Semiotics of Visual Language

Visual language has been a form of communication since the dawn of history, but there have been few systematic descriptions of its inernal structures that go beyond the surface level of mimetic or iconic function. On the babis of Piaget's genetic epistemology and Kurt Lewin's topological psychology, Fernande Saint-Martin defines the fundamental units of visual language as tolological regions groups in a field of forces. She describes visual perception as a series of visual movements, expansions and concentrations, afereffects and transformations, within the context of general rules of association. She develops syntactical rules to describe visual messages in two- and three-dimensional space, as well as the effects of positions and distances already coded in visual language by historical systems of rendering perspective.

Saint-Martin's elaboration of syntax of visual language sheds new light on non-verbal language as a form of representation and communication. It also describes the evolution of this language in the visual arts as well as its multiple uses in contemporary media. The result is a completely new approach for scholars and practitioners of the visual arts eager to decode the many forms of visual communication.