Ekphrasis as a Semiotic Experiment

Abstract

This article is focusing on two cognitive-semiotic processes: verbal representation of physical world objects and reverse translation of a sign into a thing – on creation of mental pictures based on verbal descriptions. Simultaneously, we study the cognitive-semiotic phenomenon of reading: the degree of certainty of mental images and their reliability which are determined by semiotic techniques of representation. The object of analysis are series of verbal pictures – representations of a work of art in Goran Petrovich’s novel “Atlas Composed by Sky”. The iconism of ekphrasis is the basis for the creation of gestalt paintings. According to the degree of iconism, there are distinguished the “absolute” copies (reproductions of pages of books and letters); ekphrasis in the form of a list of picture’s characters (icons as a schemes) and representations which creates the effect of “animated” or “living” pictures – like cinema images. The other side of the word is the image of another modality. The hidden multilingualism of verbal representations (for example, a visual image behind the verbal signs) explains why we not only see our mental images, but also hear, smell them and can touch their objects. So, the process of reading is based on working with «cognitive tango» of languages (L. Zbikowsky), where verbal system is presented in the current mode, while the visual image has a mental nature. This phenomenon of consciousness becomes the reason that missing (in direct perception) art objects become “real”. The possibility of a symbolic interpretation of mental images in the contexts of intellectual history allows us to define ekfrasis as more creative than mimetic practice.

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