Le texte et le tableau. Zola, L’Œuvre. Cézanne, l’œuvre

• Published in: Signata Vol. 5; no. 5; pp. 123 - 151
• Main Author: Bertrand, Denis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université de liège 31.12.2014
• Subjects: aspectuality; intersemioticity; phenomenology
• DOI: 10.4000/signata.475
• ISSN: 2032-9806

In the general framework of the relations between semiotics and literature and, more widely, between literary semiotics and plastic language, our aim is to argue, through a concrete case, the contribution of semiotics in the clarification of a literary and art history problem. The study concerns the break-up between two friends, Zola and Cézanne, after the publication, by the first one, of his novel L’Œuvre. The confrontation of painting descriptions in the fiction with Cézanne’s words about the artist activity allows us to bring out more profoundly the theoretical differences of conception regarding the act of painting and its aim, through the figurative question of representation, the aspectual problem of realization and the phenomenological dimension of sensation. More generally, and beyond the studied case, our objective is to show how semiotics processes may contribute to the dialogue between arts.