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. From the viewpoint of art theory, the difference is not es-
sential, because numerous intermediate forms can be found, especially in contemporary art.
This fact probably inspired W. J. T. Mitchell to place sculpture, painting, and photograph in the
general class of graphic images in his classification (Mitchell 1986: 9-10).
2 The use of terminology here somewhat differs from that offered by, e.g., Goran Sonesson, who
tends to see picture and image as synonyms (e.g., Sonesson 1998), and instead coincides with
W. J. T. Mitchell's specification (Mitchell 1986: 9-10).
DE GRUYTER MOUTON Semiotics at the crossroads of art 73

part in picture analysis and a collateral role in diagram analysis. Pictures and dia-
grams are, in turn, also visually perceivable objects.
Such subordination can be represented by the planes in Figure 2.

Fig. 2: A - the plane of abstract characteristics; 0 - the plane of

objects; P - the plane of mediated visuality or pictorial
representation

In this scheme, optical images and illusions (reflections and mirages) and other
such phenomena form parts of unmediated visuality and generally they are not
connected with intentional sign-processes.
Subordination also solves the problem of the written representation of natu-
ral language, namely, its visual aspect. Writing is a visual object like all the
others; its visual side (typeface, size, and layout) can mediate certain information
but, generally, the character of a verbal message does not change significantly
when it has been given a different appearance (e.g., different editions of the same
book, or the moving of a text to the Internet). As a visual sign, an alphabetic writ-
ing system is, in principle, aniconic.
Nevertheless, typefaces undoubtedly have certain historical-cultural and
personal-emotional connotations. For example, a literary work may be related to
a certain typeface in the reader's memory, and a new edition using some other
typeface may appear strange. Generally, the customary, neutral - seemingly "in-
visible" or "transparent" - typefaces and designs, familiar in a certain cultural
situation, are differentiated from intentionally distinctive typefaces and layouts.
In a printed text, the latter play a role almost identical to that of illustrations. If
the layout of the writing aims to convey a definite message (e.g., concrete poetry),
we have reason to speak of secondary pictoriality.
The initial data become more comphcated if we wish to enlarge the notion of
visuality in order to include mirrors and mental images, afterimages, memories,
dreams, and, finally, the visual impressions mediated by different types of mes-
sages (excerpts from literary works or pieces of music).
Thus the above-mentioned classification becomes more complex (see
Figure 3).
74 Virve Sarapii< DE GRUYTER MOUTON

immediate mediated visuality verbalized or in perceptual images mental imagery

visuality some other way and visual illusions
coded visuality
visibie objects pictures, statues descriptions afterimages iconic memory.
memory pictures

optical diagrams, maps. rhetorical figures cognitive illusions, visions, dreams

phenomena pictograms hallucinations
(e.g. reflections,
mirages)
abstract visual mathematically
characteristics coded visual
characteristics

-,
IHHHI • • • 1
Fig. 3: The classification of visual phenomena

Clear subordination is lost as well, because, for example, it is very hard to analyze
mental images with the help of abstract visual categories.
The scheme shown in Figure 3 displays a wide variety of visual representa-
tions based on visual perception and experience. Two overlapping areas of the
phenomena can clearly be seen: (a) image, extending from pictorial representa-
tion to mental images, without any appropriate external stimuli; (b) visibility -
the human ability to perceive the surrounding reality with the sense of sight. The
different semiotic potential of these categories is also made clear. While in the
case of pictorial representation there is no doubt that we are dealing with a sign;
description, rhetorical figure and the mathematical code of a color in, say, the
NCS system are signs as well; but the problem becomes more complicated when
we consider reflection, afterimage or mental image. Drawing all of them together
into the field of semiotic phenomena presupposes that the specific characteristic
linking them all is the sense of sight itself: perception partly operates based on
conditional foundations, depending on experience, knowledge, and other con-
scious processes, and thus perception is an active participant in semiosis. At the
same time, this refers to the possibility that such a subjective and relativist char-
acter of the sense of sight is also related to the development of pictorial represen-
tation, and that the conventions of representation have developed in a certain
interaction with the sense of sight (cf. the image studies, proceeding from this
viewpoint, carried out in Germany and commonly called Bildwissenschaft - e.g..
Belting 2001, 2005; Bredekamp 2003).
The heterogeneity of the above-mentioned research object still does not re-
quire the abandoning of visual semiotics as a field of research. Rather, we shall
DE GRUYTER MOUTON Semiotics at the crossroads of art 75

aim at a more precise specification of its object. It is clear that progress in this
field has been closely connected with the study of visual perception and cognitive
processes. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to find a common denominator for
all the subtypes of visuality listed here. Therefore, attention will be focused on
the study of the role of immediate visuality in the processes of signification and
communication, and on the interconnection between visual perception and se-
miosis, as it is precisely this field that the other branches of semiotics have not
dealt with. Verbalized visuality and, especially, mental images are much more
difficult to comprehend using the same methods; still they can provide us with
comparative material. Visual semiotics can be used in discussing the reception
and coding of visual information, and vision-based communication. Only a few
visual information-based sign systems are clear-cut and subject to specific coding
(e.g., diagrams, flags, traffic lights and other traffic signs, numerical and writing
systems, and some iconographie rules). Usually, such systems can quite success-
fully be translated, for example, into natural language, or they can be mathemat-
ically presented. In most cases, the signification of visual phenomena still tend to
be looser; often, we are dealing with single cases whose codes have to be derived
from earlier experience or by intuition. To sum up using Umberto Eco's concepts,
ratio difficilis is the prevailing principle here (Eco 1976:183-189).

