Banksy Visual Literacy Essay

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A popular contemporary graffiti artist, Banksy, creates intriguing and intricate designs for public display on regular and everyday streets. His rising popularity serves as a catalyst for the renowned importance of the attainability of visual literacy. Visual literacy is the ability to understand and interpret the message of a visual image or object, and having this skill is becoming increasingly important in todays culture. According to Zemliansky, the first crucial step towards developing visual literacy is to treat visual messages as text and arguments. Although the message of most visual images are ambiguous, it is still logical to surmise that different ideas can stem from one image because of our varying perception due to varying experiences, …show more content…

The intended audience is who the author wants to get the message across to, and the context is how the current culture will be able to interpret this image. The audience of this image is most likely any person of any age who happens to stop at this image and examine it. The picture shows 3 different people of varying ages who have either never seen a Bansky image or have seen one, which in a larger spectrum also could represent the worldly population as a whole for his intended audience. The context of this image is the culture in which people live in today, where Banksy images are now popular and are now more easily to be read and interpreted, as opposed to someone who is older and has more trouble interpreting a controversial image that is becoming much more famous in today’s …show more content…

At a logical level, this image most likely will resonate with someone who is able to understand the purpose behind the message or someone who is familiar with Banksy’s work. As portrayed in the image, the elderly man, who probably not aware with Banksy’s rising popularity, seems be having more difficulty trying to find the purpose and logic behind the image rather than the two younger individuals. Nevertheless, he is still intrigued by the image, which validates the logical aspect of the image. This claim can also be tied with the emotional level of the image. The two younger men seem to be accepting of the image, while the old man seems to be struggling to find meaning. People who accept the image probably have an easier time assessing their emotions rather than someone who has never seen an image as controversial as the images that Banksy creates. The ethical level of the image is once again portrayed by the body language of the individuals. Because of the provocative style of most Banksy images, some children might get scared or confused when they those drawings, which could ultimately explain why the man seems to be holding the child close to him. The elderly individual has his hand on his chin which is another indicator of interest, and ultimately does not seem to have any view on the ethnical aspect of the

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