Ideology

Gainsborough, Mr. & Mrs. Andrews

Hans Holbein, The Ambassadors

Frans Hals, The Regentesses of the Old Men's Alms House

Frans Hals, The Regents of the Old Men's Alms House

Francois Boucher

     

Bouguereau

This image found at:  http://genderpressing.wordpress.com, original credit not found

More playing with advertising imagery:

http://www.hautetalk.com/2013/10/21/motocorsas-manigale-series-stars-men-motorcycle-babes/

Some artists revealing Ideology at work:

Harrell Fletcher, The American War

Fred Wilson, Mining the Museum, at the Maryland Historical Society

Semiotics!

An understanding of semiotics in language helps us understand how figures of speech are created.




As discussed in the text, commercials make use of multiple connotations when selling their products.  The layering of ideas is what Charles Sanders Pierce called "unlimited semiosis," and what Howells and Negreiros were referring to in their discussion of how advertising fills "empty" signifiers with signification (or signifieds, or significance!)
We can use the methodology they describe for understanding visual codes.  Following the example of Roland Barthes, they pointed out how one can look for (a) Overtly communicated information, (b) Covertly conveyed information or ideas (what is signified), and (c) "What goes without saying," the information that is presumed to be common knowledge, or natural (such as Barthes' example of France's Colonial Imperialism).

Here is a fairly straight forward example:

This commercial for Fiat, uses more codes.

For an ad in an Art Magazine, artist Jeff Koons played with the codes of advertising and our knowledge of them:

Iconology

The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait by flemish painter Jan van Eyck is one of the favored paintings for the study of symbols.  What conventions here are readable to us?  Which symbols described in the book are new to your understanding?
On Panofsky's deepest level of meaning (his "intrinsic level") what can we determine about life in Northern Europe in the 15th century?

These conventions change through time with some conventions persisting and many changing.

What changes are evident between Titian's painting of a woman created in Italy in 1638, directly below, and Manet's painting of a woman over 2 centuries later in 1865,right below that?

Venus of Urbino, 1638, by Titian

Olympia, 1865, by Edouard Manet

In class, we'll spend some time looking at a few more paintings in groups to see if we can apply Panofsky's 3 levels of meaning: primary, conventional, and intrinsic.

Nighthawks, 1942 by Edward Hopper

Susie Goldfarb and Gregory Masurovsky, 1974 by David Hockney

A few more images from Northern Europe in the 16th century, these all in the "Vanitas" tradition:

Willem Kalf

Pieter Claes

      

And, a modern Vanitas by Audrey Flack:

Iconology
Iconography
Icon
Iconic
Symbol
Attribute

A few examples of the power of images....

One of the memorable photographs taken on May 2, 2011, the date that U.S. Navy SEALS stormed the bin Laden compound and killed Osama bin Laden, was this of President Obama and his cabinet watching the operation unfold.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Hilary Clinton's covered mouth became controversial.

The White House has had to fight to keep images of bin Laden's body out of view.  More than 50 images taken of bin Laden's dead body and burial at sea were classified as CIA documents. A conservative group,  Judicial Watch, quickly filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to have the photos released.  Their CIA classification has been upheld in the lower courts, and the final decision by the Supreme Court, denying the appeal on January 15th, falls in line with past decisions.

What are possible risks in releasing these images?  What are possible benefits?  Does it matter when many faked images have circulated in newspapers, magazines, and on websites?

www.chicagotribune.com

"Iraqis in Baghdad

( Photo by SABAH ARAR/AFP/Getty Images )

Iraqis in Baghdad watch a news broadcast on Arabic satellite news channel Al-Arabiya showing an image which has been circulating on the internet and allegedly shows the body of Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden, on May 2, 2011, after the US announced their forces had killed the world's most wanted man in a military operation near the Pakistani city of Islamabad."

How have images of dead enemies been used in the past?

Here's one example...

Assurbanipal and his Queen in the Garden, Assyrian, 645 BCE, bas relief frieze, originally in royal palace at Nineveh, now in British Museum

How else are images of the dead used?

Throughout Western Art History, this is one of the most popular images:

Matthias Grunewald's Issenheim Altarpeice circa 1515 CE
www.venetianred.net

In more recent years, one might expect to see images such as these in the media:

  Soon, we will discuss signs and symbols where one word or image can stand for another.  Are you familiar with this image- can you imagine what is symbolized here?

Images to accompany the first reading...

Each of these images either matches or replicates the information in the pdf for reading #1.