Photography, the first secular art form and its ironic appropriation in Contemporary Advertising by Roversi Ryan Daniele

Photography the

First Secular Art Form and its

Ironic Religious Appropriation in Contemporary Advertising

Author:

Daniele Roversi

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of

BA (Hons) Contemporary Media Practice 2013/2014

Student number: w134354881 Word count: 10000 Module: 2MED614.1 Dissertation - Contextual Study Deadline: 15th Jannuary 2014

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Table of contents:

Index.........................................................................................................................2 Acknowledgements..................................................................................................3 Abstract....................................................................................................................4 Introduction..............................................................................................................5 Chapters: 1. Is photography the only secular art form?....................................................8 1.1 – How long is an instant? Relationship between the art-piece and the maker....................................11 2. Relationship between religion and capitalism, in particular in advertising..................................................................................................18 3. Communicating through ads......................................................................26 3.1 – Understanding our mind....................................................................26 3.2 – Decoding advertising.........................................................................27 3.3 – The metaphor of the message............................................................30 4. Appropriation of Religious themes in contemporary advertising through the secular art form of photography..............................................34 4.1 – The light............................................................................................36 4.2 – The themes........................................................................................40 4.3 – The iconography................................................................................42 Conclusion..............................................................................................................50 Bibliography...........................................................................................................52 List of Illustrations.................................................................................................55

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My biggest gratitude goes to my family, in particular my parents, for the support received through my entire life and in particular during these last years at university. Without the huge sacrifices my parents have made I would have not been able to accomplish half of the stuff I have done. Thanks for supporting mine and my brother's dreams like only real parents can do! A special thanks goes to my mum, my biggest fan, that when I was only 16 convinced me that learning english was a key aspect for my education and allowed me to go studying in the US for 6 months. I must also thank all my lectures for the incredible experience they made me part of during these three years and for the priceless knowledge gained. I left my home country looking for the perfect place to start my future life and I could not have found a better place. Thanks to Peter Dukes for answering every e-mail ever sent in record time, even at 1.00 am on saturday night. Thanks to Raine for giving me continuos support in every project ever made and, not negligible, for the amount of free film he donated me. Thanks to Graham for making me understand that my future really lies in photography for helping me with this dissertation until the last minute and for... just being Graham! Thanks to Mr. Codeluppi Vanni and Mr. Dusi Nicola Maria, lecturers from the university of Modena and Reggio Emilia, for the useful research suggestions received. Last but not least a special thanks to my girlfriend Matilda and Hilary that helped me with the grammar and, whenever needed, they were always there.

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ABSTRACT Nowadays photography is fully recognised as an art, as is sculpture, architecture, painting, performances, theatre and so on; but the path to get there, has been long and not easy; furthermore there is something that distinguishes photography from all of these. The common denominator of all these art disciplines is their origin, an origin that we inevitably found linked to the religious world. On the other side, photography is different from all of these, in fact, it might be classified as the only 'secular art form'. This definition will be explored in chapter one through a comparison with painting and, in particular, the Impressionist movement. In societies religions tend not to be consistent in the way they spread or grow, for this reason I will then analysis our contemporary main form of faith: Capitalism. This will inevitably lead me into a comparison with the Christian religion in order to understand how these two realities have silently shaped our society. Agreed that religions are a source of inspirations for the arts, I should then focus my attention on the capitalistic form of communication: advertising. The last part of this body of work will then explore the ways advertising communicates with our minds and the strategies used. In particular the main interest will be on which medium, today, is dominating the advertising world: photography. Following what we agreed in chapter one, I will then try to understand how photography, the secular art form par excellence, has used religious iconography to communicate messages of the capitalistic world.

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INTRODUCTION Ever since it came into existence, mankind has noticed that not everything in this world can be explained. It is for this reason that religion was created, allowing humanity to blame or thank superior forces when the unexplainable was happening. The interaction with these entities was, and still is, not easy; for this reason men developed something that could allow them to accomplish this task. These tools' or procedures' only purpose was the one of existence and created this connection between divine and mortal. Religions represent the main source of inspiration and incentive for painting, sculpture, performances, theatre, and music all of which were born to please the Gods and 'communicate' with them. But how did men know what to create? What manner of things would please the gods and not irritate them? The answer to this question lies, at least regarding the Christian religion, in their most sacred book: the Bible itself. â&#x20AC;&#x153;So God created mankind in his own image, in the image and likeness of God He created himâ&#x20AC;?; using simple logic this means that men are technically allowed to imagine God in their own image and so, assumedly, with the same tastes.1 It is noticeable how almost every divinity has been created with similar 'tastes' to that of men, so, even if they are incommensurably superior to us, they like the same things that we do. After millennia, in secularised society, the situation has drastically changed and many sociologists and philosophers define our capitalistic way of living as a completely new religion. This new religion, as its ancestors, has its own forms of 1 - Genesis 1:27.

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communication; first of all these forms is advertising. Brands give us promises and hopes, taking on the role of modern priests. Crowds do not gather in cathedrals anymore but in shopping malls; in these we are surrounded not by frescos or stained glass windows presenting biblical stories, but by representations of brands, products and examples to follow. Capitalism and advertising follow us in every part of our life in the same way religion did before it. Even the way it communicates to our minds using metaphors and images is a direct derivate of what the Church did for centuries. What is interesting is the medium chosen by this new contemporary religion to communicate with its followers; a medium which has been around for less than two hundred years and that does not have any background in representing religious messages at all. We are talking about photography, which, due to its background, might instead be considered as the secular art form par excellence. What is ironic is that photography, in order to communicate messages through advertising, appealed numerous times to images, icons and characters that once were used by painting in the creation of some of the greatest masterpieces in recorded history; all of which with a religious imprint. But what really differentiates photography from painting? Why are they often considered as the opposites of each other, when they are actually more similar then expected? I will try to answer these questions through a deep analysis of the two mediums with particular interest to the Impressionist movement. Furthermore I will also try to understand how the outcomes of these mediums communicate to the viewer, in a religious or advertising environment, from a linguistic, semiotic and psychoanalytic point-of-view. Another key section

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of this paper will be how religion and Capitalism mix, while still maintaining their own identity. All these realities and elements have been deeply explored individually, but never in such an intertextual context. This is in fact the key to understanding how the secular art-form of photography managed to somehow end up representing religiously inspired images to the advantage of our modern religion: Capitalism.

