For a fairly robust account inspired by the work of C. S. Peirce, seeArticle Why Images Cannot be Arguments, But Moving Ones Might

An example of a contemporary artist working with the concept of visual language is Guy Rombouts. His work Azart alphabet (2017) is live on this website: http://www.azart.be/azartstart.html

Another artist working with (visual) language and symbolism is Patrick Keulemans, http://www.patrickkeulemans.be/

I recommend Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art:

• https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goodman-aesthetics/

Je ne suis pas spécialiste du sujet en question, mais je pourrais vous dire que l'approche sémiotique met l'accent sur toute chose signifiante. Tout ce qui signifie ou qui participe à la signification (sémiosis) devient objet d'intérêt.

Vous êtes situé dans le visuel. Donc, vous allez interroger la présence de tout élément, sa raison d'être et comment participe-t-il avec les autres. Il pourrait s'agir d'une couleur, d'une lumière, d'un objet, d'une trace écrite, d'une écriture, et d'autres; sachant que l'absence d'un élément pourrait même constituer un signe, même partitif.

Bon courage

Cordialement

Hello, Tomas

I think is a littler bit difficult to work on concepts as "successful" visual language, I'm not sure what you refer with this. Also, I think would be possible to consider the language of every artist as a unique language or exactly the opposite. In that case I agree with the answer before, from a semiotic perspective every symbolic creation could be analyze.

However, if you are looking for interesting artist to explore there visual languages I could recommend you Hito Steyerl in video-art. So interesting work with different kind of digital images, she also has an interesting theory research work.

Best regards,

V.

Hello Tomas:

I'm responding from a documentary filmmaker's perspective.

Works of art by artists who risk vulnerability are more personal and therefore more impactful. "Tarnation" a very personal expression by filmmaker Jonathan Caouette resonates as a strong contender for being a 'successful' personal film. However, some may argue that it is akin to 'navel gazing'. In my view, what stands to become a more successful piece of art is when it offers a unique perspective, is urgent, and forces you to look at it with 'fresh eyes'. (like Hito Steyerl's and Caouette's work) Compelling works by an artist will usually result in visual language that is 'successful' - the word I would replace with 'deeply personal'; for such expression resonates with audiences and is therefore successful.

Hi

My perspective comes from examining and deciphering late antique imagery, in funerary monuments, mosaic,icons and illustrated manuscripts and how images convey a 'visual' language. Example, K Corrigan, Visual Polemics in the 9th century Byzantine Psalters, 1992.

Tarkovsky.

David Bate (2013) "The syntax of a photowork", might be interesting,

he discusses "the wish to conceptualize photography as a language", also includes a photographic essay

I suggest Jean Luck Godard. I believe Godard is a filmmaker who has always challenged the language of visual art in his films.

You can trace the visual aspects of painting, video and film, digital technology and creative montage as an aesthetic and poetic form in his films.

The visual arts obviously includes sculpture, ceramics, film, performance and installation work, but here I’m just going to talk mainly about the two dimensional arts to avoid undue complexity.

Language, in any form, written/spoken or visual, is a systematised means of communication which uses conventions and relational structures to transmit meaning. Each language can be approached in a number of theoretical ways, depending on what the user seeks. The theories surrounding visual language are complex, multidirectional and many-layered, offering unique and meaningful experiences in a multitude of ways to a huge number of individuals, varying from understanding a flat-pack furniture assembly sheet to sitting tearfully before a painting in the National Gallery or Musee D’Orsay. The theory you seek will be suggested in the approach you follow.

It is worth bearing in mind that the visual arts, including photography which is often mistakenly considered as somehow independently objective, are built on an inherited historic raft of understanding, one that is so sophisticated and embedded in our day to day global culture that it is, at times, very difficult to clearly discern. This exists in representational and non-representational forms.

Visual language uses aspects of the human visual experience; physical, representational and abstract, to convey its messages. These can be seen as visual signifiers that perform semiotic functions; symbolic, iconic, indexical, etc.  Contemporary visual language in the arts has come to utilise both wider, culturally agreed conventions, and also the personal conventions of individual artists.

Given the highly visual nature of our culture, and even the visualised forms of our most non-visually intended printed academic materials, I’d say that visual language is one of our most valuable achievements as a species. It marks us as unique.

Almost every artist develops their own personal visual language. Naturally this shares some conventions with the cultural literacy within which they work. If a visual language cannot be read at all, it becomes, essentially, meaningless. These connections however might be very loose and broad, such as colour, texture, pattern, contrast, etc. That said, the meaning of any particular element might have unique emotional heft within the experience of that specific artist. For example, while the nude seems to be a common convention, within the work of someone like Magritte, the nude is often associated with the individual circumstances of his mother’s tragic death, conveying something entirely different.

