How To Read an Image Caption

Image captions are things we sometimes take for granted while browsing through art history pictures. They are there in much the same capacity as rolling screen credits at the end of a film: both contain pertinent attributions, legal information, public kudos and crucial identification ... and are often partially or completely ignored.

It's easy to understand why eyes tend to skim over image credits. They *can* become the size of a short story at times. But! That is exactly what they are: stories. Volumes of information are contained within those lines -- you just have to know how to decode the brief segments of text (and insert a few of your own modifiers, articles and other parts of speech to flesh the story out). Towards the decoding end, and in the interest of science, an image caption has hereby been dissected, examined under a powerful lens and written up for the General Good. Please enjoy the semi-empirical results in the step-by-step tutorial entitled How To Read an Image Caption.