Le Repentir – Une énonciation fragmentaire

In the lexicon of visual arts, particularly in the technical language of painting, the term “repentir” designates an alteration of the work signaled by the trace of what preceded the alteration itself, indicating, thus, that the artist “changed her/his mind” during the process of creation. The article revolves around the following questions: what semiotic definition – in terms of processes of enunciation – can be done of “repentir” in visual arts? What is the meaning of a “repentir” when it is visible to the naked eye; what is it when it can be detected only through sophisticated technical analyses? Moreover: what is the deep semiotic dynamic of “repentir”? Can it be considered as a particular instance of a broader category of enunciation mechanisms? The article proposes a typology of enunciations, meant as passages from virtual systems to actual realizations, based on the combination of two semiotic categories and tensions: unambiguousness (“univocité” in French) and transparency. Furthermore, in the frame of this typology, the article proposes to characterize the “repentir” as an oxymoronic enunciation.