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CHAPTER ONE Is photography the only secular art form? Art, something the only purpose of which is to exist and to be beautiful. A definition of the term 'art' could be the one given to us by the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce at the beginning of XX century in his work 'Guide of Aesthetics' and condensed by Allan Sekula to make it a little bit easier to understand:

Art is defined by reduction as the “true aesthetic a priori synthesis of feeling and image without intuition”; any physical, utilitarian, moral, or conceptual significance is denied. 2 Reading the second part of Sekula's words, we must notice that he removes any conceptual and, more importantly, moral and utilitarian significance from the artpiece. This does not represent a problem for photography, which entirely follows these boundaries; the 'issue' occurs in other conventional art forms. In different quantities, for example, the majority of artworks created during the Renaissance and commissioned by the church of any artist had the task to instruct and morally educate the illiterate about the Bible and the Christian religion upon their visiting ‘the house of God’. Not to mention the endless examples of masterpieces, in which, God was pleased in order to ask for his forgiveness and mercy to the commissioner, played a huge role in the decision of the budget and planning of the works; works in which the commissioner and, sometimes, the artist himself are represented as well. Representative examples of these habits can be, for instance, 2 - Sekula, A. On the invention of photographic meaning, p.102. In: Burgin, V. eds. 1982. Thinking Photography.

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Michelangelo's ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, 1508â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1512, and Giotto's chapel of Scrovegni in Padua, 1305. The first one is renowned as one of the greatest masterpieces of human history and it is recognized as an illustrated version of the bibleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Creation, represented in a way that made it comprehensible to all their worshipers, most of which were illiterate. The second, in Padua, was commissioned by the rich banker Enrico Scrovegni, son of usurer Rinaldo di Ugolino, in order to redeem his father and assure salvation for himself and his family; for this reason he dedicated this chapel to the Church and the community. It is important to point out the intent of this argument: it does not wish to prove that painting is not art, or that the masters of the Renaissance were the absolute artists; the main aim is to highlight how subtle, complex and different the definition of 'art-piece' can be. After having stated how the concept of 'art piece' was born, it is time to start the main topic of this chapter: is photography the first and only secular art form? Regarding this topic it is important to mention that one of the key aspects of the history of photography is that it developed in the first half of the XIX century, right after the Enlightenment, which had completely revised the majority of people's beliefs in the previous century, whether religious or scientific. For this reason, at its beginning, photography developed itself as a mere technological challenge: being able to record an instant of reality in real time with an incredible amount of detail, without the need for the same extensive amount of time that a painting would have required.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;We can affirm that everything has always been allowed to painting, even the representation of God, on the other side, photography, even by the first theorists, has seen its destiny into the representation of nothing more than the 'hic et nunc'.â&#x20AC;? 3 Just to clarify, what Dondero refers to using the latin phrase 'hic et nunc', could be easily translated with the English expression 'here and now'. This gives a perfect idea of the nature of photography; a medium that is able to record reality as it is, and freezes it forever. This is the main difference that incurs between an art piece par excellence, such as a painting or sculpture, and a photograph representing a similar subject. This does not necessarily refers to the representation of an art piece through a photograph, but to a photograph which resembles the same content of the original art piece, set up for photographic purposes. The differences between the art-piece and photography have been discussed since 1862, the year in which the International Exhibition was presented in London. This was the first occasion in which photography managed to remove itself from the 'machinery' section to a 'non descripts' one. This is because the photographic community objected and wanted photography in the same section as paintings and sculptures.

As a note it is fair to point out that from now on the analysis we will move on from 'photography and arts', to 'photography and painting'. This is because the available space for this body of work is limited and considering all the arts would be impossible; additionally, painting is the closest 'art medium' to photography in terms of outcome and, for this reason, the best one to be compared with when

3 - Dondero, 2008, p. 129. 4 - Hacking, 2012, p. 112.

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discussing 'advertising' later in this work. This said, if the aims of this text are reached, the main concepts of this analysis should be easily transferable to other art forms.

1.1 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; How long is an instant? Relationship between the art-piece and the maker. If, for an instant, we do not consider all the semiotic analyses and history that differentiate painting and photography and define again how they are different, the first thing we would probably point out is the different production time that they each require. Paintings can require years to be completed, whilst a photograph is believed to be created in the instant in which the button of the shutter is pressed; this could not however be further from the truth. In that instant only the negative is created, certainly the most important 'part' of the image but definitely not the only one. The 'instant' is only the beginning of the photograph, much like the preliminary layer of a painting. A picture can be considered completed only once it is printed; between the first instant, in which the negative is physically created, and the final print, there are endless creative possibilities for the picture to develop. The use of the word 'physically' is not casual, this is because the most common critique against photography is that it is a mere combination of light physics and chemistry; without any subjective action deriving from the actual human maker. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The painting is surrounded by an aura, the original aura, a patina that protects and sacralizes, this aura is given by the unicity of the gestural

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which is unique of that artist.â&#x20AC;? 5

Fig. 1 shows some examples of what 'the creation of a photo' really involves; these are the marks that would guide a darkroom expert on how to dose the light, burn and dodge the various shadows and areas to highlight in the pictures.

Figure Pablo Inirio, n.d., Works on Magnum Photos prints. 5 - Dondero, 2008, p. 1: 133.

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All these edits are done by hand or sometimes with the help of cardboard masks and, if looked at from an external point of view, they are not at all far from the various movements that a painter makes with his brushes; except the substance that is being used here is light. Another variable step that deeply affects the final output of the image is the processing of the film, a finely balanced mix of various compounds at different temperatures which could deeply affect the final image if wrong. Some would argue that these 'steps' of the printing process are of course only valuable if we are talking about analog photography, but moving into our digital age, every parameter in photo editing softwares is built to recreate exactly those effects. It could be concluded therefore that a photograph is not created when the shutter is pressed but that it is only 'started', this knowledge must be brought to a small investigation of the paintings created by members of the Impressionist Movement, who, also influenced by photography, went against traditional painting. Comparing the Impressionists and their movement with photography, will unearth many similarities that would go unseen by a superficial analysis. The choice of referencing the ‘Impressionist’ is not casual and it will be clearer starting from who many consider to be the father of impressionism: Èdouard Manet. Even through he was still influenced by Renaissance painters, such as Titian, in his composition, and preferred to be affiliated with the Realist movement, Manet’s work constitutes a dramatic break from traditional painting styles. In 1868 he realized an illustration known as 'Les chats', in order to advertise the

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homonymous book by Jules Champfleury. (fig. 2). 6 This could be considered as one of, if not the first, example of how advertisers used famous artists for their promotional campaigns; Manet represents a proto-testimonial.

Figure 2: Ă&#x2C6;douard Manet, 1868, Les Chats.

Impressionists, such as Monet, Renoir, Degas and many others, developed this Movement that only lasted for an 'instant' in history; like the style that characterized them: less then 20 years. The key feature to talk about is their leitmotif: the aim of capturing an 'impression', a mood; something that lasted no more than a moment in the actual artist's experience. 7 â&#x20AC;&#x153;...They render not the landscape, but the sensation produced by the landscape 8â&#x20AC;?. Is this not what every street photographer tries to achieve? To represent the 'mood' of an instant, happening on the street? Through their very fast painting style, these painters managed to create masterpieces in fractions of the time that was normally required up until 50 years previously. 6 - Codeluppi, 2013, p. 27. 7 - Rubin, 2004, p. 23. 8 - Charivari, 1874, in: Rubin, 2004, p. 23.

