Art History 101: Semiotics
- Laura Thipphawong
- Mar 7
- 5 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
This article was originally published by Arts Help
Considering the various methodologies in modern and post-modern art criticism and art history, perhaps no field of study is as universally applicable to media as semiotics, the study of visual sign systems. Often confused with the symbol itself, semiotics is the study of how symbols acquire their meaning, how they have come to represent information, and how the relationship between the meaning and the image affects those receiving this information. Originally credited to Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), whose pioneering work in the field focused on the network of signs involved in linguistic communication, French philosopher Roland Barthes (1915-1980) introduced the pivotal concept of visual signifiers as myth-building agents, often in contribution to the status-quo or the perpetuation of ideas in the public’s perception.
Essentially, the signifier is the image, and the signified is the information received by the viewer. Together, the signifier and signified form a sign through which ideas or concepts are communicated, a relatively simple equation. The complexity of semiotics, however, does not lie in the quantifiable aspects of the study but rather in the evaluation of abstract relationships between signs and conception and the sociological implications of such. These implications are derived from connotations associated with the signified and, in turn, create a feedback loop in which connotative messages are received in a sometimes-evolving manner, thereby changing the way in which people receive information from the signifier. Take the image of an apple, for example, as a signifier in Western culture.
The image of the apple denotes fruit, the literal meaning. The connotations are the figurative meanings associated with the sign as people have come to understand it. The apple has been used historically as the symbol of the forbidden fruit and the catalyst for the fall of humankind based on the biblical story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. The connotations associated with the apple in this case, as understood through the use of the sign, are temptation, sin, and exile. Additional connotations of education and scholarly pursuits became attached to the apple during the Late Modern era, partly due to the practice of children bringing an apple to their schoolteachers as payment for their lessons or as tokens of appreciation. Most recently, the apple has adopted yet another set of connotations due to its use as the logo for Apple Computers. From the company’s inception in 1976 to its megalomaniac presence within today’s market, the computer-signifying apple has evolved to connote technological advancement, omnipresence, consumeristic one-upmanship, and forward-facing professionalism.
Image courtesy of information-age.com, image courtesy of thinkmarketingmagazine.com
While the image of the apple and its multitude of connotations remains fairly innocuous, standardized signs become more problematic when they effectively perpetuate broad stereotypes or essentialist notions through the subtleties of what they signify or what the signified connotes. The concept of colour being either feminine or masculine, an early 20th-century phenomenon, is still in rampant use. However, the reason for the signified female or maleness of certain colour palettes is not often considered. Colours associated with babies are soft or pastel —pink, baby-blue, apricot, violet; colours associated with femininity are the same. Masculine colours are thought to be navy blue, deep red, and forest green, among other dark or saturated colours. The level of saturation is precisely the signifier of gender in these colour schemes. Pastel colours are diluted, less pure and therefore less strong than saturated colours. The signifier of pastel or soft colour is femininity due to the connotations of gentleness, weakness, or facility often associated with women.
Too Feminine colour palette, image courtesy of color-hex.com, Masculine colour palette, image courtesy of color-hex.com
Aside from the perpetuation of negative stereotypes or broad-spectrum associations with demographics of people, colour in the semiotic study of visual language can be more positively used to create an unconscious relationship between the work of art and the viewer that transcends the boundaries of explicit content. Widely used as a method of conveying themes and motifs in film, colour can be made to sensorily strengthen associations between the narrative and the desired emotional response from the viewer. In the Coen Brothers’ Fargo (1996), actor Peter Stormare is bathed in red light shortly after the audience first witnesses his character in the act of murder. The red denotes blood, but more ominously connotes the devil, as Western cultural association with the devil as red in colour is widespread and can be first seen in Dante Alighieri’s (1265-1321) The Divine Comedy (1320) , in which the author describes the devil as having a “bloodred” face.
On a more secular level, in David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999) the entirety of the movie is cast in a tone of sickly off-yellow, muddled greys, taupes, and cold blue light, except for one scene ( that lasts less than half a second) in which the image of a vibrant and almost lustrous green forest is revealed when the narrator shuts his eyes, followed by the statement that he, the narrator, is achieving premature enlightenment, at which point the image disappears and the film continues in its putrid colour scheme. The image of the lush green forest briefly signifies the narrator’s access to a healthy state of mind, while the whole of the movie is colour-coded to indicate his mental illness as the viewer perceives reality through his lens.
Similar to the use of signs in film as a means of constructing narratives without resorting to exposition, art often uses semiotics as a constructive methodology by which to inform the viewer of the micro-narrative through the use of macro-narrative signifiers. Richard Hamilton’s Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? (1956) comprises several signifiers of domestic bliss, from the Ford logo to a Hoover vacuum cleaner, along with multiple items that were, at the time, considered technologically cutting-edge devices. In tandem with the slogan-like title, the painting satirically illustrates a preoccupation with material goods as social signifiers of happiness and fulfillment.
Sonny Assu, a Kwakwaka'wakw artist based in the unceded Ligwilda'xw territory in British Columbia, Canada, has also utilized semiotics in his satirical art pieces that highlight the universality of Western culture, specifically consumer culture, that has encroached and overrun Indigenous land. In his multi-media Breakfast Series, Assu uses the colour and graphic signifiers of ultra-recognizable cereal boxes to form the metaphor of Western influence as the unwholesome substitute for Indigenous rights and freedoms. The use of the mass-manufactured and unhealthy breakfast cereals connotes an attempt to pacify the receiver through attractive yet fraudulent offerings.
Images from Breakfast Series, courtesy of sonnyassu.com
Whether it is clear to the viewer or not, the semiotic use of signs to form meaning through images is present in nearly all imagery. It is an inevitable result of living in society. Even when the meaning is received unconsciously, signifiers are read like text in the viewer’s mind based on a widely conditioned cultural understanding of an image’s associations.