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 37
Page 13
... implies . And of course , whatever the supplement is , it is not the text , and the appeal to one is in effect an appeal not to read . In the case of fictions , turning from the text hardly replaces reading , but the gesture itself is ...
... implies . And of course , whatever the supplement is , it is not the text , and the appeal to one is in effect an appeal not to read . In the case of fictions , turning from the text hardly replaces reading , but the gesture itself is ...
Page 56
... implies nonetheless a substantial departure from the æsthetics of Kant , which , through Victor Cousin's offices , were those of nineteenth- century France . It has been shown elsewhere how this theory was disseminated and distorted by ...
... implies nonetheless a substantial departure from the æsthetics of Kant , which , through Victor Cousin's offices , were those of nineteenth- century France . It has been shown elsewhere how this theory was disseminated and distorted by ...
Page 115
... implies effort . With his emphasis on " creation , " Proust has defined reading as writing , or , more precisely , as interpretation : reading always implies the generation of a new text , a text 3 : LITERARY ACCOUNTS OF THE VISUAL ARTS ...
... implies effort . With his emphasis on " creation , " Proust has defined reading as writing , or , more precisely , as interpretation : reading always implies the generation of a new text , a text 3 : LITERARY ACCOUNTS OF THE VISUAL ARTS ...
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