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Figure 3: Claude Monet, 1894-1895, Rouen Cathedral series.

The reduced time required for each picture, in conjunction with a increased scientific development of optics, (let's not forget that photography was born almost 50 years before impressionists) led these painters into different, never before seen, experiments and study of new elements such as colours and the structure of light.9 For Example, in figure 3 we can see a series of pictures by Monet representing the Rouen Cathedral: all the pictures were made between 1894 and 1895 and they represent the cathedral under different lights and atmospheric conditions. Photographers such as EugĂ¨ne Cuvelier were as plentiful as painters in the Forest of Fontainebleau, a typical location where most of the Barbizon school painters loved to paint.10 Thanks to Aaron Scharf and his investigations it is also confirmed that some painters, such as Bazille and CĂ¨zanne, used photographs as reference points and, for this reason, conveyed a strong photographic

9 - Pool, 1967, p.12. 10 - Rubin, 2004, p. 34.

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'composition' to them.11 Another big gap that increasingly developed between impressionists and any other styles of contemporary painting is that of their subject matter: these painters were, for the first time ever, devoted to representations of everyday life in a contemporary urban setting.

Their subjects were not mystical characters

commissioned by the church or romantic situations between human and nature, they were instead scenes from the 'cafe' where the painters were usually gathered, or maybe simple views of the urban environment. Excluding contemporary 'graffiti artists', Impressionists are almost classifiable as 'street painters', at the same level as street photography. Even if their main subjects were, as we said 'urban', there is a minority of other subjects, such as portraits, that the impressionists left us; this is what we are going to focus on now. On this topic the analysis that Cynthia Freeland brings up is interesting, a comparison in which photography does not present all those advantages that are usually affixed to it. Instead in this comparison with painting, in some instances photography looks almost disadvantaged to its older cousin. In particular Freeland explores the relationships between a portraitist and his or her subject. Photography is usually believed to represent only the surface of something or, in this case, someone. This said it is true that the best photographic portraits ever accomplished are those who reveal something about the person, which is not clearly visible on the surface; they spark a reaction in the viewer, a mood. The

11 - Pool, 1967, p.16. 12 - Herbert, 1991, p.33.

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same counts for painting.13 The Mona Lisa could not have reached the level of fame that she accomplished if it were not for the almost imperceptible smile and look in her eyes. These details are incredibly small and, possibly, would have been lost in a photograph amongst all the other details; instead because they are painted they stand out, almost immediately allowing the painting to spark that 'suspicious and curious' mood in the viewer. Another interesting element Freeland's theory is 'sub-jectification' process: she argues that when we see a person through a photographic image, we establish some kind of contact with them. Through photographs we can ‘‘get in touch with’’ a significant American hero like Lincoln, or an ancestor like his own grandfather. 14 This is because, as Susan Sontag says in 'On Photography', a photograph is a trace, a material vestige of its subject in a way that no painting can be. So, unlike a painting, a photo is ‘part of, an extension of that subject,’ ‘co-substantial’ with it.15 This is a very interesting concept, often utilized in advertising marketing strategies because of its deep roots in psychoanalysis, which will be analysed more in depth in the third and fourth chapters.

13 - Freeland, 2007, p. 11. 14 - Freeland, 2007, p. 10. 15 - Sontag, On photography in Freeland, 2007, p. 9.

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CHAPTER TWO Relationship between religion and capitalism, in particular in advertising Linking up with what has already been said at the beginning of chapter one about the birth of the art-piece, it is now time to further develop this discussion; this time from the 'client's' point of view. These are the people that, as previously stated, were responsible with keeping the connection between divinities and humans possible, through their specific and unique skills: in other words the Church. As a premise it should be acknowledged that, due to the size of this paper, and my limited knowledge of other religions, the main focus of this and the following chapter will be on the Christian Church only. At its base, like any other institution, the Church requires funds and investments to exist; it is in fact in need of so much money, that it has its own private bank: The institute for the work of religion, commonly known as The Vatican Bank.16 Although this institute is less than 75 years old, religious institutions always found ways to control large parts of the economic world, especially during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, historic periods in which the Papacy was the greatest financial institution. 17 They elaborated a fiscal system and, commissioning artists for their works, in a sense, they also led the contemporary art market in many aspects, including production and demand. Thinking in today terms, it would be impossible for an organization to lead the entire art market, it is just too broad; but, 500 years ago, the concept of art was a lot more restricted and so was the number of people who could produce it. This 16 - Anon., 1990. 17 - Tawney, p. 29, 1960.

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gave the church extraordinary power. In fact, whilst leading the art market around the XV and XVI centuries might not seem such great a deal, using simple marketing logic it can be understood that whoever rules the arts (what is beautiful by definition) has the power to decide what is liked, and from this determine what people want. This habit, called 'Cultural Hegemony', is a concept explored for the first time by an Italian philosopher from the 1950's, Antonio Gramsci:

“Cultural hegemony is the cultural dominion of a group or a class that can impose its viewpoints until their internalization through everyday practices and shared beliefs, creating in this way the prerequisites for a complex system of control.”18

This process is used in the everyday life by advertisers, their goal is to make their brand omnipotent, attaching meanings to their brands but, also and more importantly, brands to meanings.19 In this way when the consumer has to associate a quality with a product, an immediate connection sparks in his mind: If I need something with that quality, I need that brand. Reading these words we should not be surprised if then, people such as Fabbri, argue that: “The actual religions are who is really leading the capitalistic development.” 20 Now this is not intended as a critique of the work that the church has commissioned, work that originated the greatest masterpieces of the western world. The intent is just to highlight and introduce the link between religion and its institutions, and the economic and capitalist world; these worlds appear to not really like each other but they are a lot closer than expected and have often, and 18 - Gramsci, 1948-1951. 19 - Brierley, 1995. p. 139. 20 - Fabbri, 2008, p. 343.

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still do, come in contact. Nowadays, if we think about advertising, the first genre that comes to mind is 'product advertising'; but this practice can be stretched to any kind of advertising, through the use of appropriate media, of products, events, services or concepts. In the same way as multinational companies now hire the best campaign managers and creative directors, the church once hired the best artists to communicate their 'promotional' and 'educative' message to an audience that was highly illiterate.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;When you walk into a church you can look at all the symbols that the church has designed to show and promote its religion. You can look at the cross, the frescos, the supermodel-saints. But to do that the church hired the best artists of the timeâ&#x20AC;?21 Religions are, in fact, the longest running campaigns ever created and, thanks to them, for the past millennia brilliant minds have studied and created symbols and signs that are easily understandable to anyone. But how could it be possible to design a symbol, an illustration, or, even more complicated, an entire story, so as to transmit the same message to anyone who looked at it, independently from their background and even alphabetization? As Dr. Dill-Scott realised more than a century ago, good advertisers must follow the laws of psychology and understand how the human mind acts. In this way they are able to understand what it repels and attracts.22 A deeper analyses of these theory will follow in chapter three. Even if psychoanalysis is less then 150 years old, these same strategies are 21 - Toscani, 1993. 22 - Dill-Scott, 1908, p. 4.

