A great photograph doesn't only say more than a thousand words, it can also create a hundred different reactions. In this series we take a close look at contemporary and historical photographs and videos that divide opinion
For the Ukip man, this picture is political gold. But what does it mean when the normal rules of power can be bypassed with a picture of two guys in an elevator?
Those taking selfies with Hillary Clinton aren’t narcissists – but our best hope
Jonathan Jones
A photographer’s side-view of a political rally may not be the hellish vision of democracy’s death in the echo chamber of self-regard that it appears to be
What do you see in this picture? I glimpse the darkness of European fears
Jonathan Jones
I can insist this is an image of heroic, defiant, brave refugees, trying to make us live up to our liberal values. But to terrified European eyes they are the other, the enemy
Jeb Bush’s gun tweet is a portrait of the American nightmare
Jonathan Jones
By posting an image of his gun, the Republican candidate is hoping to appeal to the irrationality that has enabled Trump’s rise. In fact, it reveals he is giving up
Images of children starving in Madaya can still shock us into action
Jonathan Jones
It’s wrong to say that people have been inured to images of atrocity, but the facts in Syria tangle compassion in barbed wire. Pictures do make a difference
John McDonnell’s Mao moment is a dirty trick on his own party
Jonathan Jones
The shadow chancellor may as well have unfurled the red flag, climbed up to the strangers’ gallery and waved the Little Red Book about while declaring a people’s soviet
Jeremy Corbyn’s white-tie get-up is straight outta Downton
Jonathan Jones
The Labour leader’s appearance at the Buckingham Palace banquet in honour of Xi Jinping is not so much conformist as surreal – and projects an image of virtue
The Tories’ Corbyn attack video is absurd, paranoid and nasty – and will work
Jonathan Jones
It may belong with the Conservatives’ Demon Eyes poster in the museum of crap propaganda: but portraying Corbyn as an extremist feeling sorry for Bin Laden is a smear with legs
Anish Kapoor must reconsider – Dirty Corner should be cleaned
Jonathan Jones
Public art often gets scarred by battles over its meaning or right to exist, but the vandals who daubed antisemitic graffiti on his sculpture are idiots who picked the wrong target
