Migraine and Visual Arts
| Author: Klaus Podoll | 24. March 2007 |
| Edited by: Klaus Podoll |
Advertisement for Femigraine
Anonymous, Advertisement for Femigraine [cyclizine] headache tablets, undated. © 2007 Roche Consumer UK (see here, November 20, 2004)
Tony Jappy's interpretation of the Advertisement for Femigraine in terms of Peirce's theory of the icon
"As an example of visual metaphor, consider the rather incongruous case of the 'chimera' on the advertisement for Femigraine headache tablets: [see illustration above]. An initial striking aspect of the image is the careful use of colour, i.e. image hypoiconicity à la Peirce, which contrasts the bilious sensation caused by the yellow surrounding the grenade with the more restful blue at the bottom. However, it is the metaphorical structure of the image which strikes us most. Although the compound face takes up virtually the whole of the advert we see clearly that is a case of metaphor in the Peircean sense, for it contains in roughly equal proportions elements from one domain, or area of experience, namely the grenade with the pin removed (the visual representation of the question mark in the heading), and the dominant identifying element from the target domain, i.e. the area of experience we are trying to judge or influence, here the lower, 'emblematic' part of the woman's face. We are intended to read the advert as an analogy between the explosion of the grenade and the onset of a migraine attack, for which, we are assured, the best remedy is the product, Femigraine, the name of which echoes as a caption the Migraine? in the heading. Were the advert constructed on the lines of a simile, the woman's head and the grenade would each be separately represented in their entirety. Were it an allegory, to which we shall be turning later, only the grenade would figure in the image. However, here the most significant, identifying elements of the two domains, namely the top of the grenade where the pin is located and the lower part of the face identifying the person as a woman, are merged in a striking blend. The sheer incongruity of the image is the hallmark of innovative use of metaphorical form in the Peircean sense. And this form is a 'sub-iconic' structure that we are not always aware of."
© 2004 Tony Jappy, University of Perpignan (Cited from Tony Jappy, Iconicity and hypoiconicity in images and texts, April 13, 2004; additions in square brackets added by Klaus Podoll)
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