The rhetoric of the image
March 17, 2022
It has been interesting to reflect on a series of ads i created a few years ago. For Levis’, I created a campaign to promote their red tab line of jeans (Fig.1).
The concept was quite simple: Levi’s RedTab jeans are so comfortable and durable you’ll never want to take them off. The ads portrayed situations where people have refused to take their jeans off – getting a tattoo, washing clothes, and taking a shower. In this instance the images dominate, in order to display the product prominently. The line of copy ‘On4life’ functions as a strapline and in the terminology of Roland Barthes provides anchorage (1). Barthes explains how images are prone to multiple meanings and interpretations. Anchorage occurs when text is used to focus on one of these meanings, or at least to direct the viewer through the maze of possible meanings in some way. We can think of hashtags as having the same function. Regarding visual element of the ad, John Berger says: “publicity relies to a large extent on the language of oil painting” (2).
In retrospect, it has been interesting to note how I may, or may not have been, influenced by historical works of art.
Berger argues this is purposefully done in publicity to suggest ‘cultural authority, a form of dignity, even of wisdom, which is superior to any vulgar material interest’ (3).
It is also interesting to reflect on how aesthetics are learned and the extent to which the subconscious influences the creation of artworks. Was I aware the visuals I created were so similar to a range of classical oil paintings? Had I consciously intended to leverage this language? To what extent does the conscious and subconscious inform our creativity? Sigmund Freud studied this in a broader context, describing how our present feelings, motives and decisions are powerfully influenced by our past experiences that have been stored in the unconscious (4).
Fig. 1: Robert DAVIES. 2007. Levis ON4LIFE. Private collection: Robert Davies.
Fig.2: Comparison of ads with oil paintings (in order); Jean-Baptiste GREUZE. Ca 1725–1805. Available at: https://www.akg-images.co.uk/archive/Girl-Looking-over-her-Shoulder-2UMDHUWPD29W2.html [accessed 17 February 2022], Christina ROBERTSON. Olga Ivanovna Orlova-Davydova. Ca 1814–1876. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Christina+Robertson&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image [accessed 3 March 2022], Anthony VAN DYCK. Portrait of a lady. Available at https://www.pubhist.com/w19075 [accessed February 15 2022].
(1) BARTHES, Roland. 1977. Image-Music-Text. New York: Hill and Wang.
(2) BERGER, John. 1972. Ways of seeing. London: Penguin.
(3) Ibid.
(4) FREUD, Sigmund. 2002 [first published 2001]. The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Penguin Classics.