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exactly what the church has done through its entire history: they created metaphors and signs. It defined a new universal language, which did not need any words, it was designed to be comprehensible to anyone, rich or poor, and it 'advertised' their concepts and ideas. These are the common denominators of advertising, they are part of everyday speech and they can be understood in any language.23 Centuries later, big multinational companies replaced the various great artists with 'campaign managers'.24 These modern artists kept the ideas and concepts that the church was predicating but instead transferred them to the product they had been asked to promote, using the very same visual language. In this way, it seems that nowadays we are no longer led by religious figures or moral laws, but by brands and products. Products, that exactly like religions, are able to offer us promises and hopes. 25 This process is nothing more than a branch of what is known as the phenomenon of secularization. A phenomenon that has been going on since after the Enlightenment, described by the Oxford dictionary as ‘the increasing distance between religion and people in modern times’. 26 Opinions about this topic are many and variable; Marrone himself affirms, “Contemporary society is not secularized but, religious in a different way.” 27 Others, like the German sociologist and economist Max Weber, believed instead that industrialization and modernization would have eventually cancel out religions.28 23 24 25 26 27 28

- Brierley, 1995. p. 139. - Toscani, 1993. - Marrone, 2007, cited in: Codeluppi, 2008, p. 101. - Oxford dictionary, 2013. - Marrone, 2007, cited in: Codeluppi, 2008, p. 100. - Weber, 1922, cited in: Codeluppi, 2008, p. 99.

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At this point it is fair to point out that, at the time, the Church is advertising had a completely different purposes from a multinational company, different even from the Church's advertising aims. Five hundred years ago the Church was educative institution, and so the purpose of the creation of these previously cited masterpieces was to teach people about the Bible and its lessons. This is foremost because people did not know how to read, and even those who could have had to know how to read in Latin until the first English Bible by Wycliffe, which arrived in the late XIV century.29 Even the concept of justice in general was affiliated to the Church and the will of God. Today we are in a different situation however. Justice is now controlled by courts and judges and not by priests, and, the level of general education and alphabetization has greatly increased, so more people are actually able to read and interpret the Bible by themselves. On the other hand, even if more people are able to read the bible this does not mean that more people are actually reading it, because of the process of secularization: a substantial change of the general environment we are in, that forced the Church's aims to shift as well, adapting with the times. Today, because of multiple and debatable reasons, the new aim of the Church is not to educate illiterate people according to the Bible, but to gather new 'followers'. After the Enlightenment the process of secularization began and since then the Church gradually lost power in favour of other institutions. This loss of power has had tremendous effects, all of which can be summarized in a loss of worshipers; the loss of worshipers will lead to a loss of more power and so on; it is a vicious cycle. 29 - Bruce, 1979, p. 12.

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In order to contrast this trend the Church has spent the last century trying to reach out to its audience in ways which had never been attempted before: they have tried using cinema and the propaganda and even, more recently, social networks such as twitter, on which the pope Benedictus XVI, on December 12 th 2012 was the first pope of history that tweeted using the hashtag @Pontifex 30. The Church did not invent these strategies and techniques, it borrowed them from every company's public relations and promotional offices. The very same companies that, as we already mentioned and will see in a deeper analysis in the next chapter, took inspiration from religious iconography to develop their campaigns. This is because, why risk on studying a completely new communicational system when you can use the one that someone else already developed and had seen to work. The above mentioned 'social approaches', used to study and reach their audience, have been completely redeveloped over the last decade in order to obtain as much private information as possible. There are continuos new leaks on the increasing level of personal information that websites record. It is a recent revelation that Facebook, world leading social network, keeps records not only of our posts, but can also know what we just typed as a draft and then, maybe for a reconsideration of our conscience, decided to cancel without posting. This is because the recording process does not happen by clicking the 'post it ' button, but well before from our keyboards; each key pressed is recorded and sent to Facebook's servers. In this way Facebook can insert itself within our minds, it can intercept our thoughts, even before they reach our consciousness. 31 The fact of being constantly 30 - Winfield, 2012. 31 - Cosimi, 2013.

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controlled, and the fact that something, maybe even someone inside Facebook, that is able to read our thoughts even before our own consciousness sounds very familiar to a concept of God. In fact “he knows everything that happens in the land”.32 After these considerations it is not hard to believe that people such as the theologian Thomas Ruster consider that in the present day, capitalism has overtaken Christianity in mediating the relationship with ultimate reality, with what is determining and shaping our lives, a task which has always been associated with religion. Therefore Ruster concludes that capitalism is a modern religion. 33 We can be sure that the religious institutions and the various multinational companies therefore are not against each other, they would not get any advantage out of it and anyway they exist in two different fields. This said, and viewing the content of the past chapter, it is clear that these realities have already come into contact and borrowed one from each other more than is normally believed. Mueller and Welch highlighting the other similar human behaviors in certain situations in both belief system saying that, generally speaking, humans understand the consequences of their actions and they choose a maximizing behavior (material utility in economics and salvation with theology). The system itself provides the rules by which those ends can be achieved: maximizing conditions in the market or following the Ten Commandments. 34

32 - 2 Samuel 14:20. 33 - Ruster, Confused God in Bogešić, 2010, p. 227. 34 - Mueller, Welch, 2001, The relationship of Religion to Economics in: Sommerfeld 2012, p. 13.

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[t]he semantic fields of economy and biblical renderings of God are surprisingly similar. Words heard in the religious sphere are often also heard in banks and brokerage firms, labor unions and corporate executive offices. In both fields one regularly hears such words as trust, fidelity... debt, redemption, saving... and so on.35 Especially in modern times, this generated an approach to the behaviors of these subjects that, never as now, maintain their substantial diversities but increasingly act in similar ways.

Figure 4: Elliott Erwitt, 1980, Argentina Valdes Peninsula.

35 - ibidem.

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CHAPTER 3 Communicating through ads As anticipated in the previous chapters, we are now going to analyse a particular aspect of the interaction between the Church and multinational companies: how companies have studied the infinite religious representations and, using photography, have recreated them in their advertising campaigns. To do this we first need to establish, on a base level, how an actual advertising message works and communicates to our minds and also, to the archetypes in it.

