Sarah M. Al-Saadi* | Hasanain A. Karbol | Basim H. Almajidi
© 2022 IIETA. This article is published by IIETA and is licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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Contemporary critical proposals and works focused on investing the visual image to convey the desired meanings and connotations as purposeful messages to society. Many studies dealt with the concept of image and visual culture in architecture without focusing on these two concepts and their relationship to aesthetic taste in general and the impact of this on architectural critical practices in particular in a way that broadens the knowledge base about the critical and architectural inspirational and creative possibilities. So, the research is directed towards finding and defining the real relationship between these concepts to seek to understand and present their multiple aspects and expand their theoretical knowledge base. This research aims to define the general framework of the image culture and then focus on studying the culture of the contemporary visual image and its relationship to the aesthetic taste, which are directly related to the contemporary critical movement, and to determine the nature of the dynamic relations between them, to reach a theoretical framework that represents the foundations and rules affecting the enrichment of aesthetic taste and enriching its messages by clarifying the elements of the image, its expressive and aesthetic value, and how to read it, in addition, to clarify the extent to which the aesthetic taste of society is affected by the components of the architectural image, and finding general frameworks for the role of the image in enriching the critical practice in the context of society, with presenting the conclusions and recommendations.
image, image culture, aesthetic taste, architectural criticism
The image is one of the foundations and rules of visual art and its language addressing the visual energy of man, so it attracted his mind and imagination, and the matter developed in an invisible interaction between the image and human consciousness. The picture is the meeting point of the arts, where it witnessed several artistic transformations, which greatly affected the production of new concepts that contributed to the enrichment of all cultural activities, human knowledge, values and aesthetic meanings, including architectural criticism. The image has become a high-level expressive power, as of the features of our current era are the dominance of the image and its sovereignty to be one of the most important cognitive, cultural and economic tools. Its role is growing in the field of human communication, as in the last two decades, as the perceived visual image has become the most important component and the motive for action and reaction for the human being, and the image as a real substance in which real and imaginary perceptible are stored, both perceptible and unperceived. It has been formed from human experiences over the ages in fixed and transformative forms, and in automatic and intentional formations that affect ideas and give cultures features and provide them with potential energies, either logical linked to an idea or semantic (physical) linked to sense and through thought, sense and vision the essence of the critical architectural image is determined, which is what was confirmed by the French critic (Roland Barthes) when he said: “We live in the civilization of the image.” So, the image came to break barriers and dams between critics and the masses, abolished cultural and class discrimination, and spread mass culture so that any individual can receive the image and does not need a linguistic balance for understanding and enjoyment. It invaded our emotional sense and interfered with our mental formation, whether we were critics or recipients. Architectural criticism has a lofty message that aims to promote the culture of the image, specifically by working to deepen the culture by finding points of interest and a common understanding of the objectives and effects of the image on receiving or tasting. The lack of common understanding and awareness among these groups (critic and recipient) has led to a weak interaction with the culture of the artistic image, which negatively affected the general view of visual arts and the failure to give it the appreciation that fits with its importance, as the semantic storage of the image makes it a critical communicative tool with a high emotional cognitive and aesthetic impact that produces an extended dialogue medium, creating an abundance of meanings and connotations and a heavy presence in the critical scene, which has a profound impact on the recipient leaving a clear imprint in his imagination and memory, and plays a major role in attracting attention to the recipient.
The research methodology depends on the sequence of the following steps:
(1) clarify the elements of the image and its expressive and aesthetic value, and clarify how to read it.
(2) clarify the extent to which the aesthetic taste of society is affected by the components of the architectural image.
(3) clarify the role of the image in enriching the critical practice in the context of society.
3.1 The concept of image culture
Image is a word that means pure mental creativity that cannot emanate from comparison, but rather emanate from the combination of two realities that vary in dimension, few and many, and it is not possible to create an image of comparison between two distant realities that only the mind can comprehend the relationship between them [1]. The image is a mental creation that depends mainly on the imagination, and only the mind is aware of the relationships between them. The image is closely related to the imagination. Utilizing the activity of the imagination, the image penetrates to the imagination of the recipient, so it is imprinted in it in a certain way and a specific form, conveying the artist’s feeling towards things, and his emotion and interaction with them [2]. There are also important variations in the use of this term, some of which are related to external perceptual images or internal mental images, images that combine the inside and the outside, or the image in the technical, automatic or even digital sense [3]. The research chose this classification for its inclusion of a wide range of types of images and to benefit from them in enriching the research.