2 Pictorial semiotics

Against the background of the above discussion, the specification of pictorial

semiotics is an easier task. Pictorial semiotics deals with the study of pictures as
special carriers of meaning: it is the study of pictorial representation. Obviously,
pictorial semiotics encompasses neither the entire visual environment and visu-
ally perceived information, nor all aspects related to images. It is not substan-
tially concerned, for example, with the technical aspects of picture production, or
the evaluation of pictures. Pictorial semiotics studies intentional pictorial repre-
sentation, striving to make clear the ways in which a pictorial sign resembles or
differs from other signification practices. It is reasonable to expand the research
field to include three-dimensional representation - the statue. One of the reasons
for doing this is the above-mentioned abundance of intermediate forms and, pri-
marily, the important role reliefs have played in many cultures. The main problem
in differentiating between the picture and the statue is related to the number and
locations of possible viewpoints. While a classical sculpture often uses a multi-
viewpoint composition, the relief and, especially, the two-dimensional pictorial
image reduce field of view to 90, or at most 120, degrees. (Here one should
76 Virve Sarapii< DE GRUYTER MOUTON

consider the well-known painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, Ambassadors^,

where an indefinite object in the foreground changes into a recognizable skull
only if the glancing angle is about 30 degrees in relation to the surface of the
painting.) However, a number of different projections can be formed of a statue,
too; some of them are more impressive and memorable than others, and these are
displayed in art histories. In addition, methods of representation, and icono-
graphie and style rules of two- and three-dimensional representation may be
quite similar within a certain art period.
An important criterion is also the presumption that pictorial semiotics deals
with all kinds of pictorial representation without reducing its research object only
to works of art, which has so far been the normal practice. At the same time, we
are faced with a different limiting problem, i.e., whether pictograms, maps and
plans, diagrams and graphs should be included in the field of pictorial semiotics.
As they are intentional representations and iconic in nature, although the levels
of conventionality and types of codes may differ, I would include these phenom-
ena in the research area of pictorial semiotics. We can find several connections in
the historical development of maps and artistic representation, and the differ-
ences are primarily of a functional nature (cf., e.g., Roskill 1997; Casey 2002). Dif-
ferent intermediate steps and variations can be noted: technical drawings, archi-
tectural sketches, drafts, graphical projections, designs, etc., as well as different
types of three-dimensional models.
There is another question: if pictorial semiotics deals with the study of repre-
sentation, does it include, for example, abstract paintings among its research ob-
jects? The answer depends directly on how we conceive representation, whether,
for example, emotions, conditions, moods, an artist's frame of mind, and other
phenomena can be represented or whether the representation is the aim of creat-
ing and perceiving abstract art. The line between the representation and non-
representation of an emotion, of some subjective mental condition, is too vague
and almost entirely depends on the interpretation.
In the case of works of art, the recipient's interpretation is guided by the titles
of pictures - elements outside the pictorial image. The interpretation of abstract
images always requires an explanatory context. If we compare, for example,
Malevich's black square or some other work of a similar nature, with some simi-
lar-looking images, made by chance, we are guided by the material of the image
(e.g., oil painting versus paper), paralinguistic elements (the author's name, the
title of the work, and other additional data), its location (museum versus every-
day milieu), and background knowledge, either art historical or created by con-

3 1533, National Gallery, London.

DE GRUYTER MOUTON Semiotics at the crossroads of art 77

temporary critics. Without a context that can guide interpretation, an abstract

image remains simply a visual element. The problem is too broad to solve here in
a sentence or two. I can only point out that I prefer the narrower meaning of rep-
resentation and would exclude abstract images, as well as aniconic visual signs
from the field of pictorial semiotics. However, analogical examples can offer good
comparison material for the study of particular problems, such as the depen-
dence of the image on the verbal message or on a wider context.
Presented in such a way, the inherent heterogeneity of the research object of
pictorial semiotics becomes evident. First, the interpretation of pictures is deter-
mined by the interaction of the picture with writing, which is common in adver-
tisements, graphic design, press photos, and other commodity images; taking
into account the accompanying texts, the title of an image and other similar con-
textual elements, such a combined effect will, in a wider scope, become a practi-
cally unavoidable factor. A pure picture is an abstraction and, generally, its con-
tent is always related to the constitutive and defining context. Interpretation is
also directed by the medium: the material that the picture is made of or what the
pictorial image is fixed on, giving information about the time period, techniques,
distribution, conventions of representations, etc.
Another important aspect is the juxtaposition of pictorial representation and
vision (e.g., the well-known question of to what extent perspective is related to
peculiarities of space perception or to cultural conventions and studies of mathe-
matical projections).
Based on the definition of pictorial representation given above, written visual
experience, description, is also excluded from the field of pictorial semiotics, but
not entirely. Written texts - e.g., art criticism, historical descriptions of certain
works, ekphrasis, iconographie and sacral texts - can help one to better under-
stand the distinctiveness of pictorial representation; details and characteristics
stressed by the description can have key importance in the analysis of the distinc-
tive features of pictorial representation (e.g., the comparison of the description of
a person and his/her portrait).

3 Semiotics of art

Specification of the previous two terms gives us a clearer basis for examining the
central question of this article - the possibilities of semiotics of art.
While the research object of pictorial semiotics can also be studied by visual
semiotics, although the methods may differ, the problems connected with semiot-
ics of art are more complicated. It cannot by any means be defined as a branch of
78 VirveSarapik DE GRUYTER MOUTON

visual semiotics, although semiotics of art may also be interested in pictorial rep-
resentation, because a large number of art-related issues are not included in the
visual sphere.
In order to specify and distinguish between pictorial and art semiotics, we
must first briefly touch upon the problems of art itself. The meta-sciences of
visual art in recent decades, starting in the 1960s and 1970s, can be characterized
as possessing a kind of perplexity. Reasons for this can be traced back mainly to
the radical changes that occurred in the essence of works of art all through the
twentieth century and, especially, starting in the 1960s. These changes have been
far from uniform; a number of different processes have taken place simultane-
ously, but in a simplified form they can be summed up in three aspects:
- a work of art is no longer only a pictorial or plastic three-dimensional object;
- traditional themes and functions of art have been abandoned;
- new technologies have led to the loss of the singularity of a work of art and
guarantee its reproduction without loss of quality (cf. for example the effect
of printing in literature).

