visual rhetoric
Visual rhetoric is the fairly recent development of a theoretical framework describing how visual images communicate, as opposed to aural or verbal messages. The study of visual rhetoric is different from that of visual or graphic design, in that it emphasizes images as rational expressions of cultural meaning, as opposed to mere aesthetic consideration (Kress 18). You can think of it as persuasion through images. How are you persuaded every time you turn on the television or flip through a magazine?

Visual rhetoric examines the relationship between images and text. Some examples of artifacts analyzed by visual rhetoricians are charts, paintings, sculpture, graphs, web pages, advertisements, movies, architecture, newspapers, photographs, etc.

Visual rhetoric is closely related to the older study of semiotics. Semiotic theory seeks to describe the rhetorical significance of sign-making. Visual rhetoric is a broader study, covering all the visual ways humans try to communicate, outside academic policing (Kress 11).

Visual tropes and tropic thinking are a part of visual rhetoric (the art of visual persuasion and visual communication using visual images). The study includes, but is not limited to, the various ways in which it can be applied throughout visual art history.