3.2 Types of images
The images can be grouped by their appearance in previous studies and sources into two main categories:
(1) Visual images:
The image can be viewed as a visible visual body that has a purpose and carries expressive media, terms or symbols to achieve that end or goal. It can be perceived or understood, directly or indirectly, in connection with the values and symbols, it carries with civilized and cultural connotations. It is the most tangible use of the term. This usage refers in particular to the reflection of a subject, on a mirror, lenses, or other optical instruments, and the extension takes place with the previous use, so we talk about the retinal image, which is the approximate image of an object that is reflected on the retina of the eye when the light is properly refracted on the visual apparatus [4].
-Photographs: Photographs that are taken by ordinary cameras. Photographs may be pictures of people, landscapes, or ordinary things that a person uses in his life, or otherwise [5].
-Digital Image: Digital images differ from photographs in that they are computer-generated images, or at least enhanced by a computer. The value of a digital image is derived from its role as information, as well as from its distinction as images that are easily accessible, manipulated or processed, stored in a computer or on a website, or downloaded [6]. Thus, we can see how each era is specific to image technology has produced a variety of simulations by which images are evaluated and perceived. It obtains its cultural value from being an original or unique image, single in its texture. All these images, with their different meanings, are present together in our societies today, so our era is called the era of the image [6].
(2) Invisible images:
-The mental image: It is defined as being at a higher degree than mere reconstruction of the sensory experience. It is not just craftsmanship of basic expertise, there's nothing quite like the process of projecting a miniature slide onto a screen from a projector, but rather an image that "looks like it were" the original image, and this means that thinking about images is an active cognitive process "as if" one has a (mental image) similar to the particular scene in the real world [2].
-Images of imagination: Imagination is defined as the active mental ability to form new images and perceptions. This term refers to the merging, synthesis, and recombination processes of memory components of past experiences, as well as the images that are formed in the process into new structures [6].
-Subsequent images: They are defined as those that are generated for us if, for example, we look at a black square drawn on a white page and then turn our eyes away from it, so a white square remains in our eyes for a few seconds. They are the images that occur at the sense of sight after the end of a specific sensory stimulus, and it is a form that we cannot control or modify, but it can be the object of our perception [5].
-Ordinary images (Avatars): This kind of perception-like image that differs from subsequent images by their persistence for a longer period, also, they do not require focus and intense attention to be formed, as is the case in the subsequent images, and they can occur through their relation to a complex pattern of stimulation [6].
-Images of memory: It is a type of thinking familiar to us in daily life, and it may accompany the processes of recalling events from the past or thinking processes that occur now in the present, or events and situations in the future [7].
From the foregoing, we find that the types of images that are specialized in the field of research are visual images (photographs, moving images, and virtual digital images), which can be included and used in books, sources and architectural criticism articles that enrich the visual culture of the recipient and help the critic or writer in conveying his message.
3.3 Image culture
The term visual culture includes among its aspects a wide range of forms that extend from fine arts to popular films, television programs and advertisements, as well as visual data in areas that some may not be inclined to think of as cultural, and we mean the fields of sciences, natural sciences, arts and medicine, non-exclusive representation [5]. At the beginning of photography in the early nineteenth century, scientific images became an important field of the history of photography for science and its development. With the advancement of computers and digital imaging in the late twentieth century, images and pictorial forms of scientific, legal and other data have become an important aspect through which many scientific fields carry out experiments, describe information, and communicate ideas. This was a global shift towards visual means to represent knowledge and evidence, and this has increased to a large extent with the increasing importance of digital media as a form of providing information, and the image is closely related to popular culture and the postmodern era [4]. Image culture can be defined as a term concerned with observing the different visions surrounding images, their connotations, meanings and effects, and how to view them as symbols and as means of communication, which is an integrated system of symbols and as a transmitter of knowledge, which are forms, relationships, contents and formations that carry the experiences and balance of civilized peoples, and are characterized by their features, and they are developing and renewed, subjective and dynamic [7]. Braden, Walker put forward that “To be a visual literate, you must be able to extract the meaning of what you see, be able to communicate meaning to others through the images you create.” Robert Harriman and John Lewis Lockets eloquently assert in their book "No Caption Needed," that the most desirable images are used to orient the individual in the context of collective identity because they represent large segments of historical experience, they acquire their history, they have more than documentary value because they bear witness to something beyond words [8].
