105MC

How to look at pictures Will Barton

Here’s a picture

• What is this?• A still taken from a

broadcast of an amateur video

• How do we read it?• Why does it have such

an impact?• What other pictures is it

like?

Disasters and horrors

Spectacularity

• Challenger Space Shuttle disaster

• January 28, 1986• Seven crew members

killed• Live on TV

• Still image selected from professional live coverage

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_10T4UYpzV8

Titanic

• 15 April 1912• 1517 lives lost• Contemporary drawing• 1997 Film• Which image has more

impact?• The modern image is

based on a contemporary artist’s impression

Hiroshima

• 8:15 A.M. on August 6, 1945

• 80,000 killed outright• Total casualties 90,000–

140,000 • Professional (official)

still photograph

Shock ‘n’ Awe

• Baghdad March 21, 2003• No official casualty figures

released – “Civilian casualties minimised”

• Oxford Research Group Iraq Watch estimated 6,616 civilian deaths

• Still image from TV coverage

• What does this picture look like?

John Martin

• Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah 1852

• The Great Day of His Wrath 1874

• VERY BIG oil paintings created to display tom large paying audiences

• Biblical themes of violent destruction

Joseph Wright of Derby1734-1797

• Coalbrookdale by Night• Ironforge• Large oil paintings• Similar lighting effects

to Martin to convey the power and terror of the industrial revolution

At the video store…

Games and Music

Towers - Collapsing towers are symbols of pride brought low

Pearl Harbournews on top, Hollywood below

Which story ?

• Challenger – live horror news

• Titanic – unsinklable• Hiroshima – death from the

skies• Shock and Awe – terrorism• John Martin – Wrath of God• Falling Towers – Pride

humbled• Pearl Harbour – surprise

attack

Reading Pictures

• Photography and Painting

• Ways of Seeing• Visual Literacy• Staged photography:

Robert Doisneau

Mr and Mrs Andrews (about 1750)

Thomas GAINSBOROUGH 1727 - 1788

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=ng6301

The Arnolfini Betrothal (1434)Jan VanEyck, Died: 1441

• http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/largeImage?workNumber=NG186

Photography

• Derives from the tradition of painting

• Shape, presentation, composition, subject

Robert Doisneau

• 1950 Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville )

• Connotation and Denotation

• Unreliable evidence – staged photographs and set-ups

How to read a picture

• What is it? How was it made? Who made it? What was it made for?

• Where is it? Why am I looking at it now?• What sort of picture is it? What other pictures is it

like?• What is the meaning of the picture? What does it

make me think about?• What are the signifiers and what do they signify?• What denotation and connotation are taking place?

Reading

• John Berger – Ways of Seeing• Roland Barthes – Image, Music, Text• Ernst Gombrich – The Story of Art

• Better still, don’t just read about pictures – go to an art gallery and look at some.