The mediatic dimension of images: visual semiotics faced with Gerhard Richter’s artwork

Abstract

In this article, the author endeavours to analyse Gerhard Richter’s photo-paintings for the way they build an intersemiotic dialogue between photography and painting. On the one hand, he tries to characterize the modalities of this dialogue and to provide an original interpretation of Richter’s work. On the other hand, he uses the special case of Richter’s work as a starting point for a conceptual renewal in the analysis of visual languages, notably with regard to semiotic approaches. In particular, the author aims to define the mediatic dimension of images, which is concerned with the substances, substrates and devices through which images are produced. He does this in order to integrate the achievements of visual semiotics in regard to the compositional dimension of colours, shapes and figures. He takes into account the way in which the material and the substances of expression of images impact the construction of meaning, in accordance with the hypothesis of a superposition of technical and semantic aspects. The confrontation with Richter’s production leads him to go beyond plastic and figurative readings as he proposes the concepts of technical formats and techno-perceptions of images. While the former concern the historical recognition of images on the basis of the devices having produced their substance – leading to identifications such as ‘early cinema images’, ‘smartphone images’, ‘surveillance camera images’, etc. – the latter concern the perceptive configurations resulting from the formative work of the technical devices.