French Literature Reviews - 2026

The Sign and the Painting.
Art and Visual Culture

Albert Lichten, The Sign and the Painting: Painting, Writing, and the Referent in Contemporary Theories of Painting. Champion, Library of General and Comparative Literature, 2004.

The era of representational painting appears to be over. Furthermore, the death of painting has been heralded for decades. Contemporary visual artworks seek salvation by invoking the semiotic notion of the "message" and, at best, by returning to the tradition of primeval arts—that of the sign, whether figurative or not. The author, who is a painter, has encountered this alluring yet perilous instance of the sign through his own practice. He demonstrates both its necessity and its limitations, juxtaposing his reflections with the writings and statements of Bazaine, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Léger, Paul Klee, and others. Without dismissing the merits of semiology, he critiques semiotic ideology and its extension, the monism of the "Text" and "Writing," which tend to erode the artist's arduous journey toward the hidden springs of the imagination from which forms emerge. This same ideology obliterates both the notion of the motif—the anchor point of the painter's vision—and the notion of art's content, as if the tentacular system of signs absorbed the object at its inner extreme and thought at its upper extreme.

Addressing the problem of the image and the imaginary in painting, the author compares his experience with the theories of the cubist Albert Gleizes, as well as the teachings of Lacan and Merleau-Ponty.

Albert Lichten, an aesthetician and philosopher, has pursued a dual career as a painter and an educator. His book will appeal to anyone interested in seeing how, in retrospect, artistic practice engages with contemporary conceptual frameworks.

(back cover)

The relationship between visual representation and linguistic systems has been a central concern in modern aesthetics. Since the rise of structuralism, the tendency to interpret visual images through the lens of semiotics—treating paintings as texts or systems of signs—has influenced how critics and artists discuss the nature of the image. Readers interested in the history of twentieth-century art theory may find this exploration of the sign and the motif relevant.

The book discusses the perceived decline of representational painting and the challenges posed by theories that prioritize the sign over the motif. By drawing on the reflections of figures such as Bazaine, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Léger, and Paul Klee, the author contrasts the experience of the artist with the philosophical insights of Lacan, Merleau-Ponty, and Albert Gleizes to examine the emergence of form and the imaginary in painting.