The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts

rhetoriC: writing, reading and ProduCing the visuaL

exhibit’ (Jorgensen- earp 2006: 42). such rhetorically examined cases underscore the
role of exhibition in public reception as well as public memory, demonstrating how
these processes leading to exhibition affect both production, placement and reception
of art and are of value to art practitioners in all areas, especially those who like walking
a line between public outrage and public engagement.
Finally, rhetorical analyses can be used pedagogically to foster creative work by
providing another point of view. graphic designers and illustrators produce pamphlets,
brochures or posters that rely on words. Typography becomes part of the visual marking
that determines how something is communicated and a rhetorical analysis of placement
can open up new methods of design. Fashion designers might just ‘know’ what lines,
hem, or shape will work to accomplish their design goals, but at the point of being
stuck, when a choice is needed, another vocabulary can provide the necessary push
to accomplish a breakthrough. applying a rhetorical lens can help to determine what
might be shifted to create or enhance a desired effect; it allows the designer to:

optimize design in a very practical sense. The system of rhetorical figures

reveals which design solutions are available to the designer, and organises

those solutions according to their function, e.g., ellipsis, apposition, inversion,

contrast or conjunction. so the designer can create a systematic overview of

the available methods and test which of them prove to be appropriate for the

design task in question’.

(gesche and scheuermann 2007: 8)

Research in these areas by art practitioners would not only serve students who need
to consider critically their work, but also add to a growing bank of knowledge about
how art constructs viewers and viewers construct art.

Looking at rhetorical research and seeing art

one of the advantages of using rhetorical strategies for arts practice research is that
it contributes to a vocabulary with which artists produce and examine their own
art. principles of rhetoric laid down by the greeks and developed over time to suit
the context already parallel how visual texts are composed: the arrangements, the
colour, the line, the references, the argument, statement, historical and perspectival
positioning at a particular kairotic moment. But before this seems like we are reading
an arts practice textbook with some specialized words thrown in, researchers in the
visual arts should look to the ‘rhetorical figures’ listed in the on- line compendium Silva
Rhetoricæ (Burton 2009). here, vocabulary such as ‘coenotes’ becomes the means by
which visual production and viewer or artist response might be articulated: ‘Repetition
of two different phrases: one at the beginning and the other at the end of successive
paragraphs’. substitute some visual vocabulary and one might consider coenotes the
‘repetition of two different brushstrokes: one at the beginning and the other at the end
of successive sections’ or ‘repetition of two different themes: one at the beginning and
the other at the end of successive parts of a composition’.
Rhetoric offers a trove of potential images resulting from this traditional terminology,
and while the terms may not be familiar, they encapsulate visual forms and practices,