Iconic Function Research Articles

O retrato

The sight of the human face has always exerted a powerful attraction on us. Whether in painting or photography, in cinema or theater, the representation of the human figure awakens in the viewer a varied range of emotions that range from the simple identification of a person to the inexhaustible mystery of the work of art in museums, passing through the history of customs and the religious function of icons. Lotman warns us that precisely because portrait is the simplest genre, it is also the most sophisticated: “The portrait is a kind of double mirror: in it art is reflected in life and life is reflected in art”. In what was one of his last works, Lotman describes the trajectory of portraiture in painting through the ages. He says: “In essence, the entire set of portraits can be considered as a polysemic set of meanings of the word ‘human being’.” The portrait, crossing societies and trends, has never ceased to be that mystery that at the same time reveals and hides the soul.

Traditional Folk Clothes in the Dimension of Modern Nation Consolidation Processes

The article is devoted to folk culture, in particular, clothing as a powerful factor of national consolidation and expression of the mentality of Ukrainians in the war unleashed by russia. The pseudo-scientific narratives of russian scientists with the aim of destroying the identity and changing the consciousness of modern Ukrainians in support of the modern fascist regime of russia are considered. Emphasis is placed on the social (as a basic) criterion for understanding the role of the national dress, the embroidered shirt, in uniting our people during the Orange Revolution, the Revolution of Dignity, and russia’s war against Ukraine. In traditional culture, social and aesthetic functions in the contrast “friend or foe” embodied collective norms and aesthetics. This marking has acquired a new public, social meaning. Clothing is a representative of a person and their mentality. During the Revolution of Dignity, the embroidered shirt became an expression of the unity and resistance of the people of Ukraine on a national scale. In this period, the iconic function of national clothing, which defines Ukrainian belonging, is actualized. Using the example of the stories of the embroidery masters of Donetsk region, it is shown how the ethnic memory found a practical embodiment in the conditions of the war. They are united by a civic stance – to show that their land is primordially Ukrainian with a rich culture of folk clothing. For clothing researchers, these are very important facts as a source of understanding the modern functions of clothing. In particular, the informative function of embroidery is its cultural and social context, the author’s position regarding the russian war. This socio-cultural phenomenon powerfully characterises Ukrainian continuity and self-identity, and is therefore perceived by the occupiers as a weapon, just like the language and the entire heritage. Vyshyvanka is a symbol of indomitability and faith in victory for immigrants and those who survived the occupation. The article highlights the tendency to increase the value of the local heritage of the Little Motherland with its identification codes, which has determined the activities of many masters.

От Христа Пантократора к Salvator Mundi: развитие иконографии Спасителя в итальянской станковой живописи XIII-XV вв.

The iconography of Jesus Christ is one of the most relevant and, at the same time, the most difficult subjects to study. The formation of stable iconographic types of the Savior’s image went through a complicated path, going through various transformations, mainly related to the practical or liturgical function of icons. One of the most popular type, Pantokrator, has been realized in the panel painting of the Italian central region from the earliest times in the copies of the main Roman relic - Acheropita (Greek: Αχειροποίητα, the Image of Christ Not Made by Human Hands), which, as believed, had the same miraculous and protective power as an ancient icon. These copies, representing the image of the Savior on the throne (sometimes flanked by the parts of a triptych with the praying Virgin Mary and Saint John depicted) were largely produced for the churches of Rome and Lazio until the end of the 15th century. In the Renaissance, with its focus on individual religious practice, there is an increasing demand for small altars for home prayer, where artists implemented a new type of iconography, Veronica (Latin: Vera Icona, True Face), which (as well as Acheropita) was associated with the legend of the miraculous discovery of a relic and also endowed with a special protective power. Various interpretations of the illustrative images of the True Face in Italy and the artistic solutions found by the painters of Northern Europe finally lead to the formation and wide circulation in the Renaissance art of another iconographic variation - the Savior of the World (Latin: Salvator Mundi). This article discusses the pictorial and textual sources that determined the completion of the main iconographic types of Jesus Christ in Italian panel painting of the 13th – 15th centuries and with many of attracted samples studies the development of Savior’s iconography.

Forest conversion into pasture selects dung beetle traits at different biological scales depending on species pool composition.