Artists who immediately come to mind as having particularly unique visualities are Hundertwasser, or Kandinsky.

Theoreticians you might want to look at might include Malraux and have perhaps have a look at Alan Sekula on photography, who intelligently interrogates and challenges some of the widely accepted basic conventions of semiotics. You might also look at de Certeau on the impact of the scriptural economy and its struggle with, and effect on, the visual realm.

Many respondents here have, for some reason, suggested film makers. Film obviously owes a debt to the visual arts which preceded it, as much as to its own unique qualities. As a nod of solidarity to these respondents, I’d suggest that if you wanted to explore artists in the moving-image field, you might consider the unique works of American Stan Brakhage

Alighiero Boetti wroked on languages and its codes, visual as well as alphabetical.

Visual art also includes paintings, and I recommend Gustav Klimt(1862-1918). He is an Austrian painter and has created a successful visual language in painting.

bonjour,

vous devriez lire la préface du livre de Roland Barthes "Sade Fourrier Loyola". Dans cette préface l'auteur décrit les 4 catégories d'analyse structurale de la langue : isoler, ordonner, articuler, théâtraliser, de mémoire. Ces catégories sont très utiles pour l'analyse des langues crées par des inventeurs de langue, des "logothètes" selo Roland Barthes.

J'ai personnellement utilisé ces catégories pour les projets d'urbanisme depuis plus de 20 ans.

Un extrait commentaire :

"« Sade, Fourier et Ignace de Loyola ont été des classificateurs, des fondateurs de langues : langue du plaisir érotique, langue du bonheur social, langue de l’interpellation divine, chacun a mis dans la construction de cette langue seconde toute l’énergie d’une passion. […] L’objet de ce livre n’est pas de revenir sur les propositions de contenu dont on crédite ordinairement nos trois auteurs, à savoir une philosophie du Mal, un Socialisme utopique, une mystique de l’obéissance, mais de tenir Sade, Fourier et Loyola pour des formulateurs, des inventeurs d’écriture, des opérateurs de texte. Je crois ainsi poursuivre un projet ancien, dont l’intention théorique pourra se lire à travers ces études concrètes et spéciales : jusqu’où peut-on aller d’un texte en ne parlant que de son écriture ? »

https://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/sade-fourier-loyola-roland-barthes/9782757862995

Sinon une autre piste :

mon livre TH3 sur les concepts d'architecture :

http://th3.fr/theme.php?id=p2011_01_th3

Je pourrais vous envoyer un pdf du livre si cela vous intéresse.

Mon mail : [email protected]

Bon courage dans votre recherche.

Philippe Villien

Hello, you should read the preface to Roland Barthes's book "Sade Fourrier Loyola". In this preface, the author describes the 4 categories of structural analysis of the language: isolate, order, articulate, dramatize, from memory. These categories are very useful for the analysis of languages ​​created by language inventors, "logothetes" according to Roland Barthes. I have personally used these categories for town planning projects for over 20 years. A commentary extract: "" Sade, Fourier and Ignace de Loyola were classifiers, founders of languages: language of erotic pleasure, language of social happiness, language of divine inquiry, everyone put in the construction of this second language all the energy of a passion. […] The object of this book is not to come back to the content proposals which we usually credit our three authors, namely a philosophy of Evil, a Utopian Socialism, a mysticism of obedience , but to hold Sade, Fourier and Loyola for formulators, inventors of writing, operators of text. I thus believe to pursue an old project, whose theoretical intention can be read through these concrete and special studies: where can we go from a text by speaking only of its writing? ” https://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/sade-fourier-loyola-roland-barthes/9782757862995 Otherwise another track: my book TH3 on the concepts of architecture: http://th3.fr/theme.php?id=p2011_01_th3 I could send you a pdf of the book if you are interested. My email: [email protected]

Good luck in your research !

Philippe Villien

Hi,

Any artist within the modern period (1855-1966) whose name is known, has successfully contributed to the language of art - this could be a definition of an artist: someone who made art history. - Who introduced a system with new significations: a signed idiom.

(Semiotics come after the modernist 'great eruption of new meanings' (1966-)(of course semiotics were influenced by the philosophers of early XX as Peirce and De Saussure but that doesn't matter here, signs have to be formed, understood, placed, linked, culturally included, used ,...before they can be discussed)

best wishes

Willy

Hello;

My focus is on the use of visuel Language in cartography as I am geographer, and my deep interest goes to the semiology of cartography; the use of signs in in mapping and cartography in general. Nowdays, cartography as it is a science, it is an art, and it must attract the eyes and must satisfy the mind with respect to all rules.One of the best scholars ( for me) Jacque BERTIN and Macechren; Robinson In the field of the use of the visual language (semiology) in cartography .

