Frances to readers... The signifying roles of "representation" in graphic pictures that depict other objects as their contents, suggests that the pictures are to be held as "figurative" and "realistic" icons, at least in the sense that their represented objects of signified similarity might be either: (1) possible illusory objects represented in some imaginative way; or (2) actual concrete objects represented in some sensible if not visible way.
This curiosity raises a further intriguing issue about visibly depicted images as being the umbrella under which graphic pictures and plastic sculptures and even tectonic architectures might fall; and the further issue of whether a differentia should be made between external visible images of material objects that evoke depictions in the hand or in the land, and internal visual images of mental objects that evoke visions in the mind. In any event, the term representation has a tradition in pragmatist philosophy as being a vehicular part of signs that fundamentally signify some further objects. The subsequent signs may furthermore be mainly icons or indexes or symbols. The various signifying roles of representation may thus be those of formal similarity or causal contiguity or conventional arbitrarity. The term therefore may no longer be applicable to mimetic artifacts like drawings and paintings that are not say abstract, at least not in any clear way. The tendency in artistic discourse of making a dyadic polarity with the term "abstract" art on the one hand and the term "representational" art on the other has always seemed wrongly forced to me. The process of abstraction after all can be either formally syntactic or referentially semantic. Even if the term "representational art" is given some continued artistic legitimacy, just exactly what such representation currently signifies in present day paintings, and how well it does this, also seems to be unclear to me. Perhaps some other readers on the list more knowledgeable about this artistic matter will pick up the task and muse or opine about it. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, 10 January, 2011 8:50 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Representation and signifier I am not quite sure of the form of this question. What is the signifying role or roles of representation in present day painting? Clearly I don't mean a list of still life, etc. I mean what is it doing, what does it signify, and how well is it doing it? Kate Sullivan
