Purpose of Image Analysis
Understanding visual sources, such as images/photographs, moving images, artworks, and objects is a key skill in creative disciplines. Analysing images helps you to uncover their meaning, assess their impact, and contextualise their creation within broader cultural, historical, or conceptual frameworks
Understanding Meaning Using Semiotics
Semiotics, the study of signs and how meaning is made, provides a framework for decoding the layers of meaning within an image (Aiello and Parry, 2020:24). Developed by Ferdinand de Saussure, semiotics divides a sign into two essential components:
|
Signifier (the physical object, action, of a visual sign)
“Rose” “Falling petals” “Thorn” “Glass case” “Pink glow” |
Fig. Rose from Disney’s Beauty & the Beast |
Signified (the meaning, concept, symbolism, or representation) Love, passion, romance, longing, royalty, object of desire or affection, fragility, preservation, radiance, magic |
|
|
|
Signs rarely exist in isolation; they interact with one another to create complex layers of meaning. Roland Barthes expanded on Saussure's ideas by introducing the concepts of denotation and connotation:
Applying semiotics to image analysis
When analysing an image using semiotics:
For instance, in a fashion magazine spread:
By dissecting these layers, semiotics helps uncover not only what the image shows but also what it means, offering insights into its cultural and emotional significance (Saussure, 1974; Chandler, 2007).
Example of using semiotics
The painting below is by Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais. It was inspired by a fragment of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The photograph is by contemporary fashion photographer Tim Walker, referencing Millais’ painting.
Read the fragment from Shakespeare and see the table below to see how both Millais and Walker have achieved this:
Left: Ophelia by John Everett Millais (1852)
Right: Harry Styles shot by Tim Walker (2022)
“When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay” (Shakespeare, 2008)
|
What can be seen? (Signifier) |
What could this represent? (Signified) |
|
River or flowing water |
Fluidity, femininity, change, passage of time, journey of life |
|
Dark or muted colours |
Sombre mood, dusk, liminality |
|
Daffodils and daisies |
Innocence, growth, rebirth, spring, new beginnings |
|
Submersed figure |
Drowning, surrender, sacrifice, weightlessness, cleansing, purifying |
List of Illustrations
Disney, W. (1991) Beauty & the Beast [Film Still]
Millais, J. E. (1952) Ophelia [Oil Painting]
Walker, T. (2022) Harry Styles [Photograph]
List of References
Aiello, G. and Parry, K. (2020) Visual communication: Understanding images in media culture. London, England: SAGE Publications.
Cobley, P. (2014) Introducing semiotics: A graphic guide. Basingstoke, England: Icon Books.
Shakespeare, W. (2008) Hamlet. London, England: Red Globe Press.
Steps to analyse images
Example questions:
Example questions:
Example questions:
Example questions:
Are there ethical considerations in how it was created or displayed