Best regards

Theoretically, visual language facilitates world understanding because it transcends linguistic barriers. During the twentieth century in the United States of America, the work of Walt Disney (1901-1966) a pioneer in the animation industry, filmmaker, entrepreneur, television program producer, and promoter of family entertainment, is an outstanding example of the importance of visual culture in developing contexts and opportunities that bring families and nations into harmonious alignment. Mr. Disney began his career as a cartoonist spending happy hours at his drawing board where he invented popular figures like Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. Their antics amused children, as well as their parents. He revived and renovated German folk tales in full-length films featuring Cinderella, who is rescued from servitude to her step-family by an archetypal handsome prince with the help of some mice and birds; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; The Story of a Little Boy Named Pinocchio, the son of Geppetto, a wood carver whose wish is granted by the Blue Fairy a wooden marionette whose nose grows an inch longer whenever he tells a lie (based on Carlo Collodi's 1883 Italian story The Adventures of Pinocchio) ; and one of his most ambitious animated feature films, The Firebird, based on the music of Russian composer and conductor Igor Stravinski (1882-1971). To his credit as an entrepreneurial pioneer in visual language arts and sciences , Walter Elias Disney holds the record for winning the most Academic Awards, 22 Oscars and 29 nominations, awarded by the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences in recognition of his work as a film producer. His vast signature encompasses historically and culturally inspired amusement parks, including Disneyland in Los Angeles, California, and the Walt Disney World Theme Park in Florida. One of his famous quotes is: "The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting." He truly created a successful personal visual language that was motivated by his sheer delight in seeing the energetic and life-like products of his creative imagination materialize and his enjoyment in sharing them with the world.

Have a look at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.948.7394&rep=rep1&type=pdf

https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780387983677

I do not have an answer for you. I do have a life experience to share though. I worked with a man from Saudi Arabia...he was crazy-nuts-o...loved him. He tried to teach me to read Arabic. He told me it was a simple language to learn. He did this by telling me the language is written as "images or pictures" and therefore it was incomprehensible to him that others could not pick it up with ease! I never did see the "picture" in the language. Complex abstract neuronal construct that interprets, in the final process, horizontal, vertical, lateral and curved lines in to symbolic imagery combining other like symbols to construct a geometry of image in the brain that triggers interpretive complexes to transmute to voice or language. I know he spoke truth but, I still cannot quite grasp it...conditioned and environmental molding of genetic coding and interpretation visual, tactile, olfactory, auditory data cues to generate cerebral cortical rules for syntax?

Good luck...interesting work you are doing.

I recommend you to consult some works of Victor Ieronim Stoichiță. Here are some references:

“The Sherlock Homes Effect”, “A Brief History of Shadow”, “The Pygmalion Effect: from Ovid to Hitchcock”,“How to Savour a Painting and other Art History Studies”, “L'instauration du tableau. Métapeinture à l'aube des Temps Modernes”, etc.

Thank you very much for responding. I will consult those works with pleaser.and my deep interest goes to the use of visual language in cartography, I will be very grateful if you can help me.

Thank you

I went to school in the US and was asked to sit through 14 years of verbal language classes. We had one class in the non-verbal “arts” i.e.- art appreciation. All along I was also taking studio art classes.

Everyone I knew understood on an instinctual and intellectual level verbal, written, musical and theater languages but were blind to visual media languages.

Because of our limited exposure to visual language(s) it’s very hard to explain that visual artists from the very first cave painting have continued to inform and evolve my visual language. Hard, because I lack a way to communicate in a foreign language. Are (visual) hand signals OK ?

I’m shocked that something as abstract as music is instinctively understood while we’re seeming baffled by our the content and expressiveness of our visual world.

Most of the people around me are mystified that a visual language exists and that artists do speak, write and inform one another through their work. Their exhibits communicate and are the same as publishing in journals would be for you.

I don’t know the audience you’re writing for and my advice may be useless to you and them. – That said….my advice….put aside the analytical, semiotic and academic studies that taught you how to approach unknown ideas and go out and engage yourself with visual art and artists.

Mostly to engage the single richest idea that the traditional forms of analysis leave out - human creativity in all forms of language.

Be forewarned, asking any artist how they “see” is a huge question full of complexity. And the responses are as varied as there artists. You’d do well to be sure “how we see art” is your question. To an visual artist learning to “see” is the holiest of the holy grail. Something they hope for but stumble with daily. How an artist “sees”is not isolated to their eyes.

L.A.C