3.1 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Understanding our minds Since the turn of the century advertisers have tried to explain consumer behaviour with the help of psychological theory, seeking to unlock advertising effectiveness with the key to individual motivations and desires. Between 1943 and 1954 seven thousand psychologists joined US advertising agencies. In the post-war era two psychological approaches became popular; the first, based on Freudian psychoanalysis, sought the motivations of consumers as repressed within the subconscious and looked for hidden needs and desires; the second carried the view that people are motivated by certain biological, psychological and social needs.36 Examples of these techniques could be the propaganda posters, from the beginning of XIX century, that tried to trigger a sense of guilt into the mindâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s of men, in order to get them to enlist. 37 The first approach might seem a bit too hypothetical but, analysing Freud's pupil Carl Gustav Jung's theories, we can understand where and how psychoanalysis came into play. Jung was convinced that everyone has two different unconscious sides, a personal and a collective one. The 'personal unconscious' varies greatly between each individual because it is generated by our 36 - Brierley, 1995. p. 29. 37 - Codeluppi, 2013, p. 43.

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personal experiences such as emotions and teachings. 38 The personal unconscious is essentially made up of content, which has at one time been conscious but have disappeared from consciousness through having been forgotten, repressed or, we can add, assimilated.39 On the other side, the collective unconscious is made up by archetypes. These are nothing more than images of our most basic instincts, in other words they are patterns of instinctual behaviour.40 Generally speaking, therefore the subconscious is not controllable by us although we are fully aware of its existence. The unconscious, instead, lays even deeper in our mind, between conscious and subconscious, and hides from our perceptions completely . The key point about these effects is that they are very hard to identify, but not impossible and, once identified, these patterns become incredibly predictable and, most importantly, they can be applied to any group of people around the world, independently from cultural background, gender, and personal experiences. 41

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Human nature is perpetual. In most respects it is the same today as in the time of Caesar. So the principles of psychology are fixed and enduring.â&#x20AC;? 42

3.2 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Decoding advertising Someone once said that an image is worth more than a thousand words, a phrase that surely a lot of advertisers have framed and hung on their office walls. Even before the advent of photography, advertising was constituted by illustration 38 39 40 41 42

- Imbimbo, Parasporo, Salucci, 2008, p. 252. - Jung, 1990, p. 42. - ibidem. - STGBree, 2007. - Hopkins, 2008. p. 20.

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and drawing, because, as the same someone from above knew well, our mind reacts faster and better to an image than to a piece of text, whether it is a new perfume, a car, a holiday location or even the candidate for elections. This is true for any kind of image, whether it is a hand drawn illustration or a photograph. This said, the interesting part of communication through images is that, according to multiple studies, our mind does not perceive the message through the image, because the image does not itself have a code or language but only a reference to it.43

“What we se... is not a pure and simple coding of the light patterns that are focused on the retina. Somewhere between the retina and the visual cortex the inflowing signals are modified to provide information that is already linked to a learned response... Evidently what reaches the visual cortex is evoked by the external world but is hardly direct or simple replica of it.44 Trying to be more specific, works on semiotics showed that there is no 'language' of photography. If we consider that every piece of text ultimately depends on the language in which it is written, there is no single signifying system upon which all photographs depend. What photographs have is a heterogeneous complex of codes. Some of these are peculiar to photography (e.g. the various codes built around “focus” and “blur”), others are clearly not (e.g. the “kinesics” codes of bodily gesture). Each photograph 'works' or 'communicates' on the basis of a plurality of these codes, the number and type of which varies from one image to another.45 Victor Burgin, who is the author of this analysis, calls this ensemble: 43 - Eco, 1982, p. 32 44 - Freud, The interpretation of dreams in: Burgin: Thinking photography, 1982. pg. 193. 45 - Burgin, 1982, p. 143.

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'the photographic discourses'. This discourse, like any other, engages discourses beyond itself, generating a complex 'intertextuality', an overlapping series of previous texts 'taken for granted' at a particular cultural and historical conjuncture that will then generate and perceive the actual message simultaneously. Summarizing, photography is not to be reduced to a 'window on the world', but is one signifying system among others in society which produces the ideological subject in the same movement in which they 'communicate' their ostensible 'contents', it does not have a proper language, but it only shares the attribute of it.46 This theory is not limited to Burgin, who states that: â&#x20AC;&#x153;This representational strategy is widely to be found in advertising, which relies extensively on our ability to read images in terms of underlying verbal texts.â&#x20AC;? 47 Judith Williamson, author of 'Decoding Advertisements', talks about the language as the â&#x20AC;Śprimary Referent System used in ads, in that we bring our understanding of it to be the ad, it is a system of meaning whose frame the ad can use, but does not generate. [...] While the words do say something, they do not directly convey the meaning of the ad. It is the signifier that carries the meaning of the ad, and that our attention is diverted from this in an attempt to create a verbal signified, words carrying an abstract, ideal message.48 In this case, the Referent System she is referring to is the one mentioned by Ferdinand de Saussure in his studies about the signs, signifiers and referents, a theory which has been highly explored by Roland Barthes. Although this 'Photographic discourse' represents the basis of the photographic message, it is not 46 - Burgin, 1982, p.144, 153. 47 - Burgin, 1982. p.196. 48 - Williamson, 1994, p.84-89.

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its only crucial element.

3.2 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The Metaphor of the message This 'Photographic discourse' intertextuality increases if we consider that the signs we perceive by advertising images are usually encoded by other metaphors whose role it is to transport the message in the most immediate and comprehensible way. As mentioned in the previous chapter, whether of religious or advertising nature, metaphors present undeniable advantages and these are the reasons why advertisers want the consumers to think in these metaphorical ways. 49 High-performance car are now associated with metaphors of masculinity and success, while natural and rustic representations of market shopping are associated with tradition and assurance of good quality, fresh, food. 50

The

problem with this metaphoric method of communication occurs when the audience receiving the message does not perceive it in the expected way. This happens particularly when the portrayed subjects are people, because convey many more meanings than objects or animals: people are much more culturally overdetermined. To convey a simple linear message to the viewer the portrayed subject would have to conform to certain sets of meanings and metaphors that would not alienate, put off or offend sections of the target audience. In this instance the strategy of the metaphor is abandoned for a more efficient 'metonymy'; that is the substitution of an aspect of a product, thing or person for the thing itself, such as crown representing the Queen or as an alternative the 49 - Brierley, S. 1995, p. 139. 50 - ibidem. 51 - Barthes, 1977, p. 33.

