On the Applicability of the Semiotics of Passions in Images

Abstract

Recent research in semiotics has foreseen analyzable units on the basis of the context instead of the text. In addition to language-based and psychologically-based semiotics (Saussure 1959), today semiotics has introduced the epistemological grounds on visual signs as well. My aim in this paper shall be to introduce the acting subject into such a context, which in my opinion can transform the states of visual expressions, as shown in their various shapes, from one to another. In such a context I shall exemplify the applicability of the subjectivized objects for the purpose of interpreting images (exemplifying thus concrete works of art ) which can produce passions as semantic results (A. J. Greimas and Fontanille 1993). The questions which I advance shall be the following: how can such passionate taxonomies, transformed into feelings and seen as feedback information, interact socially? And due to the openness of the work of art, as Eco (1962) claims, where do the limits of visual artistic expressions’ interpretability lie?