The conversion of forests into open areas has large effects on the diversity and structure of native communities. The intensity of these effects may vary between regions, depending on the existence of native species adapted to open habitats in the regional pool or the time since habitat change.We assess the differences in species richness and functional diversity of dung beetle communities (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) between native forests and novel pasturelands of the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado, two biomes with contrasting histories of human occupation in Brazil. We conducted standardized surveys in seven forest fragments and adjacent pastures in each region and measured 14 traits in individuals collected in each type of habitat at each particular site. We calculated functional richness, functional evenness, functional divergence, and community-weighted mean of traits for each area, and analyzed individual variation through nested variance decomposition and Trait Statistics.Communities were richer and more numerous at the Cerrado. We did not find any consistent relationship between functional diversity and forest conversion beyond the changes in species diversity. Although landscape changes were more recent at the Cerrado, the colonization of the new habitat by native species already adapted to open habitats lessens the functional loss in this biome. This indicates that habitat change's effects on trait diversity depend on the regional species pool rather than on time since land conversion.Forest conversion effects were primarily due to internal filtering. The effects of external filtering only appear at the intraspecific variance level, with contrasting differences between the Cerrado, where traits related to relocation behavior and size are selected, and the Atlantic Forest, where selection operates for traits related to relocation behavior and flight. These results evidence the importance of considering individual variance to address the responses of dung beetle communities to forest conversion.

TYPES AND FUNCTIONS OF SOUND WRITING IN LYRICAL POEMS BY RAINER MARIA RILKE

The article deals with the types and functions of sound in the lyrical poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. The features of his poetry, dedication to the art of sounding words are emphasized. It is noted that the types of sound writing and its functions are important for linguistics in Rilke's poetry. The definition of sound writing as a poetic means is given, the difference between the concepts of Lautmalerei and Klangmalerei is clarified. The attention is focused on the fact that Rilke's poetry is characterized by the purity of rhyme, except for unevenly stressed rhymes, which combine a strong ending (with the main emphasis on the last syllable) with a weak one (when the last syllable forms a suffix or another part of the phrase containing only a secondary emphasis). Various criteria by which types of sound writing can be distinguished are outlined. It is noted that according to the criterion of a repeating element in Rilke's poetry, the most important types of sound are presented: assonance, alliteration, internal rhyme and paronomasia. The aesthetic and iconic function of a poetic work is considered. The analysis of the iconic function highlights its three subtypes: suggestive, onomatopoeic and sound semantic. The term "function" is used in the sense of "task". Each of the functions is investigated in the article and illustrated with examples of Rilke's poems. It is found out that the figures of sound in Rilke's poems are characterized by placement in the initial syllable, but can have other positions in the word; vowel length is not taken into account; vowel equivalence is atypical for alliteration; metathesis and uneven consonance are not excluded; both convergence and divergence of phonetic figures occur within the poem, stanza and in the whole text; phonetic figures are tied to syntactic structures. It is emphasized that the creative and effective sound description in the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke is a significant contribution to the euphony of the text and the expression of its content. As a result, it is proved that Rilke is rightly called the king of sound in poetry

Il modello fondativo-contestuale di teologia fondamentale in un’epoca visiva

In this article we intend to find some ideas for an iconic thought in the context of contemporary “visual” culture. Starting from the distinction between the idol and the icon made by Marion and from her perspective on the iconic function of the concepts and the name of God, we will present some traits and gains of the iconic thought, following the orientations of the foundational-contextual model of the School Lateran. The method followed in this path places us within the Lateran School of Fundamental Theology. This model affirms that today is also the opportune moment to put the message of Revelation (the founding moment) in relation to the contemporary context (the contextual moment) in a sacramental horizon. The positive moment, the auditus fidei, is combined with the interpretative-contextual one, auditus temporis, on the way to a reliable intellectus Revelationis in today’s visual culture.

THE AFTERLIFE OF SAPPHO'S AFTERLIFE

This article explores an important aspect of the constellation of elements that contribute to the construction of the image of ‘Sappho’ from antiquity to the twentieth century, that of Sappho's ultimate destiny after her fatal leap from the Rock of Leucas. I first argue that the story of Sappho's leap lies behind the description of the Underworld in a long fragment of a fifth-century Attic comedy, theMinersof Pherecrates, and that indeed ‘Sappho’ appeared as a character in the play. The next sections examine the background and the iconic function of Sappho's leap in the underground Basilica near Porta Maggiore in Rome and connects all these elements to the way in which the Underworld is represented in Sappho's textual fragments. The fifth section of the article deals with the ways in which Sappho's fate was reconfigured from the Renaissance onward, examining first visual, musical and dramatic representations. In the final part I focus on the ways the motif is transformed by Baudelaire and Yourcenar. The image of the poetess can shift from being an icon of an eschatological message of new life to one of an exemplary failure, two poles that have an impact both on the reception of classical antiquity and on the vision of the destiny of poetry itself.