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usage of animal.52 PG Tips and Pepsi use chimpanzees, Sunkist use an orang-utan, Andrex use the puppy, and Esso a tiger. Guinness also excluded people from its ads from the 1930s to the 1950s.53 Another widely used advertising strategy is the process of subjectification, identified in the first chapter and theorized by Cynthia Freeland. Representations in ads are studied so that we, as an audience, establish a connection with the subject in the ad; in order to do this, the subjects are usually portrayed as beautiful, satisfied, successful or extremely happy. These characteristics automatically trigger a sense of confrontation with subject, a confrontation that we are inevitably going to lose simply because they are unreachable, they are only reached through falseness and constructed representations. The mental process entailed just attracts our attention to the real message: the brand. Next to the person, the name of the brand, or of the product will in fact appear, highlighted by divine light which signifies how it is the only way to happiness. In Apple's advertising below, the subjects are only presented through silhouettes so that, depersonalized, it is easier for the viewer to replace them with a projection of his or herself. In this case. The ad contains no text whatsoever in order to leave the focus on the enjoyment these people are experiencing. Also, the bright colours attract attention and help the figures stand out from the background. In conjunction with this subjectification we often find another element, which Williamson talks about in her book 'Decoding Advertisements': the 'absence'. 52 - Brierley, 1995, p. 140. 53 - Schudson, Advertising: The Uneasy Persuasion, p. 213-214 in: Brierley, S. 1995, p. 140.

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Figure 5: Apple's iPod campaign by Matthew Welch

As we have seen, many complex psychological processes are involved in the functioning of the advert. Advertisers use human curiosity, one of the strongest human incentives, to draw our attention to an 'empty' ad. 54 One of the most obvious ways in which you are invited to enter the ad is by filling the absence presented by the advertisement; with a projection of ourselves. Although it may sound different, this mental process is not dissimilar to the connection we establish with the subject in a photograph through the process of sub-jectification; advertisement simply took it to the next level, triggering this reaction through the use of a 'space'. In this particular case we are positioned both within the ad, by filling its 'absence', and in relation to it, because we must decipher it; a process completely contained by the ad itself. In this way the 54 - Hopkins, 2008. p. 20.

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signifier is a symmetrical reproduction of the signified, the advertisement enters the space of the receiver, and vice-versa. The signifier is very much bound up with the 'unconscious' areas of our understanding. One of the effects of these ads is that they convey a feeling of freedom to the viewer which is meant to increase its confidence, the problem is that this feeling is fake, because, this freedom remains an idealised position given by the advertiser and is only meant to increase the efficiency of the ad itself.55 Roland Barthes, famous sociologist and semiotician, defined a photograph 'successful' when when it is pensive, when it thinks and makes the viewer think.56

All ads are signs; but this particular kind of ad gives us the impression that we can actually grasp the referent through the ad itself. 57 One other point to be made about the 'absence' in these ads is that they involve a narrative, the entire ad is set for a story. 58 This is another point of contact with religious illustrations. As stated before, religious representations often had the task to 'teach' something to the audience and in order to do this represented various stories from the Bible, stories in which the viewer was inevitably projected to learn the message by assisting it. The already mentioned ceiling in the Systine Chapel is the world-renowned example of Biblia Pauperum (from latin, Bible for the poor, the illiterates). Ads are suitably studied so that the viewer is even more absorbed and becomes part of the story.

55 56 57 58

- Williamson, 1994, p. 71-89. - Barthes, R. 1982, p. 38. - Williamson, 1994, p. 72. - Williamson, 1994, p. 79.

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CHAPTER FOUR Appropriation of Religious themes in contemporary advertising through the secular art form of photography It is now time to finally analyses how everything that has been said about photography, religion, capitalism advertising and its way of working, can come together in ads to communicate messages. The first example that comes into mind is the famous Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani, who knows very well what our minds are attracted and repelled by. While Toscani was the campaign manager for the Italian brand Benetton, he used this knowledge to shock and attract the attention of viewers, usually trying to raise awareness about worldly issues. Only in a second moment, the viewer would notice the subtle green band in the corner saying 'United colours of Benetton'. This 'shocking' technique was the real trademark of Toscani's campaigns and had its origin in every representation of the 'Last Judgment'. The Church's aims were to firstly shock, the audience with frightening and repulsive images of the

Figure 6: Details of Giotto's Last Judgment in Padua. 1303-1305.

Figure 7-8: Some of Toscani's campaigns for Benetton. 1991, 1996.

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apocalypse, in this way the viewer could understand where he was going to if he conducted a sinful life. Toscani's pictures are specifically designed to make us feel uncomfortable. We do not want to see the pictures of getting born or dying, these are moments which are way too intimate and private to be represented. 59 Even the stereotype image of the 'Death' as we know it comes from religious illustration: a hooded skeleton with a scythe. Unfortunately the personification and representation of 'death' in media and advertising would require alone another entire essay to be properly explored so it will have to be taken for granted. There is, however, a particular picture of death which can summarize the huge amount of violent protests that this theme attracts. An interesting image by Toscani from another Benetton campaign in 1992 showing the last breath of AIDS activist David Kirby before his death (Fig. 9). Taken with the full consent of Kirby's family, this image is usually attributed to Toscani but in reality it was taken by the photographer ThĂŠrĂ¨se Frare. Toscani is responsible for the world

Figure 9: Benetton, La PietĂĄ, 1992. Figure 10: Caravaggio, Deposition from the Cross.

59 - Toscani, 1993.

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wide exposure that the coloured version of the picture received. The reason why this picture has become of the most criticized and censored images in history many. Elements such as the gesture between David Kirby and his father, the chiaroscuro technique used to colour the original black and white photo and the actual representation of David Kirby, all lead to comparing the photograph with religious illustration. People interpreted the image as a modern version of the famous PietĂĄ by Michelangelo or as the Deposition of the Cross by Caravaggio (Fig. 10).60

The element that the Church most of all could not accept was the

cause of the fictional 'Jesus' death: AIDS; something which was surely associated with the use of illegal substances or of deviant sexual behaviour. 62 Newspaper around the world wrote hundreds of editorial attacking and defending the image and, in all the words that have been written about, the once taboo theme of AIDS was suddenly on countless front pages. Albeit the scandal Toscani and Benetton had reached their aim once again.

4.1 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The Light As we have seen, in this previous case the common element between advertising and religious iconography was the shock element, a strategy which might be misunderstood and not shared; luckily there are many more connection points in these two fields. First of all; the light. We all know the meaning of light in all religious iconography: holiness, 60 - Hacking, 2012, p. 498-502. 61 - Pagnucco Salvemini, L. and Toscani, O. 2002. p. 91. 62 - Sontag, 1988, Illness as metaphor in: Pagnucco Salvemini, L. and Toscani, O. 2002. p. 92.

