The Simplest of Signs: Victor Hugo and the Language of Images in France, 1850-1950Must we learn how to read pictures? Or are pictures viewed, and texts read? If both pictures and texts are read, what theory accounts both for this reading and the manifest differences that exist between the two sign systems? In response to such questions, Timothy Raser traces the evolution of simple signs from the Romantic moment to the recent past, showing how a desire for direct signification informs both canonical Romantic texts and the art-critical texts of subsequent generations. Employing semiotic analyses, he isolates the devices used by poetry, plays, novels, and art criticism to produce effects of immediacy. So doing, he describes the rhetoric of art criticism as it evolved over the nineteenth century in France. The tropes of this genre are particular to it - resurrection is a favored metaphor - and these tropes, when deconstructed, explain arguments, evaluations, and choices that saturate the field. Timothy Raser is a Professor of French at the University of Georgia. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 23
Page 113
... denotation in their case . Instead , eager to make the case for " plural " signification , Barthes recruits denotation as a bad cop who will become pro- gressively more corrupt over the next dozen years . Barthes admits that denotation ...
... denotation in their case . Instead , eager to make the case for " plural " signification , Barthes recruits denotation as a bad cop who will become pro- gressively more corrupt over the next dozen years . Barthes admits that denotation ...
Page 186
... denotations are apparently simple , their connotations are charged with an ideology that it is their duty to transmit . Sartre resists this function and , in his analyses , plays the denotation off against the connotation , the thing ...
... denotations are apparently simple , their connotations are charged with an ideology that it is their duty to transmit . Sartre resists this function and , in his analyses , plays the denotation off against the connotation , the thing ...
Page 188
... denotation served to maintain the status quo , the doxa : denotation " naturalized " connotations , making them acceptable , deflecting efforts at understanding and reading . By the late ' 70s , this critique was fully developed : his ...
... denotation served to maintain the status quo , the doxa : denotation " naturalized " connotations , making them acceptable , deflecting efforts at understanding and reading . By the late ' 70s , this critique was fully developed : his ...
Contents
List of Illustrations | 7 |
Introduction | 13 |
Dates Words Names and Facts | 21 |
Copyright | |
5 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
æsthetic allegory apostrophe argues argument art criticism art-critical artist author's translation autre Barthes Baudelaire 1965 Baudelaire's beautiful bien Bièvre Bug-Jargal c'est chose citation claim Claudel connotation Constantin Guys Contemplations course dates death Delacroix denotation Derrida describe discourse Dutch painting effect effet de réel essay Eugène Boudin example exile existence fait fiction figure Foucault France Frollo's Fromentin 1984 Gaudon Giuseppe Arcimboldo Guys Guys's Hernani Hugo's ideology images imagination implies jour Juliette l'homme language Leroux Les Contemplations Lucrèce Borgia Marie Tudor meaning ment metaphor n'est narrative Notre-Dame de Paris novel Olympio painter Peintre performative performative utterances Petrey poem poet poetry portrait prison Proust qu'elle qu'il Quatrevingt-treize question reader reading reference represent representation resurrection rien Roland Barthes Ruskin Ruy Blas Saint Salon Sartre Sartre's Saussure sculpture signified slaves story things Tintoretto tion tout Victor Hugo vie moderne word writing