Catastrofe e riparazione: ideologie semiotiche del risanamento

Each culture develops a specific semiotic ideology of catastrophe and reparation. Comparing and contrasting them reveals continuities and discontinuities. The traditional Japanese aesthetics resolves the anxiety of a potential catastrophe by focusing on the fullness of immanence. In the West, on the contrary, for which the idea of future is essential, the fatalistic approach of the Graeco–Roman civilization is replaced by the Christian idea of the miracle. Investigating the iconography of the broken glass and its saintly reparations is a way to come to terms with the aesthetic and semiotic consequences of the transition.