On Subjects, Objects, Transitional Fields, and Icons: The Semiotics of a New Paradigm in Human Studies

To save what is human (and humane) about the human sciences, the subject/object dyad must be abandoned in favour of a semiotic and an anthropological point of view. This viewpoint draws on the interaction of several signifiers in dialogue with a salient space similar in nature to the transitional field of psychoanalysis and—via an interpretation of that space—to the iconic function of human culture as seen by patristic wisdom. To attain this viewpoint entails abandoning the idea that the human sciences are supposed to explain the human being. Their task is to clarify the plural and ecological character of humans.

Kak taubeka dva: o slici skladne ljubavi

This paper is aimed at scrutinizing emblematic and iconic functions of doves in love poetry. Despite the fact that love is a complex emotion both in literary and psychological sense, the main analytical emphasis will be put on the literary codification of a simple (amiable) type of love – incarnated in the symbol of dove – within various cultural layers. In addition to this, it will be argued that a dove or a pair of pigeons as literary topoi are very common in popular and oral literature as opposed to the literature with the certain authorship. The aforesaid literary image can frequently be found in Kajkavian manuscripts of love poetry which originated from the 18th and 19th centuries. Moreover, it will be demonstrated that this image is still present in a popular music of the 20th and 21st century.

Mapping the (Digital) Terrain

This essay maps out some of the different ways in which the Bible intersects with digital culture, particularly in its written or textual dimensions. Four broad categories are used to give shape to the discussion: (1) the emergence and development of digital Bibles; (2) the use of digital biblical texts in religious services, liturgy, and other congregational contexts; (3) the intersection of biblical research and digital culture in academic scholarship; and (4) the iconic function of the digital biblical text in social and cultural contexts. What emerges is a picture of a diverse interrelationship between the Bible and digital culture, though not surprisingly, this is more evident in areas where there is a focus on the “text” rather than on material dimensions often associated with the sacred book.

Icon Generation Based on Generative Adversarial Networks

Icon design is an important part of UI design, and a design task that designers often encounter. During the design process, it is important to highlight the function of icons themselves and avoid excessive similarity with similar icons, i.e., to have a certain degree of innovation and uniqueness. With the rapid development of deep learning technology, generative adversarial networks (GANs) can be used to assist designers in designing and updating icons. In this paper, we construct an icon dataset consisting of 8 icon categories, and introduce state-of-the-art research and training techniques including attention mechanism and spectral normalization based on the original StyleGAN. The results show that our model can effectively generate high-quality icons. In addition, based on the user study, we demonstrate that our generated icons can be useful to designers as design aids. Finally, we discuss the potential impacts and consider the prospects for future related research.

Congolese Child Soldier Narratives for Global and Local Audiences

Abstract The article examines narratives by and about former child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a hitherto neglected corpus despite the topicality of child soldiering in African literatures after 2000. Critical readings of three testimonial texts that have been published in France are juxtaposed with the analysis of one testimonial narrative and one youth novel that have been published in Kinshasa. The editorial framing and narrative strategies that speak to different audiences located in different literary fields are identified. The popularity of testimonial narratives in the West relies on the depiction of violence and the iconic function of the child soldier in medial and human rights discourses. By contrast, narratives about the reconciliation and the reintegration of child soldiers prevail in the DRC. Thus, the different functions of global and local narratives on the sensitive issue of children at war are exposed.

The meaning of colors in food packaging: A study of industrialized products sold in Brazil

AbstractCurrently, packaging needs to communicate material and immaterial qualities of food, linked to the satisfaction of nutritional, psychological and cultural needs of consumers. For this, the design builds complex discourses, associating verbal and visual language. In Brazil, with the standardization of packaging formats and the growing variety of products, the importance of color in visual communication has expanded. This research aims to explain the system of color meanings in food packaging sold in Brazil, and demonstrate that the color of designs reflects ideological and cultural concepts of contemporary society. An empirical study was conducted, with a qualitative approach, in which the colors of 612 food packages were analyzed. The analysis tools come from semiology/semiotics. The results show that colors played three semiotic functions: (1) showing the color of the food (iconic function), (2) signaling objective characteristics of the products (indicative function), and (3) representing psychological and cultural qualities (symbolic function). It was found that the system of color meanings in the food packaging is organized based on color attributes (hue, lightness and chroma), through differences and oppositions. It is concluded that, in Brazil, the colors of food packaging reflect the heterogeneity of the consumption groups—such as white for the “healthy” people, black for the “refined”, pink for “women”, green for the “ecological”—and, in this sense, they work as identity markers.

La porta della chiesa. Luogo liturgico trascurato


 
 
 The main door of a church does not only have the sole function as a point of entry or exit but it must perform the iconic function of primary importance in a complex path as a cultural and cultic symbol. Sacred architecture must firstly correspond to liturgical requirements. It does not stand on it’s own but must shape what is sacred in order to be truly functional, therefore becoming a synthesis of form, content and purpose. The door, being part of the architecture, is not simply an opening on the wall, but it is a liturgical and symbolic point which must be strongly characterized.
 
