Roland Barthes’ “Rhetoric of the Image“ essay from Image – Music – Text, Translated by Stephen Heath. Hill and Wang, 1977. (excerpt)
Questions/Prompts
How do images hold and convey meaning?
What are they trying to say?
How do they persuade and influence us?
In Roland Barthes’ essay, “Rhetoric of the Image”, the many messages of a Panzani print advertisement are decoded and discussed in great detail. Images have many ways to hold and convey messages. Firstly, composition of the contents of the image determines what order the viewer will perceive its messaging. For instance, a screenshot from the 1981 platforming video game, Donkey Kong, where he hurls barrels and other projectiles towards Mario would be read from top to bottom since the image is cut into sections with an array of brightly-colored horizontal platforms with Donkey Kong standing at the top. However, for this Panzani advert, the order to intake the information is much more organic, swooping from the top-left to the bottom-right following the curve of the half-opened string bag. The decision to stretch the string bag across the screen to create a downwarping curve serves to convey a feeling of naturality versus the corporate modality of a structured assortment of items & ingredients.
In addition to the composition of elements relative to the frame, images convey messages by the contents’ arrangement relative to each other. For instance, the Panzani advert shows a cross knit string bag exposing two bags of Panzani pasta resting atop onions, red bell peppers, & tomatoes. A pack of Panzani cheese, a tomato & a mushroom rest directly outside the bag, as if spilling out of the stringed packaging. The fact that there are vegetables hidden beneath the two pasta bags & their difficulty to acknowledge at first glance serves to convey the messaging that freshness & nutrition is a prerequisite or subtext to Panzani products.
Furthermore, the colors of the packaging, backdrop, & even the chosen ingredients all work together to convey a message. The colors red, green, & white are recurring in this Panzani advert, creating an allusion to Italian culture, subsequently, conveying a message of the unrivaled cultural authenticity of Panzani products despite their French origin.
Annotations:
https://hyp.is/unMLgF_AEe2-oy8NGdRgqg/openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/spevackcomd3504fa22/files/2022/11/Barthes_PanzaniUpdatedImage.pdf
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