Rhetoric of the Image' (1964)

¶ … Rhetoric of the Image' (1964) is one of the more accessible expositions of Roland Barthes's theorization of word-image relations and the operation of systems of signs. The theory of signs was fundamental to Barthes's approach to cultural production and its meanings, and in this essay he seeks to provide a conceptual structure through which the word-image relationships that constitute a meaningful system of signs can be understood.

In doing so he engages with an issue that is central to the place of art in human culture, and to the ways in which art can be comprehended and regarded as meaningful: to what extent can images be said to constitute a language? A language requires a degree of stability in terms of meaning and structure, but as Barthes points out, images tend to be fluid, unstable, and various in their composition and potential meanings: "all images are polysemous; they imply, underlying their signifiers, a 'floating chain' of signifieds, the reader able to choose some and ignore others.

Polysemy poses a question of meaning and this question always comes through as a dysfunction" (Barthes, 38). Furthermore, images are in their nature copies or imitations, capable only of analogical representation, as opposed to direct representation.

Can, Barthes asks, such an analogical code produce a true system of signs (Barthes, 32)? Barthes explores these questions through the close reading of an advertising image in which meaning is clearly intentionally present, and which can thus be assumed to contain a system of signs conveying that meaning - meaning that is both denotational (meaning intentionally put into the image by its creator) and connotational (meaning that is present in mind of the consumer of the image).

Like a geologist excavating through layers of rock strata, Barthes distinguishes and digs through the different layers of messages this image contains. He begins with the linguistic message embodied in the text content of the advertisement, which separates into denotational, the use of meaningful phrases in the French language, and connotational, the association of the brand name "Panzani" with Italy and Italian culture (Barthes, 33).

He then turns to the image itself, which he reads as containing a series of "discontinuous signs" (all of which are simultaneously present - their order, unlike that of the words in a sentence, is not linear): the idea of freshness, of domesticity, of "Italianicity," of the quality of the product and its association with natural products and with convenient preparation.

The central point Barthes makes about the encoding of meaning in this way is that the symbolic message is contained not in the linguistic message but in the iconic message of the imagery used, and that this message - unlike the linguistic message - does not draw on a stock of signs already present in the mind of the onlooker. It is, he writes, a message without a code (Barthes, 36).

The knowledge a viewer needs to understand the meaning of the image is bound up with perception and association, intangible and fluid cultural products, rather than with the stable carriers of meaning that constitute language (Barthes, 36-7).

Barthes observes that the composition of the imagery in this advertisement, showing pasta, tomatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms, along with the sauce concentrate that is being advertised, all spilling from an open bag, itself provides an additional layer of associational meaning as an "aesthetic signified" (Barthes, 35) by its imitation of a recognized artistic form: the still-life painting.

This connection is appropriate, for the genre of still life is characterized by a desire on the part of artists to represent the natural world precisely, to create a convincing imitation down to the last detail, "because they felt that the essence of a still-life painting is found in its illusion of reality" (Wheelock, 12).

If we turn to two examples of actual still-life painting from the seventeenth-century Netherlands it is possible to apply Barthes's theorization of signs and come up with a reading that, at least to some extent, decodes these images in the same way as the modern advertisement is decoded in Barthes's article. These images do not contain the linguistic message embodied in the text of the advertisement, and thus constitute entirely iconic systems.

The two paintings to be considered are Still Life with Fruits and Flowers by Balthasar van der ast (late 1620s) which is in the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California; and Banquet Still Life by Abraham van Beyeren (1667), which is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California.

Van der ast's painting has as its focal point a large shallow bowl filled with fruit, partially encircled by a ring of fruit, shells, insects and other objects, while on the left of the picture is a glass jar containing flowers. Flowers and fruit possessed a particularly wide range of significance, as well as being regarded as attractive objects in their own right, and accordingly they are often found in still life paintings of this period.

On an aesthetic level the image is an appealing one, with a balanced but lively composition, depicting attractive objects, and providing the eye with a variety of textures and colours. This aesthetic level of appeal is itself a carrier of meanings - that such an image, of such content, was seen as appealing in the society of its time itself tells us something about the symbolic as well as the directly artistic nature of this image.

It is a painting of goods rather than people, produced in a commercial society, and as Richard Leppert has observed, "still life's attention to goods - possessions, things one could 'have' and by having in part define oneself -guaranteed its popularity with and significance for an audience of principally rich buyers" (Leppert, 41). The nature of this type of art, the "time-consuming, meticulous work" (Israel, 454) that such elaborate pictures demanded, was expensive and thus in itself symbolized wealth.

The physical nature and appearance of the painting is thus tied to the layers of meaning that can be excavated below its surface. The first sign in this painting, then, can be said to represent the wealth of a society which valued "good things," things valued for their beauty, their commercial worth and their role in contributing to the enjoyment of life: flowers, good food, fruit, fine china.

The connotations are of the good life, and by association with the virtues needed to achieve that good life and the rewards of wealth (for this could not be a scene in a poor home) that can be earned as a result. The signifier of the second sign is revealed if the viewer looks closely at the objects depicted in the picture, particularly the flowers and fruit.

Petals have fallen from the blooms in the vase, and many of the pieces of fruit are damaged or are showing signs of decay. This brings out associations with the brevity of life, the certainty of death, and the transience of the worldly values embodied in the first sign.

The inclusion of these signs gives the picture something of the quality of a "vanitas," a reminder of the vanity of human hopes, desires and achievements in the face of decay and death: "The still life objects represented were intended to encourage the observer to contemplate the frailty and brevity of life" (Leppert, 57-8). The third sign provides both a continuation and an inverse of the second; it promises life rather than death.

Many of the objects depicted in the painting have religious overtones: the grapes and vine leaves have profound Christian associations with the wine of communion and their use in scripture as "the True Vine" to symbolize the promise of eternal life; the shells can be read as emblematic of the need to protect the soul against the temptations of worldly life; the pomegranate symbolizes fertility and resurrection; the rose is a symbol of the Virgin Mary, as is the iris and the lily.

The second painting, by Beyeren, presents a larger collection of objects, represented from a more distanced, elevated viewpoint than is the case with the somewhat intimate van der ast painting. The result is that more of an impression of grandeur is created, and the viewer is almost intimidated by the richness on offer: gold, silver and china dishes, elaborate flasks and glassware, rich draperies, grapes, fruit, bread, and seafood including lobsters and oysters.

The painting is titled Banquet Still Life and represents the "banquet pieces" that came into fashion around the middle of the seventeenth century, and which were characterized by elaborate objects, complex arrangements, and an overall impression of costliness and lavishness (Kahr, 198) - a development that, it has been argued, reflects new expansion in Dutch maritime commerce (Israel, 469-71). Whatever its origins, the primary level of signification in this painting is clearly the lavishness of the spread it depicts.

Everything here is of the finest quality and the costliest type, from the rich and expensive seafoods to the elaborate silver platters, reflecting the comfort, status and display available to those who possessed wealth. Only wealth and the existence of the complex commercial society that underpinned it was capable of bringing together this great diversity of objects and making them available for human pleasure - the pleasure of the eye as well as of the stomach.

The partial peeling of the orange (an exotic fruit in seventeenth-century Holland), the slicing of the melon and the opening of other fruits, and of the oyster shells, underlines the point that all this wealth is available for consumption, both on the surface and within. In comparison with the first painting, this image does not speak very forcefully of decay,.