French Literature Reviews - 2026

The Meaning of Visual Language: An Essay in Psychoanalytic Visual Semantics
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics

Fernande Saint-Martin

Le sens du langage visuel. Essai de sémantique visuelle psychanalytique

Presses de l'Université du Québec
2007
ISBN : 978-2-7605-1488-1
341 pp.
€29

Publisher's overview:

Postmodernism has deepened the "crisis of meaning" prevailing in philosophy and art.
In this book, the author develops a theory of meaning in the visual arts that addresses the shortcomings of phenomenology (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Ricœur, and Lévi-Strauss) and semiology (Saussure, Peirce, Greimas, Lacan, and Derrida) in this regard. Drawing upon a psychoanalytic semiology (Freud, Klein, Bion, Gear, and Liendo), she proposes a semantic hypothesis for the visual arts centered on corporeality and affectivity.
This framework is applied to an artwork by Alfred Pellan.

Table of Contents:

Hermeneutic Renewal, Twentieth-Century Developments, Phenomenologies, A Semantic Void in Semiotics, The Anglo-Saxon Tradition, Psychoanalytic Semiology, Elements of Visual Semantics, The "Meaning" of Meaning

FERNANDE SAINT-MARTIN, poet, essayist, and art theorist, laid the foundations for a syntax of visual language in several works, including Les fondements topologiques de la peinture (1980), Sémiologie du langage visuel (1987), and La théorie de la Gestalt et l'art visuel (1990). Her contributions have earned her numerous accolades, notably the André-Laurendeau Prize in Social Sciences from ACFAS in 1989 and the Molson Prize in Social Sciences from SSHRC in 1991.

The study of visual meaning has long been shaped by the tension between phenomenology and semiology. Saint-Martin engages with these established frameworks, specifically addressing the perceived limitations of thinkers such as Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Greimas. By integrating psychoanalytic concepts, the work develops a theory of meaning in the visual arts that addresses the shortcomings of phenomenology and semiology, focusing on corporeality and affectivity.

This essay continues the author's long-standing project of developing a syntax of visual language, following her previous works such as Les fondements topologiques de la peinture and Sémiologie du langage visuel. By grounding her semantic hypothesis in the work of Freud, Klein, and Bion, the author applies this framework to an artwork by Alfred Pellan. Readers interested in the intersection of psychoanalysis and visual aesthetics may find this exploration of semantic theory relevant.