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Semiotics at the Crossroads of Art* 1 Visual Semiotics

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Semiotics at the Crossroads of Art* 1 Visual Semiotics DE GRUYTER MOUTON DOI10.1515/sem-2013-0037 Semiótica 2013; 195: 69-95 Virve Sarapik Semiotics at the crossroads of art* Abstract: This article first examines and compares three partly overlapping terms - visual semiotics, pictorial semiotics, and the semiotics of art - and aims at the specification of their interrelations. Then, the focus shifts to the problems of the semiotics of art, and the changing mutual relations between the semiotics of art and art history are analyzed. It is important to note that, during the last half- century, the notions of visual art, its ontology, and functions have thoroughly changed and, during recent decades, changes have also appeared on the meta- level of art history. The question is whether and how the semiotics of art should react to these changes. Keywords: visual semiotics, pictorial semiotics, pictorial representation, visual culture, semiotics of art Virve Sarapik: Estonian Literary Museum and Estonian Academy of Arts. E-mail: vlrve.sarapii<@artun.ee The present article arose from the wish to specify and define the three circulating and partly overlapping terms visual semiotics, pictorial semiotics, and the semi- otics of art, and to examine, in an introductory way, the problems related to the third term. Thus the aim of this article is not so much to offer an exhaustive solu- tion to the problems as to point out and specify them more precisely. Although all three appear to be specialized trends proceeding from general semiotics, we can tell from the very notions that their categorization is based on entirely different principles. Visual semiotics is based on one of the senses - vision; pictorial semiotics should discuss everything that can be defined as a pic- ture; semiotics of art should be concerned with all that is conceived as art. 1 Visual semiotics Of these three terms, the first one is the most difficult to define. We could point out the following reasons. * This research was supported by the targeted research financing program of the Estonian Ministry of Science and Education (SFOO3OO54sO8). 70 VirveSaraplk DE GRUYTER MOUTON First, visual semiotics as a classification based on one type of perception should be, on a relatively equal basis, connected with other types of special semi- otics, e.g., auditory, tactile, olfactory, and other sensory systems. (Probably one of the best-known classifications was created by Thomas A. Sebeok [1972].) How- ever, the semantic load of visual semiotics is notably heavier than that of the others, and several other semiotic systems based on the senses are more clear-cut (e.g., olfactory, gustatory or tactile systems - cf. Eco 1976: 9-14). It is still obvious that semiotics or communication cannot be classified only on the basis of percep- tion, as many semiotic systems find support from the information gathered simul- taneously by several senses. Due to this fact, many semioticians are cautious or even negative towards the perception-based classification (there are no appropriate entry words in several semiotic dictionaries and encyclopedias, e.g., Greimas and Courtes 1982; Sebeok 1994 [1986]; Bouissac 1998; Posner et al. 1997-2004) and even the advocates of visual semiotics are somewhat hesitant about the productivity of the sphere (see, e.g., Sonesson 2000, 2007). Second, the understanding of pictorial representation only as a visual sign is quite wide-spread, the central studies in this field including Groupe |a Traité du signe visuel and Fernande Saint-Martin Semiotics of Visual Language, both of them narrowing this field even more to apply it, mainly, in the analysis of works of art (Groupe \i 1992; Saint-Martin 1990 [1987]). Thus the border between picto- rial semiotics and visual semiotics gets vague. Frequently, on an intuitive basis, the visual and the verbal tend to form a pair, which could well be one of the results of this terminological confusion: in this connection, visual is a synonym for pictorial language, and verbal for natural language (e.g., Saint-Martin 1990 [1987]; Sebeok and Umiker-Sebeok 1995). Visual semiotics should, however, naturally include any kind of visually per- ceived information, e.g., the system of writing: visual aspects of the natural lan- guage, shapes and visible aspects of environment, etc. Generally, the term is used in a markedly narrower sense. We can also assume that it could be interlaced with the concept of visual art widely used in English (i.e., visual semiotics is a disci- pline studying visual arts), and in recent decades also with the concept of visual culture, the wider use of which started at the beginning of the 1990s. In 1992 the former Association internationale de sémiologie de l'image (AISIM) was renamed the International Association for Visual Semiotics (IAVS), and .Advances in Visual Semiotics (Sebeok and Umiker-Sebeok 1995) was published. Although the book appeared as a manifesto of the new research field, its definition cannot be found in the preface of the volume. In different chapters, the term is used