3.4 The culture of the image and its relationship to architectural criticism
Visual culture in the light of the concept of culture is an integrated and intertwined whole that includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws and customs, and everything that qualifies a person to be a member of society and this appears through the manifestations of various arts. That is, what enriches the taste and elevates it visually and critically [9]. through a set of points, the most important of which are the richness and development of knowledge, the position of beliefs for the connoisseur and critic, the position of the arts within society, the status of morals in human interactions, the laws organizing life that make a person a human being created by God in the best evaluation, the position of inheritance and customs within society, and the systems of human interactions and their impact on art [10]. As White sees that visual culture is a system of a phenomenon that moves easily between human groups and the history of culture is nothing but human history through thousands of years [11].
Visual dialogues in architectural criticism are not a method of performance, but a process that helps to stimulate and renew performance and reach discoveries about the image or about any human performance that takes place in any other field and from the important aspects of awareness, which constitute an essential aspect of our contemporary life related to mental images [11]. It is the presence of thinking about images related to a particular thing, and everything in life, especially art and architecture. In their essence, they are images that summon images that in turn can provoke the iconic activity or visual dialogue in the mind of the recipient. Architectural criticism works to implant images and their growth and fruition in the minds of the recipients, and the forms of thinking are the emerging images and it is the basis through which individuals become acquainted with the architectural works and taste them [9].
The theater of images is a theater that uses image, light and movement to attract the attention of the recipient and his interest, and to take him in the human nervous system to his maximum level to raise the state of excitement to its highest levels [10]. where the factors related to attention, perception, motivation, mental direction, previous experience, perceptual distortions, the relationship of form to the ground, disfavoring the familiar, making the familiar unfamiliar, the emergence of some stimuli and the retreat of others, visual, color, light and formative dazzle, movement with its patterns, indicators, icons and symbols, selectivity, expectation, memory, and others play their special role in the theater of the image and in the special aesthetic experience which is present during the process of receiving the critical picture. Holman points out that the connoisseur goes through the same four stages that the creator goes through, which are [11]:
(1) The stage of preparation: Getting ready to stand at the door of the picture or work.
(2) The stage of fermentation, latency, or incubation: It is that stage that passes before a merger occurs with an idea, a subject of the image or work. It represents a kind of dismissal or non-attendance in the psychological field of work even if the recipient remains in the physical presence of the image.
(3) The stage of rising: The occurrence of an abundance of openness, which allows for a kind of understanding, comprehension and crystallization of the content of the image and its attachments.
(4) Verification stage: It is the stage in which the recipient arrives at a judgment and decision regarding the image, and concludes in defining its relations with it. These four stages are an attempt to disaggregate what is all unified, in which we see the connoisseur going through a major formative effort, in other words, rebuilding the image again by walking in the same path that the creative artist walked.
The studies also mentioned that the process consists of four elements, namely [12]:
(1) The sender, who is the artist or photographer, the source of the message or the point at which the communication process begins.
(2) The message, which is the cultural content of the image. It is the content or topic (meanings or ideas) and is usually expressed in symbols, aesthetics, verbal or non-verbal.
(3) The means, which is how the message is transmitted (the image of all kinds). It is the method or channel by which the message is transmitted from the critic to the recipient.
(4) The receiver: It is the recipient or the viewer to whom the message is directed and received through one or all of his different senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch), then he interprets, analyzes and reads its symbols and tries to comprehend their meanings and understand their content and purpose.
Figure 1. The components of the communicative critical process
(5) Feedback (or response): is the final link in the chain of the communication process. After receiving a message, the receiver responds in some way and signals that response to the sender. The signal may take the form of a spoken comment, a long sigh, a written message, a smile, or some other action. "Even a lack of response, is in a sense, a form of response", It is resending the message from the receiver to the sender and receiving it and making sure that it has been understood, and the sender in this case notes the approval or disapproval of the content of the message. The speed of feedback, and that reactions to critical articles may not occur until after a long period and the process of measuring reactions is important in the communication process, as it becomes clear whether the communication process has been done in a good way in all its stages or not, and the reactions show the change in the communication process, whether at the individual level or the group level [13]. See Figure 1.
