Ch5 of reading images

In 5th chapter, Kress & Leeuwen discussed the credibility or true value of the image. The concept of modality in linguistic has been applied in the visual context. The author stated that “modality judgments are social, depend on what is considered real (or true or sacred) in the social group for which the representation is primarily intended” (p.156). When one social group considers credible may not be consider credible by another in different culture (P.171). From the perspectives of naturalism, reality is defined as how much correspondence there is between the visual representations of an object and what we normally see of that object with the naked eye that has had cultural training in a social setting (p.158). The greater abstraction, the lower modality. Besides, the use of color, shadow, brightness, texture in an image gives the different degrees of modality. For instance, naturalistic modality increases as color articulation increase, but if the color articulation presents more than real, the modality decrease.

Moreover, the author talked about the naturalistic critical of the image and claimed that a belief of what is real and what is not on the objective correspondence of the visual image determined visual modality. However, the technology of reproduction creates a new standard for naturalism. Naturalism and realism in today society no longer merge and we need to rethink the role of new image technologies. For example, diagrams, maps and technical images do not seek to present naturalism but these still represent what is real in scientific perspectives. In addition, the author mentioned when the art became intertwined with design, the boundaries between representing reality and constructing reality became blurred.