How to Analyze Visual Rhetoric

1. Focal point & emphasis:

The spot where your eyes immediately go when viewing an image.

Rhetorically: the central point, the image you want the audience to notice and retain.

2. Figure-Ground Contrast:

The difference between what’s in front (the figure) and what’s in back (the ground or background)

Often the figure is the focal point.

Rhetorically: the active part of the image, not the scene it’s enacted upon.

3. Grouping: Proximity

Close objects are perceived as grouped together, and grouping implies a relationship.

Rhetorically: we psychologically like to categorize; we imbue things with relationship when they are near each other. (We do this with words or examples as well as with images.)

4. Similarity:

We also group by similar traits: size, shape, texture.

Rhetorically: again, we want to find relationship.

5. Continuation:

Elements that suggest a continued visual line will be grouped together.

Rhetorically: even when the relationship is incomplete, we complete it ourselves (like the other half of a metaphor, or the last notes of a song).

6. Color

The brighter the color, the more powerful its effects.

Rhetorically: We’re just like animals, going for the bright colors. Using them creates greater presence.

7. Line: Horizontal lines create calm and equilibrium, vertical lines suggest movement, diagonal lines can create stress, wavy lines imply softness or grace.

Rhetorically: lines are a shortcut to pathos for you the rhetor.

8. Context:◦ “The more you know, the more you see.”

◦ Aldous Huxley◦ The information around the photo—how your personal, historical, technical, cultural background affects

your viewing, and how it affected the artist’s.◦ Rhetorically: more context means more power for the image. It explains the image to audience.

9. Narration Does the image as a whole tell a story?

Rhetorically: a story is one of the most powerful ways an image can contribute to your message.

Visual Analysis The Whole Composition:

◦ What do you feel as you view the image?◦ Where does your eye go & why?◦ How do the key elements contribute to how you see/feel?

(focal point, figure-ground contrast)◦ The rest of the internal categories—how do they make you

feel? (proximity, similarity, continuation, color, line)◦ Is there a story embedded in the image? (narration)◦ What more can you know about the image? (context)