Throughout the Middle Ages, we can find the image of a dove flying into the ear of evangelists to inspire them. The being ‹behind› the people was decisive – impressively manifested in the pharaoh’s statue of Khafre, behind whose head the Horus falcon is placed.
With the development of central perspective, telescopes and scientific experimentation, perception has turned to the world in front of our eyes; visual experience has become the origin of the perception of reality. What we see is objective and certain. […] The consequences of this ‹iconic turn› can be traced to the magazine landscape: Texts are receding more and more, and images are taking their place. Clearly, mere text overworks us these days, while images immediately invite us, arouse our attention, and touch emotions. The word alone is no longer sufficient; it increasingly requires pictorial accompaniment. […] One attributes evidence and persuasiveness to a thought when authorized by pictorial vividness, or even more elementary: For interest and motivation to even take up a thought, they depend in no small way on visual stimulus.
From Andre Bartoniczek, «Discovering the Future. Chapter: What is vividness?» Stuttgart 2014.
Translation Eliza Rozeboom
Graphic Sofia Lismont
