Structure of the Visual Book

The Sequential Language of the Visual Book

In a world saturated with static images—paintings hung on walls, photographs fixed in frames—the artist’s book offers something radically different: time. Not clock time, but time as experience. A painting waits. A book unfolds. As Keith A. Smith writes in Structure of the Visual Book, the defining characteristic of a book is sequential viewing. It’s not simply an object to be looked at, but a structure to be entered, navigated, and physically manipulated. Unlike a single photograph, a book demands movement and interaction.

This movement creates meaning. Each turn of the page becomes a decision. The rhythm of progression (or interruption) is not passive; it’s choreographed by the artist but co-performed by the reader. In this way, books share more with cinema or music than they do with traditional visual art. They carry a pulse.

Smith emphasizes that “a book is a time-space concept.” The space is not just on the page, but between pages—the hinge, the fold, the gap. These liminal moments matter. A sudden change in scale, texture, or visual tone across a spread can shock or soothe. Repetition across pages creates rhythm. Silence blank space becomes a pause, a breath. Books don’t just hold content; they embody structure as content.

In artists’ books, structure is never neutral. A concertina fold might echo breath or landscape. A tight binding may restrict motion, echoing constraint. An uncut page invites tearing or refusal. In this sense, every book is also a proposition: how will I move through it?

This is what sets visual books apart. The viewer is not just reading images they’re performing them. Your hands know it as much as your eyes. And as you move, the book moves through you.

So while a photograph asks you to look, a book asks you to stay with it. To linger, to return, to turn. To read, not just what’s on the page, but how it’s revealed.

And that’s the gift of the artist’s book: not just visual information, but experience in sequence a narrative built not only from content, but from the act of reading itself