The notion of the Artistic image

a universal category in art; the depiction, interpretation, and perception of life through the creation of objects that produce anaesthetic effect. The term “image” often refers to an element or part of an artistic whole, generally a fragment that as it werepossesses an independent life and content, for example, a literary character or a symbolic image such as the sail in M. Iu.Lermontov’s poem “The Sail.” In a more general sense, an artistic image is the very basis of a work of art from the viewpointof the work’s expressiveness, intensity, and meaningfulness.

In comparison with other aesthetic categories, the artistic image is relatively late in origin. The rudiments of a theory ofartistic images may be found in Aristotle’s doctrine of mimesis, that is, the artist’s free imitation of life insofar as life is ableto produce integrated and internally structured objects; Aristotle noted the aesthetic satisfaction to be gained from suchimitation. For a long time, owing to the classical tradition, art was viewed as a craft or skill, and consequently the plasticarts predominated among the arts. Aesthetic thought was limited to the concepts of the canon and later of style and form,which clarified the transformative relationship of the artist to his material. Only when the less concrete arts—literature andmusic—became foremost was it recognized that artistically transformed material embodies a certain ideal that to an extentis similar to an idea.

Hegelian and post-Hegelian aesthetics, including the aesthetics of V. G. Belinskii, made extensive use of the category ofthe artistic image, contrasting the image as the product of artistic thought to the results of abstract, conceptual thought—that is, to the syllogism, deduction, proof, or formula. The universality of the category of the artistic image has often beendisputed since then, because the connotations of objectivity and clarity in the term “artistic image” seemed to make theterm inapplicable to the nonobjective, nonrepresentational arts, in particular to music. However, modern aesthetics, andprimarily Soviet aesthetics, widely uses the theory of the artistic image, regarding it as the most promising theory for theelucidation of the distinctive nature of art.

Various aspects of the artistic image may be distinguished that demonstrate its simultaneous involvement in many areas ofknowledge and being.

In ontological terms the artistic image reflects the ideal and is as it were a stylized object superimposed on its own materialsubstratum. Marble is not the flesh it represents, a two-dimensional surface is not a three-dimensional space, and a storyabout an event is not the event itself. An artistic image is not identical with its material base, although it may be recognizedin and by means of this base. “The nonaesthetic aspect of material, in contrast to the content, does not form part of theaesthetic object. The artist deals [with the nonaesthetic aspect] and aesthetics does so as well, but primary aestheticcontemplation does not deal with it” (M. M. Bakhtin, Voprosy literatury i estetiki, 1975, pp. 46, 47). Nevertheless, the imageis more closely united with its material basis than is number or any other ideal object dealt with in the exact sciences. Sinceto an extent the image is uninvolved with the literary material it is based on, the image uses its potentialities as signs of itsown content. For example, a statue has no relationship to the chemical composition of the marble it is made of, but it doeshave a relationship to the marble’s texture and color.

In this semiotic aspect, the artistic image is a sign, that is, a means of semantic communication in a given culture or amongrelated cultures. Similarly, the image is a manifestation of imagined existence, repeatedly renewed in the imagination of thereader or observer who possesses the key or cultural code needed to identify and comprehend the image. In order tounderstand a traditional Japanese or Chinese play, one must be acquainted with a special language of gestures and poses.But even Pushkin’s The Stone Guest would not be wholly comprehensible to a reader who was completely unfamiliar withthe Don Juan legend and its symbolic language. In order to understand a motion picture, the viewer must have anelementary familiarity with the language of cinematography. For example, he must understand the function of large-scaleshots, which alarmed the unaccustomed viewer in the early days of the cinema. Consequently, in the material on which theimage is based, the image-forming elements are those that are distinct from the strictly technical elements. For example, itis not acoustics but tone which is an element of a harmonic system. The image-forming elements constitute part of aspecific language that is used to describe a given art form or artistic tradition and that is conditioned by cultural agreement.

In gnoseological terms, the artistic image is a product of the imagination, closest to such types of cognitive thought as theassumption. Aristotle observed that the various aspects of art are in the sphere of the probable, whose very existencecannot be confirmed or denied. It follows that the artistic image can be an assumption or hypothesis only owing to its ownideal, imaginary nature. Rembrandt’s painting The Return of the Prodigal Son exists as such and is kept in the Hermitage,but that which is depicted on the canvas, while it does not exist in reality, has the potentiality of such existence. At thesame time, the artistic image is not simply a formal assumption but (even in the case of deliberate fantasy) an assumptionthat is suggested by the artist with maximum sensory persuasiveness and that attains a semblance of reality. Related tothis is the strictly aesthetic aspect of the artistic image—a unification, illumination, and vitalization of the artistic material bymeans of semantic expressiveness.

