This study reviews historical thinking about visual literacy, addresses the issue of setting visual literacy's parameters, and provides a philosophy to link individual theories in this multidisciplinary movement. The report examines the roots of the visual literacy movement and the seminal literature in the field. It includes a categorizing of topics and fields of study in the visual literacy movement, and generates a broad position statement that locates visual literacy in relationship to its parent disciplines. A definition of visual literacy is proposed and a set of principles to foster further development of the theoretical foundations in this emerging area is postulated. An extensive bibliography is provided. (Author/MER)