Dear Colleagues,

Semiotics theory provides a framework for understanding how humans use signs to create meaning associated with the world around them. An important assumption of semiotics theory is that signs do not convey a meaning that is inherent to the entity being represented. Semiotic analysis identifies some of the factors involved in the process of sign making and interpreting, and it develops conceptual tools that help us to grasp that process as it goes on in various areas of cultural activity. One such area is the semiotics of art. Semiotic analysis acknowledges the position, or role, of the individual in terms of a challenge to any notion of fixed or unitary or universal meaning of a work of art. Incidentally, by work of art, we refer in both cases not only to artifacts or material objects but see a work of art as primarily a mental entity, a signifying process, whose realization can also include an artifact. Subjectivity can be engaged dynamically with the work. A significant way that subjectivity is acknowledged is in the fact that our perception of the work can be revealed as socially conditioned. Thus, central to semiotic analysis is the recognition of how visual and material culture is coded; the social conventions which link signs with meanings. As Virve Sarapik has recently pointed out, there are at the moment roughly four trending analyses in the semiotics of art: (1) art as representation (pictorial image), the analysis of which deals with issues of iconicity, problems of representation, iconography, etc., and the identification of constituents of meaning (subject matter and content of the work); (2) code theory and the language of art, which enters into the debate regarding whether art is a language and whether a linguistic model is applicable to a semiotic analysis of a work of art; (3) semiotic analysis of the functions of art, where aesthetic function is connected with aesthetic value and is seen as a constitutive element of a work of art; and (4) integral analysis of artistic culture, which aims to examine the entire aggregate of sign systems as united by culture, to ascertain their number, their hierarchy, their mutual influence, or their functional correlation, both synchronically and diachronically. In this Special Issue, we welcome articles on all areas dealing with the semiotics of art.

Prof. Dr. Enrique Mallen
Guest Editor

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• pictorial image
• iconography
• code theory
• language of art
• artistic function
• artistic culture