Figuration across Artistic Texts

About the author:

Abstract:

The article takes up the issue — discussed for several decades by theoreticians of art and practitioners of artistic semiotics — whether verbal and pictorial figuration can be claimed to draw from common resources. Specifically, I want to focus on master tropes, the leading semantic figures, which — as reflections of creative imagination — shape literary discourse. My aim, however, is to claim their presence in the visual arts. Using some chosen examples of artworks, I will argue that the neo-classical tetrad of metaphor-metonymy-synecdoche-irony (cf. Vico, Burke, White) is also discernible in the painted/sculpted media. What is more, I propose the extension of Vichian set to include such figures as, e. g., simile and antithesis (contrast). I also raise the issue of universality vs. culture-specificity of semiotic figuration. All in all, the paper is a contribution to the subject of transmediality, that is convergence of the verbal and non-verbal arts within the semiosphere.

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