From the foregoing, we find that the stages that the recipient or connoisseur passes through are the first three stages (readiness, latency, and radiance), during which the recipient interacts with the theater of images sent by the creator using the attractors of the image such as light, movement, texture and colors to attract the attention and interest of the recipient up to the higher degrees of the search condition about sensations, excitement, and the desire to participate and explore new experiences, and then make judgments as the last tasting stage (verification process). see Figure 2.
Figure 2. Stages of the aesthetic visual tasting process between the two ends of the visual dialogue (sender and receiver), source: (Author)
3.5 The artistic and aesthetic taste of the visual image in architectural criticism
Taste is the intensity of sensitivity to aesthetic values, and the ability to respond to things in art or nature and eliciting and distinguishing them from ordinary and less beautiful things, it is the ability to distinguish the valuable thing, it is a moral sense that emanates from the elongation or contraction of the soul when looking at an effect of emotion or thought, and it is a pattern of behavior that in essence requires making judgments about the value of an object, idea, or object from an aesthetic point of view [14]. It is the act and ability to distinguish between the beautiful and the ordinary thing, or the ability to derive everything that is beautiful in art or nature, or the growth of one's sensitivity so that one can respond to different types of relationships [15]. The taste is the property of distinguishing beauty and enjoyment. The word taste means the individual’s aesthetic response to external stimuli, and the aesthetic taste factor depends on a complex pattern of behavior that in essence requires judgments on the value of an object or idea from an aesthetic point of view. Three processes can be distinguished in this behaviour as follows: A) Aesthetic sensitivity, B) Aesthetic judgment, and C) Aesthetic preference [16].
Aesthetic sensitivity means the respondent’s response to aesthetic stimuli, a response consistent with a specific level of quality in art. As for aesthetic judgment, it is the degree of agreement between the judgment issued by the examinee on the work of art and the judgments of art experts [15]. As for aesthetic preference, it is a type of aesthetic tendency that is represented by a general behavioural tendency of the respondent that makes him love a certain category of works of art and not others, and this means that the aesthetic preference relates to the effect that works of art have in its simplest manifestations, i.e., the form of acceptance and rejection, or like and aversion.
The relationship between the previous elements can be described as a gradual relationship from the simplest level of influence represented by aesthetic sensitivity, followed by the most complex level represented by aesthetic preference with its self-selective trait, and finally the most complex and strictest level, which is aesthetic judgment [16].
3.6 Visual aesthetic bases for the aesthetic taste of the image
Previous studies presented many aesthetic bases that can be evaluated in works and images, where the concept of clarity of the idea put a special place in photography as a way to excite the artist to reveal the plastic contents it contains. The result of the picture was specifically measured by the artist's ability to portray the idea so that it matches in the end the visual images that are usually evoked around him [14]. Henri Matisse says, "The detection of the camera exempted the artists from being involved in the transmission of nature", and shows that the idea of the subject is not the accidental appearance, and the piercing eye is through which the rhythmic and harmonic system is revealed [17]. The language of visual art of line, space, texture, mass, light, and color, with their rhythm, balance, harmony and contrast, depth and breadth, is the outcome through which the artist speaks with his feelings and shakes those around him, as it also considers the content and meaning that this picture carries in its folds and conveys it to others who come to see this picture [16]. The form is the general structure upon which the construction of the image and the work is based, and one cannot be separated from the other. The content is perceived through the form and the form acquires meaning for the content. The form affects the content, the content affects the form, and both appear in a coherent unit, the realization of which depends on the connoisseur who sees [17].
Color and its psychological connotations are also considered one of the most important foundations that add an element of attraction and dazzle to the recipient, as the color is as old as man and has a general meaning for people and a meaning for individuals [18]. People have taken colors as an emotional or political symbol. Every flag carries a symbol or symbols, and this symbol has psychological connotations, and the connotations of the symbols may vary, as they may be religious, political, ethnic or social [16]. The shape in the picture has a cognitive significance, where the shape has visual terms to denote a specific functional use on one side and the other side lies in our self-relationship with it. There is a visual contact and a feeling towards the shape, it may evoke comfort or beauty and may send a cognitive or symbolic significance, and this means the relativity of knowledge and taste and reflects the state of attention to the visual communicator, where the artist works on the visual dimension and works to transcend the physical and standard existence of the form [19]. Neighborhoods and buildings, with their meanders and convergence, reflect an emotional and social state of their inhabitants, but rather express a system of thinking, because the place is a reflection of the human being and vice versa, as it is the self-construction of form that achieves communication with others so that the other can see you through what you do visually [18], the image offers a sense of identity, luxury and belonging, as the primary factors for building memory for users and visitors, attracting their attention and making it an unforgettable place [20].
