Reading in Visual Art Reviewer for Midterms

Coverage: Units 1 – 3: Visual Literacy, Semiotic theories, concepts of multimodality

Part 1: Multiple Choice 15 items
Part 2: Matching Type
Part 3: Essay (150 – 200 words)
Art Essay Part:
 Always You Period Tracker
https://www.always.com/en-us/about-us/our-epic-battle-like-a-girl

https://elink.io/p/gender-bias-stereotypical-gender-roles-in-advertising-9037caf

 The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

https://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starry-night.html

 The Kiss, 1907 by Gustav Klimt

https://www.gustav-klimt.com/The-Kiss.jsp
https://artincontext.org/the-kiss-gustav-klimt/
Reading in Visual Art Reviewer for Midterms

 Meghan Trainor – Better When I’m Dancin’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkCyfBibIbI

 Taylor Swift – I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor’s Version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UMCrq-bBCg
Reading in Visual Art Reviewer for Midterms

 Eternal Sunshine: Orange Hoodie

https://ew.com/movies/2017/08/19/eternal-sunshine-orange-hoodie/

 Vogue Cover Philippines Apo Whang-Od

https://observer.com/2023/04/106-year-old-apo-whang-od-vogues-oldest-cover-model/
Reading in Visual Art Reviewer for Midterms

UNIT 1: VISUAL LITERACY

Visual Literacy – the ability to decode and interpret (make meaning from) visual messages and to also to
be able to encode and compose meaningful visual communications. It includes the ability to visualize
internally, communicate visually, and read and interpret visual images.

Language Skills

 Listening
 Reading
 Speaking
 Writing
 Viewing

How to Read Visual Text

 The very foundation of this course is anchored on this premise. Studying visual texts and
harnessing visual literacy involves problem-solving and critical thinking and these can be applied
to all areas of learning.
 An informed analysis of visual texts likewise puts us in an advantageous position when making
decisions. We need to remember that the end-goal of most graphic art is to directly or indirectly
sell an idea or a product. Consumers are constantly exposed to various strategies to drive home
a sales pitch to BUY products or to INFLUENCE them towards a decision.
 It is interesting to note that visual education in the words of Bamford (2013), provides a
foundation for understanding and evaluating aesthetic intention and artistic skills. It also makes
students more resistant to manipulation by visual means.
Reading in Visual Art Reviewer for Midterms

Guidelines to Read Visual Text:

WHO
1. What people are depicted in the image?
2. Who created the image and for what purpose?
3. Who is the intended audience for the image?
4. Whose point of view does the image take?

ISSUES
1. What issues are being shown in the image?
2. How is the way the issue is shown in the image similar to or different from how you see this
issue in the world?
3. What might this image mean to someone who sees it?
4. What is the message of the image?

INFORMATION
1. Where has the information in the image come from?
2. What information has been included and what information has been left out?
3. What proportion of the image could be inaccurate? factual? manipulated? framed?
4. What is the relationship between the image and the text?
5. What impact does the size of images within the picture have?

PERSUASION

1. Why has a certain media been chosen?

2. Why was a particular image chosen?

3. Why was the image arranged that way?

4. Is the information contained in the image factual?

5. What devices have been used to get the message across to the viewer?

6. How has the message been affected by what has been left out or is not shown?

ASSUMPTIONS

1. What attitudes are assumed?

2. Whose voice is heard?

3. Whose voice is not heard?

4. What experiences or points of view are assumed?

Reading in Visual Art Reviewer for Midterms

UNIT 2: Social Semiotics: Principles and Resources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lR7jz6M9iA&authuser=0

Semiotics – is the study of signs and symbols and their use and interpretation

 “The basic unit of semiotics is the sign” (Gottdeiner, 1996 in Berger, 2010). A sign is as something
that stands for something else.

Examples:

 A sign includes a spoken or written word, a drawn figure, or a material object. When we hear a
word, see a word, figure, or material object we can match it with a particular cultural concept in
our mind.

Three Major Theorist in Semiotics

 Ferdinand de Saussure
Reading in Visual Art Reviewer for Midterms

 Rolan Barthes

 Charles Sanders Peirce

Reading in Visual Art Reviewer for Midterms

Guide Question: to determine Semiotics:

1. Who/what is in the text?

2. What is happening?

3. What is it trying to say on a denotative/ connotative level?

4. Who/what is the signifier?

5. Is the signifier an icon? A symbol? An index?

6. What is being signified?

7. How does the visual text achieve the meaning it wishes to convey using the concepts asked in the
previous questions?

UNIT 3: Multimodality and the New Media

What is Multimodality?

 Modality in linguistics and philosophy refers to the ways language can express various
relationships to reality or truth. For instance, modal expression may convey that something is
likely, desirable, or permissible.

Multimodal Analysis Theory

Reading in Visual Art Reviewer for Midterms

Semiotics Resource

 refers to the meaning potential of material resources, which developed and accumulated over
time through their use in a particular community and in response to certain social requirements
of that community.
Reading in Visual Art Reviewer for Midterms

Modes:

1. Linguistic – focuses on the meaning of written or spoken language in communication.

Ex. Choice of words, vocabulary, grammar, structure, etc.

2. Visual – focuses on the meaning of what can be seen by a viewer.

Ex. Images, symbols, videos, signs, etc.

It includes also the aspect of visual design: color, layout, font type and size, etc.

3. Aural – focuses on the meaning of what can be heard by a listener.

Ex. Sound effects, music, voice. This can be realized through tone, pitch, speed, volume, rhythm etc.

4. Gestural – focuses on the meaning of communication through movement.

Ex. Facial Expressions, gestures, body language, interactions between people. These are all examples of
nonverbal communication, as meaning is conveyed without the use of speech.

5. Spatial – focuses on the meaning of communication through physical layout.

Ex. Position, spacing, the distance between elements in a text, proximity between people/objects, etc.

JUDGEMENT OF VISUAL ART

1. Articulation of detail form of scale which runs from the simplest line drawing to the sharpest
and most finely-grained photograph.

2. Articulation of the background range from zero articulation, as when something is shown
against a white or black background, via lightly sketched in or out-of-focus backgrounds, to
maximally sharp and detailed backgrounds.

3. Color saturation range from the absence of saturation – black and white to the use of maximally
saturated colors, with, in between, colors that are mixed with grey to various degrees.

4. Color modulation range from the use of flat, unmodulated color to the representation of all the
fine nuances and color. Example: skin color, or the color of grass.

5. Color Differentiation range from monochrome to the use of a full palette of diverse colors.
Reading in Visual Art Reviewer for Midterms

6. Depth Articulation range from the absence of any representation of depth to maximally deep
perspective with various other possibilities in between. Example; simple overlapping without
perspectival foreshortening.

7. Articulation of Light and Shadow range to zero to the articulation of the maximum number of
degrees of the ‘depth’ of shade, with options such as simple hatching in between.

8. Articulation of Tone range from just two shade of tonal gradation, black and white – or a light
and dark version of another color – to maximal tonal gradation.

TYPES OF EYE GAZE

- Direct Gaze - The Stare

- Looking up - Eye dart
- Looking down - Eye Shuttle
- Vertical scan - Eye Block
- Horizontal scan - Lateral Movement