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The Postcard: A Visual and Textual Form of Communication
illustrated card builds a peculiar type of artistry based on the relation between
text/image, in which case the image is called to generate a bundle of polysomic
meanings. Its choice reveals the ambition of the writer to turn the text into
a message above the popular customs, which may fit into the higher registries
of cultural life” (Raycheva 2002).
Let us turn back to the European tradition of postcard publishing, that can
be characterized by small publication numbers and more a “personal” presence
not only of the publisher, but also of the buyer-sender, the author of the mes¬
sage. A popular type of postcards for sending individual messages includes the
cards with jokes, proverbs, aphorisms, lyrics, literary texts and so forth. Even
with the choice of the text on them, the sender “informs” about some features
of their own identity and their relation/attitude to the addressee or their under¬
standing of the otherness of the event or the place where they are at the time
of writing the message. The intensity of the textual and visual analysis of the
personal and the individual distinguishes a small range of postcards with im¬
ages of women, children, love couples and other motifs conveying a romantic
mood. We assume that one of the purposes of such postcards is to emphasize
the beautiful side, the romance in everyday life and the postcards are intended
for such moments. The colours are mild, pastel and there is a lot of light. Their
message is: “People, life is wonderful! Forget there are hunger, pain and disas¬
ters!” (Uzlowa 2014: 269).
The postcard connects and divides parallel “worlds”, first, transferring the
conditionally objective visual information about the existing reality, and sec¬
ondly the subjective experiences. Why conditionally objective? Classic exam¬
ples about a “dictated” illustrativeness are the postcards with images of the
Bulgarian Black Sea coast from the period between1950 and 1990 (Fig. 8)."
Irrespective of whether the postcard presents socialist propaganda or tourist ad¬
vertising, the objects are being photographed the way they should be presented.
We agree with Kiirti’s view that postcards represent a combination of their own
“selves” and the Others, crossing different localizations and offering the visual
opportunity to seek disappeared or questionable identities. According to him,
postcards may create a feeling of the reality we are in, the one we have travelled
in and the changed social context of our stay at the moment. “Similarly, an¬
thropologists just like anyone else also send postcards when they are at “home”
to those who are not with them. For many these picture postcards represent
the combination of self and other, traversing between various locations, and
a visual possibility of searching for identities lost or questioned. ... We tend to
buy and send postcards feeling satisfied that these miniature images, and the
few hastily written words, reconnect us through the often highly stylised forms
15° Postcard no. 152, July 19, 1966.
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