Visual Rhetoric & Artistic Devices

Primes about the devices artists use to shape meaning and attention, including abstraction, iconography, metaphor in verbal and visual form, emphasis, visual movement guiding the eye, and decorative ornamentation.

7 primes in this family — primes that sit near one another in abstraction space (k-means over structural-signature embeddings). Each is shown with its short description.

• Abstraction in Art — Remove literal representation.
• Emphasis — Highlighting priority element.
• Iconography — Symbol systems in art.
• Metaphor — Conceptual mapping.
• Metaphor (Visual/Artistic) — Symbolic imagery.
• Movement (Visual Movement) — Guides viewer’s eye.
• Ornamentation — Decorative enhancement.