The first change can be seen as the most radical one - the possibility of classify-
ing works of art according to their essential characteristics has entirely been lost.
Thus, practically all common formal criteria of works of art are missing (it is im-
possible to find something to tie together a piece of conceptual art, land art, a
performance, and a ready-made). In comparison, we should note that formal or
media-based criteria still pertain, to a greater or lesser extent, in other arts: a film
is characterized by a moving pictorial image created by film-making technology
and, in general, it contains some kind of a plot; in music, sound is the criterion;
in architecture, the criterion is a concrete object of distinct function in a physical
environment, or at least a design of such an object; literature is based on natural
language. Similar common features can be found in dance (where a moving hu-
man body is the means of expression) and in theatre (a performance involving
people - actors and the audience). It is obvious that what was initially conceived
of as visual art has adopted new means of expression and penetrated into the
fields of all other arts (video, the modeling of the environment, performance, and
using verbal and sound expression). Electronic or new media art, an entirely new
form, has been added here, too.
Naturally, all arts, especially theatre and dance, are characterized by a cer-
tain amount of multimodality and synthesis. In literature, too, appearance - the
material, design and illustrations of a book - plays a role. In the case of oral pre-
sentation, the voice is important (e.g., story-telling or audio books), or the indi-
vidual characteristics of the performer, his or her gestures, movements, and facial
expressions (e.g., poetry readings as a form of literature). In different forms of
DE GRUYTER MOUTON Semiotics at the crossroads of art 79

visual art, however, multimodality has almost become the norm, although this
varies from work to work.
The second change is characterized by the disappearance of the traditional
borders between art and everyday life, as well as by new or non-traditional func-
tions of art. The presenting of natural objects or commodities as works of art is a
typical example of the second change, as is the desire to use art for social inquiry:
a work of art may deal with the same themes that are covered by journalism, soci-
ology, history or any other field.
The third change is of an crucial nature too, as singularity has always been
taken as one of the essential characteristics of pictorial art (cf. Nelson Goodman's
differentiation between allographic and autographic arts, Goodman 1976 [1968]:
113-122). The change in this criterion will have a major effect on the value of art,
and on commercial and financial relations.
All of these changes are radical, and there is every reason to see them as a
crossroads, even though the further course of these paths - the development of
art - is far from clear even at the present time.
With a little bit of exaggeration, these processes can be characterized by the
following keywords:
- Spatial turn, primarily characterized by the spatial expansion of artworks
themselves (ritual art, performance, and site-specific art), moving from sur-
face to space and from space to place; the expansion of the geographical area
of art centers.
Ideological turn: attention shifted from the formal qualities and technical re-
alization to awareness of content and context, to the ideological and social
functions of art. This was associated with a kind of iconoclasm, a retreat of
visual values in the face of the eloquence of the message, and the onslaught
of the verbal in different forms, both implicit and explicit.
- Critical and theoretical turn connected with the ideological: a large number
of the curated projects and artwork in general relied on rather ambitious the-
oretical and philosophical concepts. However, occasionally this was supple-
mented by ironically or playfully taking advantage of the same theories:
pseudo-archaeology, pseudo-history, pseudo-linguistics etc.
- Turn from object to process: in addition to the rise of performance art, rituals,
happenings and events, it was also typical that collecting, musealization, ar-
chives (and pseudo-archives) and assembling were integrated into art.

The resulting confusion over the above-described changes and the withdrawal
from the essentialist definition of art cleared the space for the emergence of one
of the most influential art philosophies - the institutional theory of art (see Danto
1964,1981; Dickie 1984,1997). Arthur C. Danto, the originator of one of its main
80 VirveSarapil< DE GRUYTER MOUTON

concepts - the artworld - argues that the problems that have developed in art
have crossed the boundaries of art theory and become questions of philosophy
(e.g.. Danto 1997: xv). In other words, in a situation where the research object of
art history (and also semiotics of art) become vague or tend to slip away, the only
solution, according to Danto, is to put the problem of being an artwork in a
wider human and philosophical context. One of the main issues for both Danto
and George Dickie was the search for a criterion that would differentiate the
ready-made as a work of art from an ordinary object (e.g., a commodity). The
well-known definition - "a work of art is an artifact of a kind created to be
presented to an artworld public" - was also coined by Dickie (1984: 80-82).
"Being an artifact" as a criterion has already caused disputes and it is clear
that many forms of art (e.g., the happening, a certain kind of conceptual art, site-
specific art) can be treated as artifacts only by using the term in its widest sense.
Also the criteria of intentionality and authorship cannot be extended to a very
large number of works of art of the past (the notion of art has been much altered
over the centuries). We must admit that philosophical discussions inspired by art
have so far not been able to explain exhaustively the all-embracing heterogenity
that characterizes contemporary art.
In general, we can say that art theory and aesthetics have traditionally used
two ways of defining art: according to intrinsic or essential properties (formal*,
content-based and axiological characteristics), and according to extrinsic or rela-
tional properties (functions of the artwork or its social and historical conditions;
see Figure 4).
The first criterion can be called the essential or constitutive characteristics of
art (i.e., focusing on all the properties of the object that permit it to be a work of
art) and here it is possible to distinguish two dominant aspects.

