viz.

Image Credit:  Theatre is Easy

Even though my Rhetoric of the Musical class has finished up, I can’t quit musicals.  When I heard that Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, a musical I’d discovered when I was preparing my class, was moving to Broadway, I decided that it was the perfect karotic moment to tackle this rich topic.  The musical’s Gothic visuals, emo music, and satirical presentation of American politics combine to bring audiences to consider not only American populism but also the act of history making itself.

Because I seem to be the first non-UT/DWRL blogger on viz., I’ll introduce myself.   I’m Anne Bobroff-Hajal. I'm an artist interested in something rather hard to find: fine art that incorporates clearly-graspable rhetoric.   Art that attempts to integrate the left brain with the right.

Detail of Home Security at Any Crazy Price

So my entries on this blog will be a treasure hunt, searching for artists who have a double goal: to communicate something rational or scientific about the real world in a way that also powerfully moves and/or delights us.   There aren’t many such artists.  John Jones accurately observed  that visual argument tends, “contrary to Aristotle’s advice, [to] foreground the use of pathos and ethos rather than logos.”  I’m searching for those very rare artists from whom I – and maybe others – can learn techniques to balance logos, pathos, and ethos.