rather cautiously and with slightly different meanings (cf. Sonesson 1995: 69; Saint- Martin 1995: 375). The most universal was the point of departure proposed by DE GRUYTER MOUTON Semiotics at the crossroads of art 71 Sven Erik Larsen: "To me visual semiotics exists only on the conditions of a spatial semiotics, because visuality is based on the mode of corporeal presence in a space depending primarily on sight... It [visuality] is founded on the mutual relationships between body and environment through the sight" (Larsen 1995: 548). While a pictorial image is an already existing representation, a principally different and immediate interpretation of the whole surrounding environment is added to this, based on the information acquired via the sense of sight. This includes nature and the urban environment; movements, light, texture and colors; interiors, clothing and consumer objects; facial expressions and gestures; the visual aspects of theatre and cinema; the gestures of a conductor, etc. But consumer objects, clothing, and the visible environment (buildings, landscape or their parts) may also be touched on. One can stand and move among them, the environment can be smelled or even tasted, and it can be experienced and under- stood by other senses. To gain the right to live in this world of limitless opportunities, the unique realm of visual semiotics should be specified more clearly. Visual semiotics is justified when, for example, there are some properties of signification that can only be visually sensed, which cannot be described by any other criteria, and the visual may be the most productive way of describing such phenomena. This is also true when the visual aspect of signification has some characteristics that are important from the standpoint of the signification process, or when the visually perceived ways of signification or communication can be classified in some es- sential way by such a binding characteristic. Such an approach does, indeed, organically integrate the whole visible experience, but the opportunities for ana- lyzing such an integration are still very complicated. Furthermore, we can try to create a certain differentiation of the visual phe- nomena to outline the research object in a more distinct way. First, let us differen- tiate between immediate and mediated visuality. Immediate visuality as a research object of semiotics can, in turn, be divided into abstract visual characteristics - color, lightness, fracture/texture, orientation, spatiality, and movement - and visible objects. Mediated visuality is, primarily, a pictorial representation, but it also em- bodies more conventional ways of representation, including diagrams of the Peircean typology of iconic signs (hypoicons): mathematical figures, graphs, maps, and schemes, as well as iconic, picture-based ideograms and pictograms. "Aniconic" visual signs - e.g., alphabetic writing systems, as well as marks, scratches, non-pictorial ideograms, and logograms - can be seen as an inmedi- ated visual aspect of different types of sign. Pictograms and ideograms form an intermediate step between picture and writing, containing some aspects of both. 72 VirveSarapik DE GRUYTER MOUTON They have a certain visual quality that is important in the interpretation process, but at the same time their denotation is based mostly on indexical or symbolic semiosis. In everyday use, the notion of the picture has a number of connotations and figurative meanings. A picture can be mental or illusory, not depicting a real ob- ject; however, the term is still frequently used just to denote a work of art (picto- rial art). In this paper, I discuss the picture as an artifact that has a material foun- dation and even some kind of persistence in time, and that signifies, with the help of certain characteristics (iconic relations and conventions of representation), some other object or class of objects. The signified object may also be a mental, abstract, mythological or some other non-existent phenomenon. In such a way, a painting, a sculpture or some other work of art, a drawing, a photo or a film strip, can be treated as a picture. ^ It serves our purpose to consider ^liciure and pictorial image/representation as synonyms in the present discussion. For mental images, mirror images, shadows, optical illusions, dreams, and so on, I will use the general term image. In such a classification, image is not exactly a synonym for "picture," being a wider concept also including the picture. While a picture has a certain physical form, an image may lack it, e.g., mental images, afterimages, hallucinations, and mirages.^ The primary classification of potential objects of visual semiotics could be as shown in Figure 1. immediate visuality mediated visuality abstract characteristics visible objects pictures diagrams Fig. 1: Primary classification of the objects of visual semiotics We can, naturally, see overlaps in this classification: the first, the treatment of abstract characteristics unavoidably encompasses others, playing an essential 1 Because in everyday use picture means, primarily, a two-dimensional object, I use statue to denote the three-dimensional image.
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