(al) Formal and content-based characteristics, from the medium, technique, and
principles of the construction of the work - composition, colors, and ways of de-
piction - to genre and subject matter. These characteristics are immanent, deriv-
ing from the work itself, and generally intentional, depending on the will of the
author, on his/her choices and preferences, which can, in turn, be influenced by
the customer, the historical and cultural context, etc.

4 One of the best-known definitions can be found in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's clear-cut analy-
sis of literature and pictorial art, as given in his book Laocoon: An essay upon the limits ofpaint-
ing andpoetry (Lessing 1987 [1766]).
DE GRUYTER MOUTON Semiotics at the crossroads of art 81

(a2) Axiological characteristics: an object is a work of art because it has a certain

aesthetic value; it offers aesthetic pleasure. The class of artworks is based on
hierarchy, containing so-called better and more valuable and less valuable works.
Authorship and uniqueness are important criteria for evaluation, but the value of
the work of art is principally derived from its immanent properties. Although
here, too, the intention of the author of creating a work of art is important, the
role of the expert as connoisseur or art critic is still decisive.

The second criterion can be called relativist or conditional: the object's properties
of being an artwork do not derive from its internal characteristics; rather, they are
contextually attributed to the object and may change over time. These are primar-
ily social and historical conditions that acknowledge that some object or phe-
nomenon is a work of art.
This criterion can also be divided into two parts.

(bl) Functional definitions, which consider some functions of art to be definitive

for artworks. Art is created to serve certain purposes and the aesthetic function is
common to all artworks. However, other goals should also be considered: e.g.
ritual, communicative, social, propagandistic and educational functions. Here,
inevitably, the value of art is an important aspect, although the evaluation crite-
ria are located outside the artwork and are influenced by the social and historical
situation. (For further discussion, see Adajian 2007; Carney 1994; Davies 1991,
2005; Nielsen 2010; Stecker 1997.)

(b2) Categorizing definitions as institutional and historical conventionalism. The

conditions specifying an artwork emerge in a certain social sphere - the artworld
- or they stand in some specified art-historical relationship with earlier artworks.
Institutional theories of art consider the art sphere to be, to a certain extent, her-
metic, and they are based on an implicit agreement of solidarity between the in-
stitutions constituting the artworld. The artworld can celebrate any object or phe-
nomenon as art, but the process is far from accidental and, besides innovation
and originality in art, they also consider the need for self-regulation and self-
modeling (reproduction of institutions and pedagogical discourse).
More deterministic theories argue that the properties, functions, and value of
art are determined by certain conditions outside art. These may be relations of
production, ideology (e.g., Marxism), technological discoveries, gender, racial or
some other social, historical or biological determinants (e.g., feminism, post-
colonialism or psychoanalysis).
82 Virve Sarapii< DE GRUYTER MOUTON

A B
essential or constitutive characteristics relativist or conditional characteristics

(1) formal and content-based (1) functional

(2) axiological (2) conventional

Fig. 4: Definitions of art according to essentialist and relativist characteristics

This scheme could be developed further, considering historical changes in art,

but this is not the aim of this article. We should, however, keep in mind that, al-
though prehistoric art, classical art, and the art of the Middle Ages are included
in art history, the notion of art meant something entirely different in those times,
or was missing completely. This, however, brings up entirely different problems.
Let us return to the concept of "semiotics of art." On the one hand, it is re-
lated to such branches of applied semiotics as the semiotics of literature, film,
theatre, and music; here we can draw parallels with other types of art. In com-
parison with these rather clearly developed disciplines, the standing of art semi-
otics is much vaguer today. While other related fields of semiotics are character-
ized by key authors and research, the situation of art semiotics is somewhat
different - so far, research has remained at the level of attempts to discuss one or
another aspect, but not visual art as a whole. Several thorough studies have been
limited to concrete empirical subjects and periods (e.g., works by Meyer Schapiro
and Boris Uspenskij). Other authors who deal with similar problems are not truly
semioticians or are not semioticians at all (e.g., Erwin Panofsky, E. H. Gombrich,
Nelson Goodman, W. J. T. Mitchell, Mieke Bal, and Norman Bryson). However, as
the research objects and often the methods, too, are close or overlapping, these
studies contribute to the shaping semiotics of art.
In a simplified way, in the interests of art semiotics, two foci can be men-
tioned: 1) the analysis of a work of art, its characteristic practice of signification,
and its role in communication, and 2) the analysis of art as a specific human prac-
tice. Semiotics has avoided the treatment of a work of art merely as an artifact or
a material object. A work of art is primarily a mental entity, a signifying process,
whose expression plane can, naturally, also include an artifact.
In summary, we can outline four trends in the present state of the semiotic
analysis of art.

(1) A work of art as a representation.

I have already referred to this trend earlier in this article, and it is practically
impossible to distinguish it from pictorial semiotics. A work of art is equated with
DE GRUYTER MOUTON Semiotics at the crossroads of art 83

a pictorial image and the analysis is interested in general in the questions of

iconicity - similarity and conventionality -, in general problems of representa-
tion, in perspective, iconography, etc. This direction has quite a respectable tradi-
tion in semiotics, and comparable discussions, the results of which are smoothly
integrated into semiotics, can be found in art theory (e.g., the writings by E. H.
Gombrich). We can even say that earlier semiotics of art, and art theory as well,
have largely been image-centered and, more specifically, centered on mimetic or
representational art. The two main approaches in the study of the visual repre-
sentation are the focus on formal or abstract visual characteristics (e.g., Saint-
Martin 1990 [1987]), and the analysis of the constituting of meaning (the subject
matter and content of the work of art).