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purity, divinity, salvation, life, etc... It is perhaps the most basic symbol of conscious life.63 Some artists, like Caravaggio, made their use of light in their work a distinctive trademark of their style. In the same way, advertisers, used light incalculable times to try and transmit the above mentioned meanings to their products. In the famous campaign by Absolut started in 1980, advertising its Vodka. The Campaign was a series of images with the Vodka bottle placed in the centre and backlighted with a spotlight in an anonymous studio. In the same way the Church developed strong and mandatory iconography for its most famous themes, rules that had to be followed by every commissioned artists, any advertiser would say that you must be constant with your campaign so that the audience can easily identify your brand. The people represented are the 'testimonials' of that situation and need to be easily identifiable not matter if they are representing a nativity scene or a clothes ad. Brands have to build their own image so as to become easily recognisable; for this reason, inside the same brand, it is common to see campaigns by various advertisers that share the same iconography. This was exactly how the Church was commissioning artists and, once the theme was decided, only allowed them to change few details according to their personal style. Looking at the Absolut campaign we can see that, through the 20 and more years that it lasted, there have been only slight changes brought by different campaign manager, but the iconography and theme have remained exactly the same. The bottle is placed in central position, on some kind of stage; the use of a spotlight clearly shows the intent of the brand to make the bottle perceivable as a 63 - Chetwynd, 1982, p. 242.

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masterpiece, or, ultimately as a saint. (Fig. 11-12). 64

Figure 12: Absolute Vodka campaign

Figure 11: Absolute Vodka campaign

In these particular images the halo over the bottle or the word 'Grail' adds an almost redundant religious meaning to the picture. The bottle is also being photomanipulated and, in order to obtain a completely transparent look flooded whit white light; this is done in order to highlight the pureness of the product. At the same time:

...all this light allows to maintain the energy of the 'spirit' (alcohol), desubstansializing the effects on the body. Flooded with light the bottle emanates its own aura: it is a 'zen' concentrate.65 Another way in which the pureness and transparency of the bottle is highlighted is through the unusual and minimalistic shape of the bottle: it is even missing a proper label at the front, so the words seems to magically float in the 64 - Codeluppi, 2010, p. 82. 65 - Basso, 2008, p. 382 in: Codeluppi, 2010, p.82.

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pure light. Another ad which can be compared to this one in terms of the lighting and position of the product is the one by the Italian brand Pirelli, photographed by Ken Griffiths in 1998. In Fig. 13, we can see the football player Ronaldo, celebrating after scoring a goal by spreading his arms, placed on the platform of 'Christ the Redeemer' in Rio de Janerio. Again the subject is centrally placed, while the scene is completely illuminated by a divine light coming from the sky, towards which Ronaldo seems to be running. In this case the product, Pirelli's tyres, have an extremely marginal role. The only reference to the tyre is the pattern, under the footballer's foot, meant to resemble the one on the tyres, and a mall tyre in the bottom left corner of the ad.

Figure 13: Pirelli campaign, 1998.

In the above mentioned cases, the signifying elements were actual signs in the pictures, whereas going back to Toscani, they are less technical and more thematically driven.

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4.2 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The themes In designing the Summer 1988 campaign for Benetton, fig. 15, Toscani returned to the 1970's and rediscovered the jeans, the same Jesus Jeans which already used Religious phrases as you can see in Fig 14. This involves the obligation to compare the inflexibility of the dogmatic principles of faith, to which the biblical subject refers, and the values of nonconformity, liberty and non-observance of rules, meaning with which the clothing of the time was overburdened. 66 ...The old working costume (blue jeans) has become the sign of leisure.67

Figure 14: Jesus Jeans campaign by Toscani, 1970's.

Figure 15: Toscani's Benetton campaign, spring summer, 1988. 66 - Pagnucco Salvemini, L. and Toscani, O. 2002. p. 32. 67 - Barthes in: Pagnucco Salvemini, L. and Toscani, O. 2002. p. 32.

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The use of jeans contradicts the standard of elegance; they are a representation of sin. It is this idea of sin that will spark an idea in Toscani's mind about the famous campaign with Adam & Eve. Adam's is a teenager with long hair, halfway between Sandokan and a hippy, who tenderly hugs his companion while guiding her hand to the forbidden fruit on his heart. Eve, characterized by long red hair, a sign of passion, and no make-up to show her purity, does not offer any resistance to Adam. The demonic figure of the snake is worn like jewellery, its head terminates symmetrically to the apple after it glided over Eve's flesh. The snake is the symmetric representation of the Apple.68 Unsurprisingly the ad was censored in the US but not because of the religious theme, or at least not only, what moved the puritan American audience was Eve's breast visible through her jacket. 69 On the other hand, in the more tolerant Netherlands, it was even awarded a prize. The theme of the Original sin is been greatly used in advertising. Another example, although this time not through the use of a photograph, is the Piaggio's Vespa ad. The text has a clear sexual metaphor and can be translated in: Who gets a Vespa will have a successful sexual life, who doesn't buy one will not. 70

Figure 16: "Who buys a Vespa will eat apple, who doesn't buy one will not."

68 - Pagnucco Salvemini, L. and Toscani, O. 2002. p. 32. 69 - Anon. La pubblicitĂ Benetton in: Pagnucco Salvemini, L. and Toscani, O. 2002. p. 33. 70 - Codeluppi, 2013, p. 110.

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4.3 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The iconography Moving on to the last section of this chapter is now time to talk about all the other various icons imported from the religious world into advertising; starting of course from the most popular of all: the Angels. These mythological creatures have fascinated mankind through history and are common in almost every monotheistic religion, therefore cannot really be categorized as Christian icons. This said, they are still religious characters and the amount of times they have been used in advertising is endless, from Victoria Secret's models, known as 'Angels', to the AXE censored commercial with angels falling from the sky while the voice-over says: "...the new fragrance from Axe. Even angels will fallâ&#x20AC;?. 71 The same Toscani used the stereotype of cherubim in one of his famous pictures in 1991.

Figure 17: Toscani's Benetton campaign, autumn-winter, 1991.

Here the white blonde curly haired baby is portrayed as an angel, while the black baby has two little horns on his head, like a little demon. It took Toscani two years to find the perfect subjects for this photograph.72 In his defence Toscani said that 71 - Laing, 2011. 72 - Toscani, 1993.

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the real message of the picture was in the expressions of the babies. At a closer look, in fact, the cherubim has a very cheeky and evil smile, while the demon has an innocent look. Examples of representations of angels are countless and not necessarily interesting, for this reason we should move on to the only other religious representation which can compete with angels as per number of uses in advertising: The Last Supper. In particular, Leonardo da Vinci 's frescoes in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, in Milan. This masterpiece from 1498 presents different elements, which are extremely useful for advertisers. It is recognized worldwide, and it depicts a very important and strong moment of Biblical history: the moment in which Jesus has just announced that someone will betray him (Fig. 18). Christ has just spoken the tragic words, and those on His side shrink back in terror as they hear the revelation. This movement is what is really characteristic of this masterpiece, but despite the excitement that these words have caused, there is nothing chaotic about the image.73 All the apostles work in perfect harmony between one another

Figure 18: Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, Milan, 1495-1498. 73 - Gombrich, E. H. 1960, p. 217.

