This photograph shows a young girl peering into a circular window in a patterned wall. She wears a bright white dress and stands on her toes to look inside. The intense sunlight outside creates a stark contrast with the total darkness within the window. This contrast suggests the image is meditating on childhood innocence and its inevitable ending as the girl glimpses an unknown future represented by the darkness inside.

1. Picture Perception
Abirami.V.
AP/English, KCT

2. Perception is the process of
attaining awareness or
understanding of the
environment by organizing and
interpreting sensory
information. All perception
involves signals in the nervous
system, which in turn result
from physical stimulation of the
sense organs.

3. Perception is not the passive
receipt of these signals, but can
be shaped by learning, memory
and expectation. Perception
involves these "top-down"
effects as well as the " bottom-
up" process of processing
sensory input .

4. The "bottom-up" processing is
basically low-level information
that's used to build up higher-
level information (i.e - shapes for
object recognition).
The "top-down" processing refers
to a person's concept and
expectations (knowledge) that
influence perception.

5. Perception Filters
Perception is the process of gathering
information through our senses,
organizing and making sense of it.

6. What Affects Perceptions?
Previous
experience
and
learning

7. What Affects Perceptions?
Attitudes
and
Interests

8. What Affects Perceptions?
Needs
&
Feelings

9. What Affects Perceptions?
Current
Situation

10. People see things differently
All people do
not "see"
the same
thing when
looking at a
visual image.

11. Perception differs from individual
to individual due to ...
• Personal Differences
• Socio-Economic Differences
• Cultural Differences

12. Examples of Personal
Perception Filters
•Age,
•Gender
•Race
•Past experiences

13. Examples of Social Economic
Filters
• Occupation
• Level of education
• Environmental
factors
• Family upbringing

14. Examples of Cultural
Differences
• Language
• Customs
• Belief Systems
• Historical
Perspective

15. Influences on Perception
• Every characteristic of
an individual
influences what that
individual senses:
– Visionary (see)
– Auditory (hear)
– Olfactory (smell)
– Gustatory (taste)
– Tactile (touch)

16. How to Perceive a Picture
Usually we read an image as an entity in a
given context, but when attempting to
uncover its many layers of meaning
and/or purpose it is also expedient to
systematise and organise one’s reading of
its formal elements in more phases

17. 1. Presentation of formal data
Presenting facts
• Who is the artist/sender?
• Does the picture have a title?
• When was the picture made?
• In what context was the picture made?
• For what purpose was the picture made?
• Which technique (painting, photograph,
graphics, collage, or.. ?)
• What dimensions?

18. 2. Primary description
Representational meaning
• Place, milieu,
• Persons, relations, gestures,
mimic, action
• And the most significant details.

19. 3. Formal analysis: The effect of
formal choices
All visual elements involved in picture analysis
will be discussed and illustrated further
• Persons, relations, gestures,
mimic, action
• And the most significant details.

20. 4. Interpretation:
(Denotation/Connotation)
• Attaching possible meanings to
the visual elements and their
interaction in the picture
• Attaching meaning to how
visual elements interact with the
viewer in a given context

21. • It is important to substantiate one’s
interpretation of a given picture by drawing
upon concrete observations from the description
and analysis, from one's knowledge of the
sender, the context and purpose of the picture.
• Contextual data, such as philosophical,
religious or aesthetic currents or time-specific
use of symbols, references to politics and
cultural codes is, of course, an integral part of
any interpretation.

22. “Flow and Arrest of Thoughts” - Kerstin

23. This work of art is produced using
ink on paper. Kartscher uses magic
markers and highlighter pens to
create an image that could be easily
viewed as a simple doodle but also
possesses incredible artistic detail
and illustrative interpretation of
real characters and object forms.
 The artist noticeably takes pleasure
in exploring the possibilities of line
art, including repetitive practically
obsessive elements that give the
traditionally produced image an
almost digital quality.

24. There are only a few obvious elements
to the picture, the most prominent and
perhaps the focus is the woman clad in
a long gown. She sits in an antique
chair in the lower right corner of the
image, strumming guitar with a
vacant yet mysterious look on her
face, giving away no emotions and
seemingly oblivious to the turmoil
around her. She almost has a
superimposed quality in the ways she
remains undisturbed and distanced
from the rest of the image, possibly an
embodiment of deep thought itself.

25.  The woman is surrounded by a
turbulent red sea consisting of
sharp waves and crashing tides,
nearly the entire left side of the
image is taken up by a giant
black chain falling from the
skies and disappearing into the
waves where it meets the sea.
Between the sea and the chain
appears a guesser erupting from
colorless rocks spurting neon
yellow birdhouses in a most
abstract way. The sky is black,
constant line art broken only by
the white clouds formed by
negative space.