3.7 The expressive and structural components of the image
Among the most important expressive components of the image are:
3.8 The cultural dimension of the image
It contributes to supporting the positive trends of the recipient. When the negative image appears, the ideal image is drawn in our imagination, and this is the goal of the image, as it contributes to the advancement of the better socially, environmentally and economically [15]. The image acts as a stimulus for positive behavior and negative criticism. The culture of the image is a mirror reflecting everything that falls on it in the social aspect with all its heritage links, customs, traditions and folk arts [20]. It has been proven for quite some time that the image is a visual encyclopedia that derives its social components from the inherited generations of heritage and inheritance in aspects of culture to return through practice and expression (also in its various aspects), is a developed or added culture, and thus it is in continuous growth. The focus of attention lies on the nature of that growth and what the image reflects on it, and herein lies the danger of the image culture, both negatively and positively [15]. Successful images and works are what provide the community with something to interact with and benefit from, in harmony with the environment and appropriate to the surrounding conditions [18].
Figure 3. Using the expressive and structural components in the image
From the foregoing, the research extracts a general framework for the visual-structural and cultural dimensions, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1. A general framework for the visual-structural and cultural dimensions, Source: (Author)
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Theoretical framework extracted from the impact of the image on taste and critical aesthetics |
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The main terms of the constructive visual dimension |
Clarity of idea |
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Content |
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Color and its psychological significance |
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The figure and its cognitive significance in the image |
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Morphological connotations of the image |
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Expressive semantics |
The symbol |
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Repetition |
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Deletion and addition |
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Exaggeration |
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Attention to detail |
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Shape organization |
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The quality |
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Aesthetic semantics |
The unity |
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Dominion |
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Balance |
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Rhythm |
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Confirmation |
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Harmony |
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Gradation |
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Proportionality |
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The main terms of the constructive cultural dimension |
Increases the store of visual ideas for the recipient |
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It increases information acquisition rates for recipients |
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It increases the creativity of the critic |
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It raises specific values that serve the critic's goal |
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The picture translates a certain thought and philosophy |
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It helps in raising the visual culture |
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It helps in gaining visual culture |
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The idea of the image and its connection to community issues |
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The practical study deals with an analytical approach for two architectural books selected to know the role of the image in enriching the recipient's taste in the architectural criticism process, as the sources differ from each other in the way they use the image tool and the way it is dealt with in terms of its content and methods of representation, that is, the analysis will include a comparison of the image's contribution to enriching taste in each of the visual-structural and cultural values of the recipient.
4.1 The selected research samples
Three architectural sources were selected that vary in the way the image is used, the way it is shown, and the image application, and then the sources were analyzed in a comparative analysis through the role of the images that they dealt with in enriching the recipient's taste through testing the terms of the theoretical framework extracted for the selected samples, which are:
1) The Image of the City is a 1960 book by American urban theorist Kevin Lynch. The book is the result of a five-year study of Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles on how observers take in information of the city, and use it to make mental maps. Lynch's conclusion was that people formed mental maps of their surroundings consisting of five basic elements.
2) In The Story of Post-Modernism, Charles Jencks, the authority on Post-Modern architecture and culture, provides the defining account of Post-Modern architecture from its earliest roots in the early 60s to the present day. By breaking the narrative into seven distinct chapters, which are both chronological and overlapping, Jencks charts the ebb and flow of the movement, the peaks and troughs of different ideas and themes.
4.2 Application to the selected samples
In the next section, the research will present the most important images that were reviewed by the selected samples (at the level of illustrative charts, images at the 2D level and images at the 3D level) then analyze the image information according to the terms extracted in the visual structural dimensions and the cultural dimension and discuss the results for each sample.
4.2.1 The first sample
A) Visual-constructive dimension Analysis
(1) Clarity of the idea: Theorist Lynch relied on simple manual illustrative charts, diagrams and black and white images to clarify his ideas due to the lack of techniques in the sixties that contribute to the production of illustrative means and images that draw the attention of the recipient and help the writer in communicating his ideas, see Figure 4-a.