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and have have very natural poses, frozen in time, because the image depicts a very small instant, almost like a photograph. This last characteristic helps advertisers who use this image, because it makes it much easier to accomplish this kind of image using a camera. Other expedients, such as the vanishing point located in the middle of the painting, exactly where Jesus's head is, guide the viewer's attention to Christ. This allows the advertiser to know exactly where the focus of the viewer will be and where to place the message. Alternatively the message could be more indirect and, maybe, understandable through the remixing, redrawing, replacement or elimination of the apostles. Another element which should not be underestimated is the table, a 'platform' in the middle of the frescoes which has been covered with the most various stuff. Fig 19 shows just some of the many times this image has been used and revised for advertising purposes. If in the Last Supper Jesus is the main figure but not the only one, it is fair to point out that Jesus himself has been used a various amount of times as testimonial. The Jesus Jeans, for instance, which borrowed borrowed the name and phrase of the Messiah, but just to acknowledge a case in which its image was abused, it is interesting to note the case from 1999, by the British organization Churches Advertising Network or CAN.

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Figure 19: From top left: The cloth brand Marithe and Francois Girbaud, a phone network, promoting a gay festival or an online betting website.

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Figure 20: CAN Campaign, 1999.

The famous image of Argentinian Marxists revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara has a Christ-like quality that has often been noted, so for this reason CAN tried to reverse the idea. Christ is represented in the very same pose as the guerrilla leader, gazing towards a distant visionary goal, in the same style as Che's black and red poster (Fig. 20). Even the external element of the beret with the five-pointed star is replaced with Jesus's crown of thorns.74 CAN wanted us to see Christ not as a 'wimp' in a nightshirt, but as a revolutionary figure that rejects materialism, challenged authority and threw the money-lenders out of the temple. […] For CAN Guevara was not a real historical figure with real political motivations: he was an icon with the romantic glamour of dead stars like Dean and Monroe.75 As we said, Jesus's image and name have been used in advertising for the past decades but he is not the only biblical character who has been used. The Virgin Mary has been represented at least as many times as he has. For example, in this photograph by the famous Helmut Newton, 1983, for the notorious brand 74 - Poynor, 2001, p. 111. 75 - ibidiem.

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Prada & Correani.

Figure 21: Elmut Newton, 1983, Prada&Correani on Vogue Italy.

The image is self-explanatory. In one image, Newton concentrate as many signifying signs from the traditional iconography of Mary as possible, with the addition of more subtle modern contrasts. The woman is portrayed in a pose which is a clear reminder to traditional religious iconography, her right hand on the chest and her left stretched out towards the Christians. In this particular case, it almost looks like the left hand is supporting the text on the top right corner which describes what is being worn, so that the pose has a functionality and is not only there for iconographic reason. Her hair is tightened up on her head but, in contrast to religious tradition, they are not covered by a veil. She is also wearing various necklaces, some of which are actual crosses, but, again in contrast with the tradition, her shoulders are completely naked; this would have never been acceptable in an official representation. The photograph is located inside what seems to be the nave of a church, the frontal wall and its rose window as the

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background. At the same time, using a perspective trick, the rose window is 'casually' crowning the model with a halo. Finally, the expression of the model is extremely relaxed, confident and maternal, exactly as Mary's expression should be. The last example to examine is the episode when these above mentioned characters have their closest moment: The Pietรก; especially the one realised by Michelangelo. We already mentioned David Kirby's picture published by Toscani, which might resemble the Pietรก but there are many more explicit references to it. From the Tequila Olmeca which advises responsible drinking, to the famous LaChapelle's photograph of a dying Kurt Cobain.

Figure 21: Olmeca Tequila Campaign

Figure 22: David laChapelle, la Pieta', 2006. Cover of the book: Heaven to hell by David laChapelle.

The Pieta' represents an exception to the above mentioned case studies. It has such strong symbolism and iconography that it can not go unnoticed. The Church already knew what they wanted in fact the letter from the Pope for the official request states: ...a dressed Virgin Mary, holding a dead naked Christ.76 This did not stop Michelangelo with going against tradition and, within the 76 - Gotti, 1875, p. 20.

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boundaries allowed to him, he managed to create something unseen before. The iconography is so powerful and harmonic that, used in various ads, every photographer reinterpreted the famous masterpiece in its own, secular version; without changing the main structure of it. It is almost as photography, as a form of gratitude, after it borrowed al these themes, images and strategies from religious masterpieces, wanted to keep one as a symbol of this relationship; as it was originally, religiously, created.

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CONCLUSION As studied throughout this dissertation, the role of photography in our society, particularly regarding the fields of religion and advertising, is not to be undermined. Is has been instead quite underestimated, proving that there is still a lot more to be researched. As analysed in chapter one, it took photography a lot longer than any other art to be recognised as such, and this happened as an outcome of a completely different, secular path. Exploring the relationship between the artist and the artpiece, I analysed how painting and photography are more similar than commonly thought, so the two should not be considered as opposites. Also the religious and economic worlds are by no means dissimilar: the Capitalist world and the the Church, which are supposedly different fields, have in fact

many points of contact, and have now reached an incredible level of

interconnection. In the present day they are, actually, inseparable from one another. Economy in contemporary society, should in fact be said to embody the sense of the sacred better than anything else, while, in turn Capitalism could be classified as a modern religion.77 78 According to what was said in chapter one and two, by analysing capitalist communication media par excellence, advertising, I was able to establish how an ad works and interacts with our minds through signs and metaphors. This was a key element for the aim of this piece of work, and Jung's theory proved to be extremely useful in this instance. When the time finally came to incorporate traditional religious 77 - Ruster, Confused God in BogeĹĄiÄ&#x2021;, 2010, p. 227. 78 - DeChant, 2002, in: Codeluppi, 2008, p.101.

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iconography into advertising, I discovered countless examples of advertisers who have used religious themes in their campaigns; from specific uses of light, poses of models, icons and reinterpretations of themes that once were represented by art in churches. Now these representations adorn billboards in shopping malls, cathedrals of Capitalism, inspiring and promising hopes to the worshipers of brands. An answer to why this transformation has happened can be secularization of course, but another one can be that advertising can not change society, it can only reflect it. This means that maybe, in our technological and secularised world, we still like to have these representations of familiar themes surrounding us; the only thing that has changed is the representational medium. Ironically, the medium chosen to spread these messages is photography, defined as the only secular art-form. Religions have a universal language, and in a society that is increasingly becoming secularised, many of us think of ourselves as being separated from the influence of the Church and its religious lessons. However, from this exploration of the interconnectedness between the old and the new, the traditional and the modern, between faith and consumption, it has become clear that the two are deeply intertwined. The use of an essential medium such as photography, that embodies scientific development, has also been the very thing that has enabled the continuation of religious themes in a Capitalistic society.

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