Rhetoric of the image – D2

“A picture is worth a thousand words”

– It was first used in 1911 in a newspaper article whose editor was Arthur Brisbane. (Wikipedia)

We all have heard this expression, but is it true? Could a single picture tell us the same or more than a doubly articulated communication? After reading very carefully Roland Barthes’ essay, Rhetoric of the Image, we found out that this was a great problem pending to be solved.

We also watched “Shooting the Past”, a television drama by Stephen Poliakoff, and it made me think about how much could an image or photograph can tell you. This film is about how photographs can tell you a story; it is about making connections, and find a relation for those things that seemed to be completely different and distant. Is that communication?