The study of Semiotics is the “study of signs and symbols”, highlighting the relationship between written signs and concepts they represent in the real world- through ideas or objects. They allow us to re evaluate our surrounding systems and processes; and allow visual artists to exploit the gaps between meaning and object to change peoples opinions. Visual thinkers, such as illustrators and graphic artists, he Semiotics constantly- filling work with constantly changing symbols and signs to convey some sort of meaning/message.
However, context is paramount when reading an image (and therefore its signs and symbols)… an image relies on context to bring out subtle meanings, and an understanding of the viewers context enables the images creator to better code meaning into his work- demonstrating the two way relationship between creator and viewer.
In terms of illustration, understanding semiotics seems paramount to understanding how your work will be interpreted by your audience- and furthermore how you can manipulate that interpretation. Personally, I find symbols extremely interesting- in terms of the range of meaning behind imagery, the ways in which you can use this imagery in visual communication, and how the viewer then translates this imagery. In previous projects i have worked a lot with symbolism- using symbols of transformation in my project “BECOMING”; using symbols of hope, travel and growth in my “SURVIVAL”project; and then beginning to introduce symbols of freedom in my “SYNTHETIC” project. I think researching the subtle meanings of imagery can add depth and layers to your work as an illustrator- helping you to convey more complex narratives.
An artists whose work is bursting with opportunity for semiotic analysis is the spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. Signs and symbols have a potential infinitude of interpretations; and Dalí’s representational images often have more than one dominant interpretation that don’t rely on the viewers unconscious projection, but instead are generated by the artists wilful submission to his psyche. Thus, Dalí channeled meaning into his work through his subconscious, creating surreal scenes appearing fantastical, and sometimes disturbing. This process of generating imagery from the psyche also resembles the interpretive disorder of paranoia- also known as paranoiac critical activity. Dali himself explored this in “The Conquest of the Irrational (1936)”: “paranoiac critical activity: spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the interpretative critical association of delirious phenomena”… producing images of a startling and authentically unknown nature due to the fact that the imagery comes directly from the artists psyche, and not a set of universally known signs and symbols.
Dalí’s painting “Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940)” shows a pair of catholic nuns hidden within the features of the atheist philosopher Voltaire. This painting demonstrates a conceptual relationship: Dalí’s struggles with his repudiation of his catholic heritage is shown through spontaneous visualisation of nuns within the visage of atheist Voltaire, also demonstrating the semiotic signifier-signified connection.
The study of semiotics also draws parallels between art and language; artists have used structural linguistics as a means to assess underlying principles of methods and rules of art. The deeper you look into meanings behind a painting, the deeper you find the connections between art and language, and the ultimate symbolic structure between the two. Language is a “system of signs that express ideas”, composed of two parts: “langue” which is a system of language internalised by a given speech community; and “parole” which is the individual acts of speech. We cannot have langue without parole, much like we cant have art without language. Language is a self contained system of signs that gives us culture and identity.
The Swiss philosopher Ferdinand De Saussure (father of semiotics) realised that the whole of human experience is an interpretive structure sustained by signs- which convey feelings, thoughts, ideas and theologies.
The symbolism movement began in the 1880s as Visual and literary artists means of coping with the notion of subjective ideas, emphasising that people and objects are symbols of a deeper existence. Artist Edward Munch highlighted this further in his statement “we want more than a mere photograph of nature. We do not want pretty pictures to be hung on drawing room walls. We want to create, or at least lay the foundations of art that gives something to humanity. An art that arrests and engages: an art of ones innermost heart”.
Within visual art, colour is an obvious factor for interpretation; along with binary opposites such as love and evil, life and death, comfort and despair, pleasure and pain… most of these factors can be analysed and appear obvious when looking at famous paintings, such as the paintings of Salvador Dali, Edward Munch, Renaissance paintings, and so on. It’s interesting to look back at famous paintings after reading into the science of semiotics, as it gives you a new framework for interpreting imagery- which I find also useful in my own practice.
Caitlin Noble 