(2) Content: The form affects the content, and the content affects the form, and both appear in an interconnected unit whose quality of perception depends on the way this relationship is visually shown to the recipient. In his book, Lynch relied on detailed explanations to convey the contents of his ideas because the images used were of poor quality and were not clear, which did not help him greatly in conveying the desired contents, see Figure 4-a, 4-b.
(3) Color and its psychological significance: Color is considered one of the most important elements of the image and most influential on the recipient, helping him to understand and taste the image. In Lynch's book, images were based on black and white and color contrast only, meaning that the color affected attracting the recipient and affecting him psychologically and helping him understand his message.
(4) Shape and its cognitive significance in the image: the shape has visual terms to denote a specific functional use on one side, and the other side lies in our self-relationship with it, and the image is the carrier of these relationships. We find that the images used in this book were not of a quality that enables the recipient to feel and interact with these formal, functional and subjective relationships, meaning that the presented forms have lost many of their cognitive connotations due to technical weakness.
(5) Formal connotations of the image: The image represents the work in the implementation mechanism and the use of shapes through the distribution of lines and colors in a specific form within a form that includes a certain degree of precise regularity to express ideas aesthetically and functionally. Due to the weakness of the mechanisms of implementation and manifestation in that period, the formal indications related to techniques were very weak, which affects the recipient's excitement and response to messages sent through images.
(6) Expressive semantics: They are the elements of expression in the image:
(7) Aesthetic connotations: They are (unity, sovereignty, balance, rhythm, harmony, gradation, proportion). We note that these aesthetic semantic features have been invested in varying and modest ways in the pictures of the book, as the maximum benefit from them was not achieved due to the poor quality of the images, which hindered the consultation of the recipient, which made the writer resort to explaining everything he wanted to convey in detail, which affects the reader's desire to receive, who tends to enjoy the messages sent through shapes and images, meaning that the book lacks to enrich the recipient with semantics.
Below is a selection of images from Kevin Lynch's book (Figure 4) [22].
B) The cultural dimension analysis
Pictures usually contribute to supporting the positive trends of the recipient. When the negative picture appears, the ideal picture is drawn in our imagination, and this is the goal of the picture, as it contributes to the betterment always socially, environmentally and economically. The picture acts as a stimulus for positive behavior and negative criticism, but in Lynch's book, the picture's goal was no more than being functionally and conveying the desired message in a simplified manner with a lot of explanation, because the images in the source were not of quality and size that encourages the reader and the recipient to study them, meaning that the images, due to their poor quality, did not increase the stock of visual ideas of the recipient as much and did not raise the creativity of the writer, but it helped him in sending his thoughts simply.
Figure 4. A group of figures in Lynch's book
C) The result of first sample analysis
The images used in Lynch's book did not contribute significantly to enriching the recipient's experience visually and culturally, due to their low quality, lack of clarity of colors, texture and details, in addition to their small size, which prevents attracting the attention of the reader who needs to decipher the codes sent by the writer, as the pictures here did not play their positive role as they should due to their poor presentation and organization, which led the writer to rely on elaborate and lengthy explanations to reach his goal.
4.2.2 The second sample
A) Visual-constructive dimension analyze
(1) Clarity of the idea: The clarity of the idea has a special place in the images as a way to provoke the recipient, which prompts him to reveal what it contains. Achieving the goal of using the image is measured by the extent to which the writer or critic can portray the idea so that it matches the visual images that are usually evoked around him, encode and send it to the recipient. Jencks has invested the images in his book to clarify the ideas that he wants to convey to the recipient through the use of all the elements of good pictures.
(2) Content: The form affects the content, and the content affects the form, and both appear in an interconnected unit, the quality of their perception depends on the way this relationship is visually shown to the recipient, which Jencks focused on in his book to convey the contents of his ideas because the images used were of high quality and accuracy that attracts the recipient to the tasting space, see Figure 5-c, where the quality of the images helped him to convey his ideas by showing the buildings in an artistic way that supports his explanations.
(3) Color and its psychological significance: Jencks made use of the colors, which are considered one of the most important components of the image and the most influential on the recipient and help him to understand the image and taste it optimally, as the writer here used very realistic photographs and virtual images, see Figure 5-c that helped to enrich the aesthetic taste of the recipient and thus helped him in deciphering the sent symbols and understanding the messages in a smoothly.