(2) The question of code theory and the language of art.

One of the most remarkable disputes and a great step forward in the development
of semiotics of art occurred in the period of high structuralism and this can be
summarized as: is art a language?, or in other words, the question of whether the
semiotic analysis of a work of art requires the application of linguistic models.
Paradoxically, French structuralists, whose works disseminated a linguistic
paradigm into other fields of study, considered art as standing outside semiotic
systems and saw it as a phenomenon that could not be analyzed even with semi-
otic methods. The presence of a two-level structural organization, the double
articulation, was considered to be the primary condition of language-likeness
(one of the best-known holders of this opinion was Claude Lévi-Strauss, cf. 1970
[1964]: 18-19). Despite the fact that Lévi-Strauss believed that the language of
visual art was impossible, scholars still repeatedly attempted to apply the struc-
turalist model in the treatment of pictorial art and their main aim was to find
the basic units corresponding to phonemes, morphemes, etc., and a system
analogous to syntax. This skeptical opinion was shared, for example, by Emile
Benveniste, who considered pictorial art as a non-semiotic phenomenon (e.g.,
1985 [1969]: 242), as well as by Mikel Dufrenne (1966) and Jean-Louis Schefer
(1969); Roman Jakobson (1971 [1964]) emphasized the essential similarity of ver-
bal language and music and their difference from painting.
Roland Barthes (arguing that semiology had so far not been able to embrace
art - Barthes 1991 [1969]) and Louis Marin (1971 [1970]) were slightly more opti-
mistic but still quite skeptical about this issue. Umberto Eco, in his later works,
also doubted the existence of visual language or a kind of universal code (e.g.,
Eco 1976:14,1995: 169), although in his earlier works, he had set the analysis of
the possibilities of articulating pictures as his goal (Eco 1968:243-247).
However, the opposite opinion can be seen in parallel with the polemics of
the language of art of the French structuralists: the Tartu-Moscow School of semi-
84 Virve Sarapik DE GRUYTER MOUTON

otics, but also many art theorists, including E. H. Gombrich (e.g., 1984 [I960]: 7,
71), treat both visual art and pictorial representation as a language a priori, often
without substantiating their views. The defenders of pictorial language find far-
reaching homologies between verbal and pictorial codes, generally still falling
short of the presumption of double articulation (we could mention studies by
Abraham Zamsz, Max Bense, René Lindeken, and Martin Krampen, as well as
those of Goran Soneson and Fernande Saint-Martin, which are less dependent on
the language model).
The use of the notion of the language of art is most natural in the works of the
Tartu-Moscow School (e.g., Lotman 1998 [1970]: 19-43; Uspenskij 1995 [1971]:
221), where it is used in its literal, not metaphorical sense. On the one hand, we
have an essentially distinct conception of language here, but this still does not
thoroughly explain the differences. The use of the notion of language demon-
strates belief in the possibilities of analyzing the object signified by this notion
with the help of semiotic methods, and belief in the communicative and informa-
tive functions of art. However, recognition of the existence of a single, although
heterogeneous and multilevel language of art inevitably refers to certain common
characteristics of works of art.
The analysis of the peculiarity of the aesthetic and/or art code has been a
much more prolific method than the arguments between the supporters and
opponents of the language of art. We should mention Umberto Eco's views on
the openness of the art message: a discrepancy between the conventional code
and the message that crosses and renews it in different ways (using, for exam-
ple, overcodings), attempting to abandon the current code, but at the same time
creating a new one (see, e.g., Eco 1968:162-166,1976: 261-276,1989). It can also
be said that Yuri Lotman's works represent quite a similar dynamic model of the
language of art - dialectics between an artistic text, a preceding code, and a code
that can be drawn from the existing text (cf. Lotman 1992 [1981], 1998 [1970]: 32-
37).

(3) Semiotic analysis of the functions of art.

This line of research is firmly grounded in the writings of the members of the
Prague School, primarily Jan Mukarovsky and Jin Veltrusky, where the aesthetic
function is connected with aesthetic value and is seen as a constitutive element of
a work of art. This is a unique intermediate stage between semiotics and tradi-
tional aesthetics, which has been connected with one of the most important dis-
cussions in the aesthetics of the twentieth century concerning the essence and
even the possibility of aesthetic function. Eco repeatedly used the concept of aes-
thetic function in his later works, even seeing it as a way out of the apparent dead
ends of contemporary art (e.g., Eco 1989:167-179).
DE GRUYTER MOUTON Semiotics at the crossroads of art 85

Many authors have discussed art's other functions and its communicative
and pragmatic aspects; among them, the works of the Tartu-Moscow School have
had the strongest impact. However, these authors have paid little attention to
problems of pictorial art and especially of contemporary art. Nevertheless, the
conclusions of much research in literature, film, and theatre can be apphed in the
sphere of pictorial art as well.

(4) Integral analysis of artistic culture

This line of research unavoidably integrates the previous classification and the
previous contribution, and the potential, as the basis for future research, of the
cultural semiotics of the Tartu-Moscow School could be the most effective. While
changes in the essence of works of art have been radical, changes in the whole
artistic culture have been more moderate. Although different collective creative
practices and participatory culture have replaced or been positioned beside the
modernist single creator, and more and more attention has been paid to the pro-
cesses of reception and interpretation, we can say that the roles of the main
agents active in the cultural field have changed but have still remained in that
field. Besides the Tartu-Moscow School, the integral analysis of cultural pro-
cesses, and their relations to social and ideological factors of the era have been of
interest to other, especially post-structuralist, continental semioticians, such as
Louis Marin, Roland Barthes and Umberto Eco.
This trend could be one of the keys to the further development of semiotics of
art, helping it to avoid entanglement in formal criteria of artworks.