26. Two main colours in the image
are black and red. Red is often
associated with energy,
strength and determination,
black can symbolize power,
elegance, formality, death and
mystery. The combination of
these two colours is also
traditionally linked to danger
or despair. The only other
colour in the image is the
yellow highlighter used on the
birdhouses perhaps to attract
attention and emphasize their
meaning.

27.  Now in terms of analysis and
semiology what could the elements
in this image mean? As previously
mentioned the woman seems to be
the focus, as an individual
however she is understated and
average, she has youth and beauty
but her attire is neither seductive
nor unflattering. She signifies
women in general, her prominence
and thoughtful yet unafraid
demeanor symbolize their
empowerment and her strumming
of the guitar indicates control.

28.  Behind her is the sea, turbulent with
crashing waves, suggestive of a battle or
conflict. The chains usually symbolize
enslavement and captivity; due to the size
of the chains there is also a significant
degree of dominance implied. The guesser
that spurts birdhouses has connotations of
escape & bursting free, the use of
birdhouses possibly symbolizing the role of
the housewife. Finally the black sky, this
is the future the unknown. The Image as a
whole also has a surrealist quality this
could be suggesting we are not seeing a
landscape but are in fact viewing the
thoughts and dreams of the woman.

29. So to conclude this picture
has many levels of
appreciation. As comic art
it is captivating, as a
doodle it is fascinatingly
detailed yet as
controversial thought
provoking art it also
possesses incredible depth
and meaning

30. A Picture by Salvador Dali

31. This picture shows how the earth is the place where
all life is born and how everything that is alive is
because of the earth and how the picture is a tribute
to this.
This picture shows how the United States is
expanding around the world, due to the arm that is
coming from the North American continent, and
how their growth is hurting the world which is
represented through the blood coming from the
Earth, and how everyone else in the world is
blaming the United States for the death that is
occurring due to their expansion.

32.  The difference between opinions can be a result of their
different belief systems. By this I mean how one person
may honor and respect the earth, which would led to
their belief that the painting is honoring and respecting
the earth, while the other student may just view what is
shown on the painting, how the arm is coming out of the
land the belongs to the United States.
 Art may be considered universal to some people, but this
one example can show how art is not always universal.
If someone looks at a painting they may believe that it is
a master piece, while another person can look at the same
picture can just see an ordinary object

33. Daughter of the Dancers / Muchachita!, Manuel
Alvarez Bravo

34. In this image, a young girl is seen from the
back looking into a circular window. The
girl wears a bright white dress, a shawl
draped over her shoulders and arms and a
hat with a circular brim on her back. The
girl wears no shoes and seems to be
standing on her toes to peer into the
window. The girl is standing in front of a
dramatically patterned plaster wall with
paint flaking from its surface. Her body
casts a distinct shadow on the wall,
indicating intense sunlight.

35. With her back to the camera, a girl in a bright white
cotton skirt peers into a circular black hole or
window cut into a patterned wall with peeling paint.
Her head is all but obscured by a wide-brimmed hat
that echoes the shape of the portal. She stands on her
toes ever so tentatively, her bare right foot
overlapping her left, as if she is trying to create her
own stepping stair. Her right hand disappears into
the void as she investigates the unseen contents
within. This photograph by Manuel Alvarez Bravo
establishes a contrast between her innocence and the
fearful unknown.

36. There is a striking contrast between the
intense light outside the building and the total
darkness revealed through the window. What
might this contrast represent?
Possibility 1: This image invites a number of
interpretations. Some suggest that the image may be a
meditation on innocence: the girl in the white dress
representing the innocence of childhood, and the dark
interior representing the ending of innocence in the near
future. Although we have no idea what the girl sees inside
the building, there is a sense that it is something sinister
or off-limits. Despite this, the girl gazes with brave

37. Possibility 2: The girl in the white dress is
attired for festivity and dance but is left on the
outside and wanting in. She calls to those inside
but is ignored and left out. The peeling exterior
and hard cement under the girl’s feet speak of a
“hardness” to the world outside; a sense that is
accentuated by the harsh light and shadow. The
contrasting dark window speaks of release, calm
and coolness from a hard world.

38. This image expresses many strong formal qualities.
Which of the elements and principles of art are
most strongly represented here?
There are many repetitions of shape in this image. For
instance, the shape of the window is reflected in the circular
shape of the hat brim. The pattern on the plaster wall also
consists of repeated shapes. The pattern is a complex
arrangement of squares and rectangles. Contrast is also
important in this image. The girl’s bright white dress is an
important contrast to the darkness inside the building.
Finally, the arrangement of pattern in the image and
the repetition of circular shapes create a composition
with balance and unity.