Visual Language for Visual Arts Students

1. Visual
Language

2. 1. COMMUNICATION PROCESS
The channel or medium - It is the vehicle or
means used to transmit the information
Context
Place and time
Sender
It is the person who
creates an image in
order to communicate
Message
It is the content of the
image- its information
The receptor
It is the person who decodes
the message to understand it
The code
They are the rules and
norms that make the
message understandable

4. The Function of the images
Informative- Content is transmitted in an objective way

5. The Function of the images
Aesthetic
Images that communicate mainly beauty and harmony

6. The Function of the images
Expressive
Images stimulate the receiver’s feelings. The point is not what we see
in the image, but the emotions we feel when we look at it

7. The Function of the images
Exhortative
They try to persuade the receiver to do something, to buy a
product, to believe an idea or to do a task.

8. The Function of the images
Narrative
The image tells a story

9. The Function of the images
Social

12. 2. Basic elements in visual language
Dot Line
Plane
Colour Texture Volume

13. 3. Signifier and signified
Signifier: any material
thing that signifies, e.g.,
words on a page, a facial
expression, an image.
Signified or meaning: the
concept that a signifier
refers to.

15. 4. Visual Signs
Sign: anything which can represent a thing or an idea
• Index / Indexical Signs: signs where the
signifier is caused by the signified, e.g.,
smoke signifies fire.
• Icon / Iconic sings: signs where the
signifier resembles the signified
• Symbol /Symbolic (arbitrary) signs: signs
where the relation between signifier and
signified is purely conventional and
culturally specific.

16. SImbols

17. 5. Iconicity of an image

18. 6. Types of images::
analytic image

19. Realistic images
Antonio López.
Gran vía

20. Figurative images
Paul Cézanne
Los jugadores
de cartas. 1896

21. Abstract images
Chema Madoz.