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Theatrical Iconography/ Iconology: the Iconic Sign and Its Referent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Tadeusz Kowzan
Tadeusz Kowzan*
Affiliation:
Université de Caen

Extract

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It has become banal to say that the object of the art of theatre, its artifact, is particularly fragile, that a theatrical performance— necessarily limited in time and not reproducible—is an ephemeral phenomenon. And yet it is a fact that the evanescence of the theatre arts explains better than any other circumstance the universality and the importance of iconography in this area. What could be more natural than the forever manifested desire to prolong the length of the theatrical phenomenon, to immortalize it in a certain sense.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 33 , Issue 130 , April 1985 , pp. 53 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 See André Veinstein, Intérêt documentaire des films sur le théâtre et l'art du mime, in Catalogue des films sur le théâtre et l'art du mime, Paris (printed in Zurich), UNESCO, 1965, pp. 13-20. This catalogue contains notes on 395 films.

2 Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de linguistique generale, Paris, Payot, 1966, pp. 98-99.

3 References are not to pages but to paragraph numbers in Collected Papers, vol. 2-3, Harvard University Press, 1932.

4 Princeton University Press, 1939, Second enlarged edition, 1961.

5 Ibid., p. 31.

6 Ibid., p. 129.

7 Histoire des littératures, "Encyclopédie de la Pléiade", Paris, Gallimard, 1955, t. 1, p. 471.

8 Sztuka aktorska w Polsce 1500-1633 [The Actor's Art in Poland 1500-1633], Warszawa, P.W.N., 1974 (summary in French). Analyses relative to The Eunuch make up chapter 1 (pp. 9-73).

9 Racine et les Coypel. Contribution a l'etude de l'esthetique classique, in Icono graphie et litterature. D'un art à l'autre, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1983, pp. 61-79.

10 Here is the stage direction in question as it is found in the 1736 edition: "Joas is seen on his throne; his nurse is kneeling at his right; Azarias, sword in hand, is standing at his left, and near to him Zachary and Salomith are kneeling on the steps of the throne with several levites holding swords lined up along the sides" (a. V, sc. 5).

11 In the same article, Odile Biyidi analyzes a painting by Charles Coypel, Athalie et Joas (1741), inspired by scene 7, act 2 of Athalie by Racine. "The ensemble makes us think of one of those instantaneous scenes played by very great actors (…). Charles Coypel, a great lover of theatre, painted in his pictures actors in the process of acting and not, like his father, the imaginary reference to dramatic action" (p. 71).

12 See Roland Beyen, Michel de Ghelderode ou la comédie des apparences (exhibition catalogue), Bruxelles-Paris, 1980, pp. 110-112.

13 "Iconicity", MLN [Modern Language Notes], vol. 91, No. 6, December 1976, p. 1444.

14 "Six espèces de signes: propositions et critiques", trans. by André Helbo, Degrés, No. 6, April 1974, p. b 15.

15 Essais d'iconologie. Thèmes humanistes dans l'art de la Renaissance, tr. by Claude Herbette and Bernard Teyssèdre, Paris, Gallimard, 1967, pp. 3, 5.

16 Meaning in the Visual Arts, New York, Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955, pp. 31-32.