man, for example through social status, power, expressions gestures etc. For example in my chosen photograph the little girl is showing now expression and the little boy is crying this is to confuse the how : visual reviewed by the viewer because you would think that it would be the other way around, which gives the viewer a bit more interest and engagement to the photograph by making it more interesting.
Berger argues that reproducing images have altered in which the way the art of them past in viewed, an example found is a young girl wearing a t-shirt with the Mona Lisa on the front degrades its artistic and historic value. While reading “Immanuel Kant – What is Enlightenment” Kant believed that a large sum of the population during the enlightenment period which was around the 18th century, the public were seen as cowards, childish and lazy who relied on others (Mostly powerful figures) to tell them how to think.
This is now known as ‘Nonege’ – “The inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. ” Quite simply just because a powerful figures says something doesn’t always mean that it is correct, it is just stopping the individual from having their own self-belief. So how could the public enlighten its self? Once men are thrown off the nonege band wagon they will begin to spread about the spirit of a reasonable appreciation of valuing their own duty of being able to think for themselves, rather than being told what to think.
From this reading of “Immanuel Kant – What is enlightenment” gathered while viewing the visual analysis of the child abuse advert you must be able to let your own mind gather the meanings and duty of the photograph in place, not by just being told by some authoritive figure then assuming their assumption is correct. Walter Benjamin’s “A little History of Photography”, referred to the first decade of photography being its best. While reading Benjamin’s “A little History of Photography” it could be seen that the precision of a portrait magically can pass on the individuality of the person photographed.
For example within the visual analysis of the child abuse advert the individuality of each child is very precised and you can tell a lot of work and thought has gone to making the photograph effective by the expressions of the children and representing the children as broken china dolls. Photography replaced a sum of landscape photography, and a large sum of miniature portrait paintings it can be found from Benjamin’s biography.
Portrait photography became very quickly a booming business accessorizing, adding all sorts of unnecessary retouching and elements. Very early on portrait photography had originated from the long posing, mostly bad lighting, obscuring photographs of models. Which was soon replaced by the seen all faithful mirror photography which was held up to the rising middle class. The viewer not only needs to learn the visual language, but the photographers themselves need to learn how to read their photographs correctly.
Reproducible of photography and art has rose to a different genre of perception, in which we had then reduced objects and then made them reproducible to a T. Photography has made objects that maybe seemed ugly beautiful, suited for creative sales purposes, but it then still fails to portray human relations. For example a photograph of a factory doesn’t portray any human relations within it. It is seen as necessary to create something that’s artificial to represent the realness of something.