Likewise visual arts, the traditional art history and theory are undergoing a peri-
od of fundamental changes. Briefly, we should mention two trends that are partly
interrelated, or at least proceed from quite similar premises: the New Art History
and visual culture studies. The former mostly deals with the self-reflection of art
history and the integration of new methods, while the latter is more focused on
contemporary phenomena and problems that together fall under the term visual
culture.
Both trends are characterized by conscious theoretical and methodological
heterogeneity, borrovdng from other disciplines, and extending the object of
study.
New Art History started to develop in the 1980s, as a result of discontent with
the situation in discipline (see, e.g., Rees and Borzello 1986; Mitchell 1989; Harris
2001; Clunas 2003), and modeled on the attempts at reforms in related fields of
the humanities. New methods and perspectives were borrowed from feminism,
neo-Marxism, structuralism and poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, and else-
86 Virve Sarapii< DE GRUYTER MOUTON

where; concepts of ideology, identity, constructiveness, gender, and racial differ-

ences were proposed. New Art History aimed at critical re-examination of the
previous ways of writing the history of visual art, primarily approaches centered
on the authentic masterpiece, the biographical method, and stylistic analysis,
which seem to provide the reader with objective hierarchies. Instead, New Art
History attempted to find a theoretical basis for the areas of art and visual culture,
emphasizing their social, cultural, and historical meanings and the factors that
affect them.
The emerging field called visual culture first published several voluminous
and influential readers in order to construct a history necessary for identity, and
also in order to stress new and important subjects with the help of earlier texts. In
addition to readers, the new field of study was developed through several impor-
tant conferences and an increasing number of textbook-like introductions.
Its main sources of inspiration were feminism, psychoanalysis (especially
Lacan), neo-Marxism (especially Althusser), semiotics and poststructuralism
(especially Barthes and Denida), and the theory of postcoloniahsm - thus build-
ing a circle of influence similar to New Art History. The strength of both of these
trends lies in the critical approach and the revealing of problems that were hid-
den in the art history centered on masterpieces and their authors. The difference
between the two lies in the fact that visual culture studies focus more on the
present day, and therefore, have a much wider range of research objects. Visual
culture studies are interested in all possible carriers of visual information sur-
rounding us: television, computers and the Internet, film, graphic design and
advertisements, clothing, etc.
Thus we can say that one trend in visual culture studies mainly deals with
image or pictorial representation (e.g., Bryson et al. 1994) and, in a more indirect
way, embodies other visual phenomena related to human activities (the visual
identity of people and artifacts). In the case of architecture, for example, visual
culture studies are interested not only in the visual sensing of the environment,
but in the way in which the constructed environment and the environment as a
whole are pictorially represented (angle of view, subordination, the choice of ele-
ments that are represented and left unrepresented) and how such representation
is socially and culturally constructed. In such a way, visual culture is more related
to pictorial semiotics than to visual semiotics.
W. J. T. Mitchell, who also follows this trend, defines his research by the term
picture theory (Mitchell 1994, 2005). Besides image and representation, another
important range of issues of visual culture encompasses visuality: the role of the
gaze and seeing in culture and society. This includes visibility and awareness of
visibility (e.g., surveillance mechanisms used in society), as well as selective non-
seeing, rhetorical, and often non-conscious usage of visuality-related vocabulary.
DE GRUYTER MOUTON Semiotics at the crossroads of art 87

i.e., a wide and hard-to-define range of problems (e.g., Jenks 1995; Heywood and
Sandywell 1999). This gives rise to the even broader ambition of building upon
"the determining role of visual culture in the wider culture it belongs to" (Mirzoeff
1999:4): the need in contemporary postmodernist culture to visualize things that
are not visual in nature, and the ability of visuality to create power relations,
gender stereotypes, and (aesthetic) values (Mirzoeff 1999: 5-9; 2002: 10-18;
Rogoff 2002: 24). Whether more stress is laid on the study of images or the role of
visuahty in society varies by different authors and also depends on the phenom-
enon under analysis.
No integrated methods and compact output have so far been reached, but
this is probably not the goal. Rather, visual culture studies attempt to be open and
flexible, to pick up useful features from other areas and often focus on case stud-
ies. They generally share a common position that pictorial culture is socially and
ideologically determined, and expresses gender, race, and class differences. An
important question besides "what is represented and howl" is "what is not repre-
sented?" The properties and value of art are not of direct interest to visual culture.
These are ideologically constructed as well, and the analysis of works of art is
undertaken if it is necessary to point out dominant, prestigious and unfavored
ways of representation. Thus, in addition to the visible, the non-visible, the ab-
sence of something and non-representation are important as well.
But the main difference of visual culture studies, when compared to the
visual semiotics discussed above, is not only its persistent transdisciplinary
attitude or hybridity, but the fact that the phenomena it analyses are centered
on people and culture, meaning the visual aspect of human production (e.g.,
Herbert 2003: 452; Rampley 2005: 2-4). The researchers who proceed from seeing
also emphasize, primarily, its cultural not, say, biological or developmental
conditionality.
However, we should not think that art historians have unanimously wel-
comed the rise of visual culture studies. Even those researchers who have literary
or art historical backgrounds and who have supported the development of visual
studies become cautious now and then. This is especially clearly revealed in the
survey conducted by the journal October in 1996, which can be considered to be
the first major challenge or even setback in the development of visual culture
studies. The main problems were the worry about the dissolving of boundaries
between different subjects or even about the disappearance of art history as a
discipline, as well as about the methodological anarchy of visual culture and
about the disappearance of the diachronic dimension characteristic to art history
(see Visual culture questionnaire 1996). Thus we can say that the mutual rela-
tions between art history and visual culture range from the optimistic hope that
visual culture is an extension accompanying the development of art history to a
88 VirveSarapik DE GRUYTER MOUTON

distanced attitude that this is a new field of research, independent of art history,
which can even endanger its identity (cf. e.g., also Dikovitskaya 2005: 3, 64).'
To sum up, we can say that art history has reacted to changes in art and soci-
ety by expanding its sphere of research to phenomena closely related to art, espe-
cially to visual culture, and by critically revising previous art histories, while at
the same time being open to research methods borrowed from other fields. On the
one hand, art history and theory have attempted to analyze the changes in the
ontology and functioning of the work of art, while, on the other hand, they have
developed a new interest in phenomena outside "high" art.

