Degas e la pittura fotografica: la questione del realismo nella prospettiva della semiotica “neoclassica

Edgar Degas, one of the leading figures of “realism” in painting, was also an enthusiast photographer. However, the somehow “photographic” quality of his artistic production does not depend on a direct influence of the new medium; rather, it is mainly the effect of a new way of thinking and representing reality: a way that actually reminds features that we associate to photography. Think of the occurrence of accidental elements, the defective organization and delimitation of the visual space, the compromises with light conditions, the visual compositions with manifold focal centers, and consequently a stronger expression of a sense of the occurrence in time, of transience and contingency. In semiotic terms, we cannot define “realism” on the basis of some “iconic” correspondence between the materiality of the painting and the “things” of our experience. What we think as “realism” is grounded on a profound relation between expressive structures and a way of thinking the world: the pictures adhere not to objects but to the plan that provides them a sense. A new reading of the foundations of semiotics, in a key that we may call “neoclassical”, suggests a more suitable theory about how analogical signification works, so as to also better acknowledge the constructive, not merely representational nature of visual texts.