Image and text, the creation of JFK as a cultural icon

Abstract

My purpose in this thesis is not only to argue that we can use theories about works of art to discuss a human icon but that doing so does perhaps give us some power over the icon. There are many disciplines of study--semiotics, studies in cinema and mass media, comparative studies in the arts--which are all focused on pictorial representation and visual culture. I want to take this approach a step further, and include the humanistic side of pictures. I want to take a human icon, substitute it for a picture, and apply theories about pictures, using image, text, and history. Mitchell's 'Picture Theory' is not a theory about pictures: it is a way of looking at theories--how they are "pictured." My thesis in turn is concerned with the way that we picture a human icon and how it functions as a materialist work of art that represents something other than exactly what one sees. Specifically, I propose to use aspects of Interarts Theory, normally concerned with visual and verbal art, and apply it practically to thehuman icon of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK). (Abstract shortened by UMI.)