Since we specified semiotics of art as an independent field of research, it is neces-

sary to examine its relations with art history and theory, and visual culture stud-
ies. Both visual culture and New Art History have listed semiotics among their
theoretical sources (Bryson et al. 1994: xviii; Fuery and Fuery 2003: 86-108; Ivers-
en 1986; Rose 2001: 69-99; Smith 2008: 2). However, they do not use semiotics as
a whole, but only a relatively limited number of authors and texts, mostly French
semiology from the 1960s and 1970s.

5 Although I have listed two main trends here, several other terms are used to mark the develop-
ments in the reforming of art history. For example, Jonathan Harris prefers, besides "New art
history," the terms "radical art history" or "critical art history," which more precisely character-
ize his approach and stress even more this trend's socio-political conditionality and relations
with Marxism (Harris 2001: 6). "Social history of art" is used almost as a synonym, and within it
we can again differentiate between ideologically more neutral and more Marxist studies (Harris
2001: 6-9; Clunas 2003).
Different terms have also been used in denoting visual culture studies. For example, Keith
Moxey (2008) differentiates between "visual culture," which is a trend that above all emphasizes
the constructed state of the pictorial image and its social and political role in society, and "visual
studies," which is based on the "iconic revolution" and is more concerned with the possibilities
of the immediate experience and the presence of the picture. While the former is mostly influ-
enced by British cultural studies, the latter has more essential connections with Bildwissenschaft,
developed by the German art historians Hans Belting, Gottfried Boehm, and Horst Bredekamp:
Can we then articulate the methodological differences that serve to characterize these dif-
ferent attitudes to the ongoing enterprise of visual studies? The very names attributed to
these models are revealing. While "visual studies," Bildwissenschaft ("image-science"), or
Bildanthropologie ("anthropology of images"), invoke established traditions of academic
objectivity guaranteed by unmarked subjectivity traditionally associated in the humanist
tradition with impartiality and universality, "visual culture" adds a relativizing dimension
to the project by identifying and specifying the subject position of both the producer and
the receiver of images. (Moxey 2008:140)
On the other hand, in recent years, the umbrella term "visual culture studies" has been the pre-
ferred term for denoting the research direction whose object is visual culture (Smith 2008).
DE GRUYTER MOUTON Semioticsat the crossroads of art 89

Two more exhaustive attempts to relate art history and semiotics should be
mentioned here: first, "Semiotics and Art History" by Mieke Bal and Norman
Bryson, the shortened original version of which was published in the journal Art
Bulletin (1991) and the later full version in Mieke Bal's collection On Meaning
Making (1994, which has been used here). The article primarily addressed art his-
torians, with goal to introduce the possibilities offered by semiotics in studying
art. This was a programmatic text aimed at the future, not a review of work al-
ready done. The authors admitted that the development of art history had reached
a kind of standstill and remarked that methods of semiotics and research done in
this field could help to overcome this period of idling.
Bal and Bryson state that whenever cultural objects - texts, documents, and
visual images - are under examination, problems of context, authorship, and
reception arise as well. Thus it is important to conceive of art history as commu-
nication. As semiotics deals with the processes of sign creation and interpreta-
tion, and observes them in different cultural activities, art is one of the suitable
arenas for the activities of semiotics (Bal and Bryson 1994: 138-139). Regarding
earlier semiotics, conceptual parallels are found between the approaches of
Peirce and Saussure, and Riegl and Panofsky (Bal and Bryson 1994:139). Of later
semiotics, approaches whose theoretical skepticism could open up the so-far ne-
glected angles in art history are highlighted - e.g., the already mentioned prob-
lems of context-author-receiver, the polysemy of meanings, and the narratologi-
cal study of pictorial images.
The aim of the authors is to analyze (1) how semiotics challenges several
main objectives and practices of art history and its positivist knowledge (e.g.,
attribution and social history of art), and (2) how semiotics can advance the anal-
yses made by art history. The authors believe that, among the classics of semiot-
ics, Peirce's dynamic theory of semiosis and several of his main concepts can be
of great benefit. They help to interpret the art processes in society and history
without considering the artist's intention, and to analyze why some elements of
image can be seductive or deceptive (Bal and Bryson 1994:165-171). Not only se-
miotics, but also a number of studies that were earlier inspired by semiotics are
seen as suitable and promising attempts to advance the development of art his-
tory. One of the most important studies is the relation of semiotics and Lacanian
psychoanalysis (especially the visual aspects - e.g., gaze, imaginary, and mirror
stage - arising together with its main terms), as well as feminist cultural analysis
and narratology.
The part of the essay dealing with context is one of the most promising: how
the work of art itself generates context, by means of a rhetorical operation, rever-
sal or metalepsis (Bal and Bryson 1994:148), and what is framed by the concep-
tions of both the receiver and the sender. Generally, the authors support nominal-
90 VirveSarapik DE GRUYTER MOUTON

