Bernhardt objectively explores organization of text, and how font size and placement can call attention to certain ideas within the text; even though text is linear and must be read from left to right, the reader can figure out where to start or stop reading without much difficulty in a well-organized text.
Wysocki is offended by a magazine ad, and uses this as a diving board for criticizing the available criticism of visuals, ultimately calling to change the "social and temporal expectations of visual composition" (172).
That's mainly what I got out of this.
Bernhardt makes sense—because of the nature of text, people generally start in the beginning and read towards the end, so calling attention to areas not in the beginning allows for people to start in the middle somewhere and at least read the part of the text they find most interesting.
Wysocki is on more slippery ground. Images (without text) are always "read" subjectively; even if the artist wants to send a certain immoral message, that doesn't mean that every viewer is going to get that message—they could see something totally different than the artist intended. This is why it's always really interesting to look at a piece of art without text, and then look at the title of the piece and maybe a little blurb about it by the author. When I do this, I often see something totally different than the title/description of the piece suggests, and regardless of authorial intent, the piece has the ability to send mixed messages.
This is the main flaw in Wysocki's idea—she assumes that the "expectations" of art are the same as its understood messages. There is something to be said for art that portrays women as strong and beautiful instead of turning them into sex objects, but who decides which category an image of a woman falls into? The beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Cliche.
I agree with that last part on Wysocki. Why is she trying to find a definitive way to recognize beauty? It seems SO subjective, and not worth anyone's time to figure out a pattern or method for all of society. The fact that she's offended; isn't that just a learned cultural response, similar to men finding the image attractive in the first place?
ReplyDeleteYou brought up some points that I forgot to keep in mind while reading Wysocki. She doesn't consider that ads are understood differently by different people. I was turned off by this article because it seemed like a long, overanalyzed opinion (and I've never been very fond of reading other people's opinions). It seems silly to me that she was actually angered enough by an ADVERTISEMENT to write this piece. Next time, I suggest she just turn the page and ignore it.
ReplyDeleteI've had that same experience when viewing art--I have my response to a piece, then I read what the author titles it and it's often then a new experience of the piece. Amazing that a few little lines of text can cause a completely different experience.
ReplyDeleteI thought we were bordering on a very deep discussion in class today, namely, what is real?
When we ask what is beauty, it gets very close to the existential question. And that's a whole 'nother discussion. Kind of like, "Are there absolutes?" then answering, "Absolutely not!"
I don't believe that it was Wysocki's intention to impose universal definitions of beauty, rather my understanding of her writing was that there are predisposed natural responses in place. These are not universal, but seem to be cultural in nature. Sex has strong psychological influences on human response. These responses being largely visual in nature, it would seem reasonable that a sexual figure would draw attention. This is not to undermine feminism by any means, it is the basis to understanding visual rhetoric or aesthetics. Put another way, her writing seemed to me a positive rather than a normative analysis. I think the nature of the topic calls for a certain amount of vagueness, but I found her analysis quite relevant.
ReplyDeleteSo, recognizing beauty (which I may define as aesthetic perception pleasing or not-pleasing)is incredibly important. In terms of value, the study of beauty surely numbers in the billions of dollars. My point however is not that we spend incredible amounts of resources seeking beauty, rather that we understand the importance of beauty almost innately and because its perception is primal.