Visual Codes and Conventions in the Painting: George Robinson Welcomes

Visual texts can be seen to be an attempt by their creators to represent particular ideologies to their viewers. It is the viewers attitudes and values however, that determine the contemporary meaning of the image. The painting George Robinson welcomes Natives to Wybalenna, is a Colonial document portraying the Christianizing of natal people on Flinders Island. Visual codes and linguistic rules employed in the image, such as positioning and framing depict the entwined values of white, patriarchal and Christian ideologies of the nineteenth Century. However, change in how society identifies itself, also changes the dominant ideology in its culture. Subsequently, the historical context of Post-Colonial attitudes and values in contemporary society, evoke a contemporary meaning in Robinsons painting, one of racial and religious prejudice. The convention of positioning is vital in constructing the Colonial ideology of Robinson?s image. It has the dominance to provide the viewer with vis ual associations, which translate to language in the descriptor of binary oppositions. For instance, the most c...