ist and relativist approaches (Barthes, Goodman, and Derrida), but not in their
extreme expressions. Bal and Bryson do not hide the subjectivity of their selec-
tions: the authors pick out from semiotics the aspects that they consider useful
for art history and the problems that they attempt to solve are quite similar to
those raised by studies of visual culture.
The aim of the other article, "Semiotic Aspects of Art History: Semiotics of the
Fine Arts" by Omar Calabrese (2003), is quite similar to the first one, but its con-
tent and results are somewhat different. Being an encyclopedic chapter, one of its
aims is to give an exhaustive historical overview, and its target group is a bit dif-
ferent. But two parts of this article can be compared with the former one - the
set-up of the task and the last part, which discusses what semiotics can offer to art
history, or "the proper contribution of semiotics to the analysis of the work of art"
(Calabrese 2003: 3213). With the set-up of the task, we can notice that the author
selects and uses only those parts of art history that he believes to deal with the
work of art, not to form a part of, for example, history - hence that which can be
taken as an independent field of the humanities. In such a way, however, the
study of art is generally narrowed to the study of a single object - a work of art -
or in many cases, of representation, but the study of art as a sphere of integrated
human practice is neglected.
According to this opinion, the development of an independent art history
starts in the twentieth century and the author has picked out primarily its more
positivist part (attributing and evaluation, and formalism). However, as the scope
widens further from the later art history, the author has integrated studies that
discuss the relations between art and cultural history and society (iconology and
the social history of art), which are not in complete accord with the meth-
odological purism he strove to achieve in the beginning. Among the approaches
in which the semiotics of art contributes to the study of the work of art, the author
lists Luis Prieto's linguistic model, works by Roland Barthes and his followers,
Umberto Eco's theory of signification, the cultural semiotics of the Tartu-Moscow
School (especially, Yuri Lotman and Boris Uspenskij), and the School of Greimas.
Of these, the semiotics of culture in particular is not confined only to works of
art, and on the other hand, many of the trends noted here are more interested
in semiotic problems related to representation (i.e., the pictorial image) than
art.
The aesthetic problem mentioned at the opening of the article remains un-
solved: the author readily admits that contemporary art history is no longer much
interested in the problem of value, but the reasons for this are not analyzed. At
the same time, among the trends in art history that are related to semiotics, he
lists those that consider value to be permanent and absolute, not relative: such as
attributionism, style analysis, and the connoisseur.
DE GRUYTER MOUTON Semiotics at the crossroads of art 91

Although a number of studies and approaches of semiotics coincide in both

of the articles, the conclusions drawn differ. These differences are primarily
caused by different treatments of the notions of art and art history. While Bal and
Bryson are interested in art as a whole, and admit changes in it and in its interpre-
tation, Calabrese's article treats art as an existing phenomenon that does not
need defining: semiotics should offer new opportunities for analyzing the work
of art, not for interpreting processes and developments in art practices. Based on
the scheme presented above, we can say that Bal and Bryson's essay is based on
the relativist specification of art, but Calabrese proceeds from an essentialist
viewpoint.

4 Conclusion
The reason why more radical art theory often turns to semiotics is primarily due
to the heritage of the 1960s and 1970s - works by Barthes, Kristeva, Prieto, Lacan,
Althusser, and others - a period of critical analysis of ideology, culture, and the
previous tradition of thinking. The ensuing development of semiotics of art has
proceeded towards the widening of the study object, but also towards the lessen-
ing of the critical attitude, towards de-ideologizing semiotics. The Tartu-Moscow
School already had an ideologically neutralizing function. More precisely, there
was internal opposition to the official ideology - Marxism-Leninism (which is far
different from Marxism) - but the movement of the Tartu-Moscow School from
the official Soviet Hegelian way of defining culture to Kantianism was inherently
de-ideologizing.
In order to once again point out the three "main characters" of this article -
art, art theory, and semiotics - whose intenelations I have attempted to analyze,
I shall present a few conclusions.
- The developments in art in the last fifty years require the principal re-
examination and re-definition of art as a phenomenon.
- Almost parallel to these developments, changes have occurred at the meta-
level of art theory and art philosophy, and several new approaches have
emerged. In the course of these changes, art theory and visual culture studies
have made attempts to integrate methods of other fields, including semiotics.
- Semiotics as a trans-disciplinary discipline also studies pictorial representa-
tion and visual art. But its interest in art has so far been different: semiotics is
primarily interested in the problems of pictorial representation and visual
communication, as well as in the exhaustive analysis of the work of art, so far
neglecting the definition of art as a changing object and the search for the
reasons for the changes. Previous attempts in semiotics of art have, generally.
92 VirveSarapik DE GRUYTER MOUTON

observed art as a kind of "completed" phenomenon. The later works of the

Prague School have come closest to the analysis of pivotal moments in 20th
century art. The research of the Tartu-Moscow School has offered possible
models for further interpretation of dynamic art culture (e.g., the concept of
the semiosphere), but the main authors of the school were not able to study
the problems of contemporary art because of the ideological conditions of the
time.

Although the Prague scholars were interested, for example, in the problem of
how an artifact becomes a work of art, or achieves an aesthetic function, no seri-
ous attempts have so far been made in semiotics to analyze the changes in the
essence of art and the factors specifying the definition of art. Therefore, there are
still a number of opportunities for continuing the dialogue.

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Bionote
Virve Sarapik (b. 1961) is a senior researc]i fellow at the Estonian Literary Museum
and professor at the Estonian Academy of Arts <virve.sarapik@artun.ee). Her
principal research interests include semiotics of culture, visual semiotics, and the
relations between pictorial and verbal representation. Her publications include
Language and art (1999); "Picture, text, and imagetext: Textual polylogy" (2009);
and "Landscape: The problem of representation" (2002).
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