Art, Design, and Visual Culture

Author: Barnard
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: It is not to deny that natural phenomena are given meaning culturally, nor is it to deny the non-cultural or naturally formed existence of vision. Without assigning some form of meaning to landscapes, plants, insects, and fish, we would not be able to appreciate them as landscapes, animals, or plants. That is to say, in visual culture, there cannot be non-cultural or natural forms of visual products. Since it is meaningful to some extent, this meaning is also assigned according to cultural rules, so it is meaningful at the cultural level. Of course, we do not deny that the representation of landscapes, etc., is meaningful. In his book The Art Universe, John Barrow explains that certain landscapes presented in painting and photography can evoke a sense of pleasure because they can, to some extent, remind people of the relatively safe and abundant environment encountered when humans first ventured out of the jungle and began to live and hunt on the subtropical grasslands. Similarly, it is well-known that everyone has their own thoughts about the landscapes they see. For example, a general, a farmer, and an artist will interpret these landscapes and topography in their own ways. After seeing a certain landscape or topography, a general might say, "This place is defensible"; a farmer might say, "This place is suitable for growing crops"; and an artist might say, "This place is melancholic and sorrowful."
However, the meaning of landscapes, etc., is by no means the same as the meaning of their representation. When a general, a farmer, or an artist says that a landscape or topography is defensible, suitable for growing crops, or melancholic and sorrowful, they are, in another form—defensiveness, suitability for growing crops, or melancholy and sorrow—giving meaning to that landscape or topography. Some argue that landscape paintings and other artworks are created by people, and people merely want to express certain ideas through them, so landscapes themselves are not the product or crystallization of ideas; only through people, i.e., culture, can ideas be infused into landscapes, giving them meaning.
The view that visual products in visual culture are all visible things requires careful consideration. If we do not think about how things like nature are given meaning, then "all visible things" cannot be used to define visual products in visual culture.