French Literature Reviews - 2026

B. Darras, Images and Semiology. Structural Semiotics and Hermeneutics
Art and Visual Culture

Bernard Darras, Images and Semiology. Structural Semiotics and Hermeneutics

Publications de la Sorbonne, 2008, 150 p.

EAN : 9782859445904

21 €

Publisher's overview:

Are we truly attentive to the images that endlessly collide and renew themselves in our environment?
Are we not always in too much of a rush to pay attention to our visual culture and observe how images generate meaning? In this volume, researchers in semiology and semiotics take the time to dissect press cartoons and illustrations, posters, pictograms, comic strips, photographs, paintings, and frescoes.
They present not only the results of their analyses, but also their investigative methods. These studies build upon the foundational work of Ferdinand de Saussure and the structuralist and neo-structuralist theories that continue his legacy. Here, images are treated as constructed objects whose inner mechanisms are dismantled before exploring their systems of interpretation. This significant hermeneutic phase then focuses on the convergence of meaning and the diffraction of significance.
By engaging with structuralist and hermeneutic theories, this book complements its predecessor, which was devoted to the theories of pragmatic and cognitive semiotics. Both books are intended for anyone wishing to pause and reflect on images in order to better understand them. They will be of particular interest to students, educators, and researchers concerned with the study of visual culture and visual literacy.

This volume belongs to the broader tradition of structuralist and neo-structuralist research that adapts linguistic models to visual media, following the foundational insights of Ferdinand de Saussure into signs and signification. By treating visual artifacts as constructed objects, the studies on this page align with long-standing efforts in semiology to dismantle internal formal mechanisms before pursuing interpretation. The volume connects these structural methods with hermeneutic approaches focused on how meaning converges and diverges across various cultural and artistic objects.

Readers interested in visual culture, semiotics, and hermeneutics may find this work relevant to their studies. The text approaches press illustrations, posters, comic strips, and paintings as distinct items requiring careful observation and structured methodological inquiry. It continues the exploration of semiotic traditions established in an earlier companion volume dedicated to pragmatic and cognitive frameworks.