(4) Shape and its cognitive implications: The shape has visual terms to denote a specific functional use on one side, and the other side lies in our self-relationship with it, and the image is the vessel that transports these relationships. We find that Jencks used the potential of the image to express the most informative connotations of knowledge, as in his expression of the tremendous impact that the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao had on the urban landscape of the city, which is reflected in the images, see Figure 5-c, where we note the writer’s focus on the strengths of the project to deliver ready-made and rich messages to the recipient, who will be impressed by the strength of the encrypted connotations that reached him through the image that bears the qualities of a good image.
(5) Formal connotations: The picture represents the work in the implementation mechanism and the use of shapes through the distribution of lines and colors in a certain way within a form that includes a certain degree of precise regularity to express ideas aesthetically and functionally, which is one of the most important points that Jencks focused on, as this is evident in all topics of the book that dealt with the picture in a way that serves the aesthetic and functional dimension of the buildings and delivers it to the recipient through the writer’s creativity in choosing the methods of distributing lines, colors and precise regularity, expressing an impressive visual richness for the recipient, see Figure 5-c, where the clear image is the regularity of displaying the pictures of the project, in addition to the regularity of presenting the idea that the writer wants.
Below is a collection of pictures from Charles Jenks' book (Figure 5) [23]:
Figure 5. A group of figures in Jencks's book
(6) Expressive semantics:
(7) Aesthetic connotations: They are (unity, sovereignty, balance, rhythm, harmony, gradation, proportion). We note that these semantic features have been widely invested by the writer to create visual, expressive, intellectual and critical excitement for the recipient in proportion to the stages of his taste for the image. The high quality of the images and the diversity of their connotations helped raise the value of the critical scientific material and enriching it with visual evidence that is full of visual enrichment for the connoisseur.
B) The cultural dimension analyzes
The image element has increased the stock of visual ideas of the recipient, which includes raising the rates of acquiring cognitive information for the recipient at the same time compared to books or critical articles that do not use images, in addition, the images have raised the creativity of the critic to serve his goals, messages thought, philosophy and delivery to the community who will acquire visual culture from the totality of cognitive visual experiences imparted by this resource.
C) The result of second sample analyzes
Images have made an effective contribution in delivering messages, and cognitive and intellectual connotations sent by the writer to the recipient on the visual structural level, and on the cultural level, as the image raised the visual ideas stoke of the recipient on the one hand, and raised the creativity of the writer or critic on the other hand, in addition to the delivery of collective messages that give solutions to many societal issues.
From the foregoing, as a result of the analysis of the two selected samples, we find that the images affected the aesthetic taste of the recipient in the second sample more than their impact in the first sample on the structural visual dimensions and the cultural dimension, as the adoption of expressive semantics in the images used affected access to the maximum benefit from them by enriching the recipient's experience and raising the critic's creativity.
Architectural criticism has many tools, the most important of which is the image. The achievement of its goal depends on the degree of the aesthetic taste of the culture of the visual image of the recipient. Therefore, the architectural criticism using the image is a necessity and a means to acquire the skills of tasting and reading architectural images. What enriches taste and criticism and elevates it visually is based on several sources, which are the sources of visual culture that constitutes the individual's experience, including the inherited heritage through generations, intellectual and artistic accumulation, the balance of civilizations, especially contemporary civilization, the subjectivity of the community or nation, global and local lived variables, the movement of thought, literature and art, which takes place in culture, the bloodstream of the human body, the movement of the global culture of dynamic incoming cultures, especially in the field of arts, which leads to opening new horizons of vision. Despite the enormous advantages of the image, it may lead to the dominance of the culture of repetition, copying and robbery over the works of others, in addition to deception, counterfeiting and theft of ideas, which calls for the need to study the cultural, psychological and social aspects when preparing the image to address sectors, individuals or society in a way that enhances the impactful ability of the image and reduces its potential negative effects.
It is necessary to conduct more studies that show the importance of the image and the depth of its employment in the development of multiple aspects such as the social, intellectual and psychological aspects in a manner commensurate with the rich stock of the image to create an active field for attracting the attention of the recipient, in addition to being a basic entry point for the development of society and laying the foundations of human ideals in it.
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