Notes: "Rhetoric of the Image", Roland Barthes

 

[Analysis of the Panzani Ad]

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Linguistic Message

signifiers = caption & labels)

signified = denotation -- Panzani

signified = connotation -- "italianicity"

 

Iconic Coded Message (image; "symbolic"; connoted) -- a series of nonlinear "discontinuous signs".

1. signified = a return from the market

values = freshness and domestic preparation

signifiers = open, unpacked bag of provisions

2. signified = Italianicity

signifiers = tomato, pepper, yellow-green-red of the poster

3. signified = "total culinary service"

4. signified = still life

 

The nature of the image as an advertisement suggests its status as a kind of sign which "eludes signification"; implicit due to placement in magazine & emphasis of labels.

 

All four signs

1. form a coherent whole,

2. require cultural (background) knowledge,

3. refer back to global signifieds imbued with values.

 

Iconic Literal (Non-coded) Message (denoted; corresponds to the "letter of the image")

signified = objects

signifiers = images of those objects (indexical and iconic)

 

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T. R. Quigley, 2004