Visual Narrative

The desire to tell and pass down stories has been part of human culture since the early days of our species. Paintings on cave walls depicting events from the lives of early humans have provide a glimpse into their lives. Today the desire to tell stories is still as deep routed in human culture as it was for early man.  

The term “Visual Narrative” is derived from the two words Visual and Narrative (surprisingly) and describes the telling of stories through visual means.

Throughout history each culture has developed their own unique method of conveying stories to their audience. Ancient Greek and Chinese ceramics depicting important events from their culture, sculptural reliefs and paintings within religious temples of most cultures are all examples of visual narrative. Over the centuries this has evolved into various different art forms such as films, animation and historical painting.

Comic books and graphic novels are also part of this group. Will Eisner published the book Graphic Storytelling and Narrative in which he defined comics as “the printed arrangement of art and balloons in sequence”.

Comics and Graphic Novels are considered Static Visual Narratives. Like Murals, sculptural reliefs and paintings comics are part of a medium that occupy surface area. The viewer discovers the story by exploring the area covered by the visual elements. As the viewer progresses the story is revealed. The stories in this type of visual narrative are revealed at the viewer’s discretion, leaving it up to them how much time is spent on the different elements of the visual and what order it is viewed. This is opposed to Dynamic Visual Narrative such as film or animation where the viewer is presented the visuals in a predetermined pace and sequence or Interactive Visual Narrative where the story progresses through the participation of the viewer.

These methods of telling stories have been developed over decades and centuries. They allow us to communicate where, when, how, why and what happened when an event occurred. Whatever the story it can be told through Visual Narrative, the visual element gives the story teller the ability to not only describe the characters, locations and events but also show them to the viewer.