Images are great primary sources full of meaning, but can be a little harder to interpret than print documents. As James Curtis notes in History Matters, "A picture may be worth a thousand words, but you need to know how to analyze the picture to gain any understanding of it at all." When analyzing an image, try to keep a few of these questions in mind:
- Who created the image?
- Why was the image made?
- How was it created? Painting, sculpture, drawing?
- Why are certain characters, settings, lines, shapes, perspectives, and colors used? What do these elements communicate to the viewer?
- Does the image portray culture accurately? Is it more myth? Perhaps some of both?
- What was happening in history when the image was made?
- What do the images communicate about issues of gender, race, and class?