 

La tradición del conocimiento simbólico en el pensamiento de Charles S. Peirce

La existencia de puntos de contacto entre la teoría de los signos de Peirce y los argumentos de Leibniz en favor del conocimiento simbólico está fuera de duda. El objetivo de este trabajo consiste en ubicar con precisión el pensamiento de Peirce dentro de la tradición del conocimiento simbólico en ciencias formales. El punto de partida es la crítica de Peirce a la noción cartesiana de intuición (alrededor de 1869), en la que se destaca el conocimiento mediante manipulación de signos. A continuación, el trabajo se concentrará en el concepto de iconicidad, tal como surge en la teoría de los signos de Peirce, y el papel que desempeña en la caracterización de las ciencias formales. El concepto de iconicidad se relacionará con las funciones surrogativa y ectética del conocimiento simbólico, pero también se subrayará la esencial función analítica que cumplen los íconos. Sobre esta base, se sostendrá que, si bien el pensamiento de Peirce se nutre de la tradición del conocimiento simbólico, con su concepción icónica de las ciencias formales va finalmente más allá de esta tradición.

Inventions on User Friendliness of a GUI- A TRIZ Based Analysis

Although a GUI is considered to be convenient it still has certain shortcomings like ambiguity of pictorial symbols, difficulty of cursor movements, difficulty of interacting with smaller graphic elements, likeliness of making mistakes by slip of fingers, demand of more space, difficulty of searching in nested containers etc. Many users fail to operate a computer satisfactorily because of the special skill or training required to operate it. In order to avoid this problem, it is necessary to design the user interface in such a way that even an untrained user should also be able to operate the computer effectively and efficiently.Many inventions on assistive like screen zooming features, improving navigation, tactile interfacing, speech and hearing, features for visually impaired are discussed in other articles. The six patents analyzed in this article try to improve the user friendliness of the GUI by using status indicators, relocating graphic elements in easily accessible locations and displaying meaning and function of icons and other graphical elements.

Expressive Sibilant Retraction in North Norwegian: morpheme or ‘spoken gesture’?

North Norwegian has a contrast between /s/ and /ʂ/ that is neutralized in word-initial position before a consonant, and an optional process of Expressive Sibilant Retraction (ESR), which changes /s/ to [ʂ] in precisely the environment where the contrast is neutralized (Broch 1927). ESR appears ambiguous between a word formation process and a spoken gesture (Okrent 2002; Perlman et al. 2015). On the one hand, ESR exploits givens of phonological structure. On the other, treating it as a morphological process entails claiming that the spell-out of certain (“expressive”) morphemes may take place after phonological processes have applied, or that the realization of these morphemes takes precedence to phonological constraints. I argue that ESR is a communicative (i.e. non-linguistic, or post-linguistic) spoken gesture that nonetheless exploits the suspension of phonological generalizations in a way that directs attention to its iconic function. I describe the varied interpretations that ESR has depending on whether it indexes an action/event, object, or state/property, and propose that these share a common semantic core. This gesture-based account of ESR is offered as a possible model for “expressive phonology” (e.g. Diffloth 1979) in other languages.

Концептуальні типи іконічності поетичного тексту

The iconicity of poetic text has challenged modern linguistic studies, raising the question of how the iconic function of the poetic text is realized through language means in terms of cognitive poetics.

Aspiring Narratives of Previous Births in Written and Visual Media from Ancient Gandhāra

A wide range of practices emerged for venerating the Buddha’s embodied presence in textual and visual relics.This article considers ways in which hagiographical narratives of previous births preserved in written and visual media may be considered as embodiments in Dharma (Dharmak?ya). The study focuses on G?ndh?r? Buddist manuscipts with abbreviated written summaries of narratives labeled as Avad?nas and P?rvayogas. Results of a survey of images identified as J?takas in Gandh?ran art are also integrated for a comprehensive understanding of the iconic function of rebirth narratives, which were emplaced in the sacralized landscape of the Northwest.

Виндоуз или Windows? Кириллица и латиница в названиях торговых марок (на материале современных русских художественных текстов)

This paper discusses the usage principles of Cyrillic and Latin scripting for foreign-lan-guage commercial names in Russian fiction in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. These include the following factors: the existing tradition concerning the employment of foreign language words in Russian texts; the possibility of employing different fonts as means of indirect valuation and of indication that the speech subject belongs to a certain social group, as well as stylistic and morphologic factors related to a possibility (or impossibility) for a trade mark to obtain Russian case endings; the iconic function of a font; a language game.