In its aesthetic aspect, the artistic image is a rational, lifelike entity that contains nothing superfluous, accidental, orsupplementary and that creates an impression of beauty owing precisely to the complete unity and ultimate meaningfulnessof its component parts. In the autonomous, total existence of artistic reality, nothing is directed toward such external aimsas commentary or illustration by means of example; this bears witness to the striking similarity of the artistic image to aliving person. A person is perceived in depth not from without, as an element in a causal chain of elements, but from thatperson’s own vital center. A person also has the ability to evaluate the outside world in terms of space and time owing to theinternal mechanisms of regulation that also maintain that person’s own continually changing sense of identity. But withoutthe isolating power of imagination and without exclusion from reality, the artistic image could not attain the intensity andlogic that bring it to life. In other words, the verisimilitude of an artistic image is related to its imaginary existence.

As a living entity, an image is autonomous; as an ideal object it is objective, like a number or an equation; and as anassumption it is subjective. However, as a sign the image is intersubjective, communicative, and comprehensible during adialogue between the author or artist and the reader or viewer. In this sense the image is not an object or a thought but atwo-way process. To an extent this may be illustrated by examining the internal structure of elementary artistic images. Thestructural diversity of the different types of artistic images may be reduced to two basic principles: that of metonymy (a partor feature instead of the whole) and that of metaphor (an associative linking of different objects).

On a conceptual level, two types of artistic generalization correspond to the above two structural principles. The symbolcorresponds to the metaphor, and the type, to metonymy; compare A. A. Potebnia’s characterization of metaphor andmetonymy in his collection Aesthetics and Poetics (1976, pp. 553–54). The artistic image tends toward metonymy in therepresentational arts. This is because any rendering of outward reality is a reconstruction based on those lines, forms, anddetails that are viewed as most important by the artist, that represent what is perceived and replace it, and that can bedepicted with the resources of the art form in question. Metaphoric linking, transfer, and indirect use of artistic images aretypical mainly of the expressive arts: lyric poetry (“the poet begins his discourse from afar”) and music. In these arts theaesthetic object comes into being as it were on the boundary of the two terms that are linked; it emerges from theintersecting of the image’s elements. Both these principles of organizing aesthetic objects are not conceptual and analyticbut are organic, since neither can be separated from the emotional aspect of the image.

In the epithet, the point at which the metaphoric and metonymic principles converge may be observed. The primaryaesthetic trait of the epithet is that it is combined with the word it modifies rather than added to it as a logical differential.The epithet therefore intensifies the concrete, elemental content of the word it modifies without narrowing that word’ssemantic scope. It is well known that the opposite is true of conceptual thought: the more concrete, the narrower.

In the phrase “the blue sea” the epithet “blue” as a metonymic feature makes the sea conceivable as such by removing itfrom abstract characterlessness. As a metaphoric feature the epithet shifts the sea to another conceptual sphere, that of anearthly expanse. In this elementary image of the sea, everything that is characteristic of the sea as such accompanies themeaning. Nothing remains outside the boundary of the aesthetic object, and understanding is achieved without a sacrifice ofabstraction and simplification. At the same time, this concrete unity is only latent, since the epithet “blue” provides only aschematic internal form to the image of the sea, indicating in advance the direction our imagination can take and the limitswithin which our imagination can function. The sea must be perceived as something blue, but within these limits a broadrange of concepts and associations is possible. These as it were constitute the life and inner dynamism of the image—itsconceivable substance, its self-sufficiency independent of the author or artist, and its ability to have many aspects whileretaining its identity. The organic aspect of the artistic image is inconceivable without the image’s schematic aspect, whichestablishes the author’s or artist’s subjective intention and at the same time provides scope for the reader’s or viewer’sobjectivity.

Thus, no artistic image is wholly concrete. The elements of clarity and stability in the image are enveloped by otherelements of indefiniteness and concealment. This results in a certain incompleteness of the artistic image in comparisonwith the reality of actual objects. Art seeks to become reality but is constrained by its own limitations. However, the imagealso has the advantage of its own polysemy and its capacity for elucidation by means of many varied interpretations, whosenumber is limited only by the author’s or artist’s emphasis. For example, the respective interpretations of Pushkin’s novel inverse Eugene Onegin that were made by Belinskii and by F. M. Dostoevsky, although they constitute a polemic and in manyways contradict each other, are valid in terms of Pushkin’s artistic intentions in the novel. On the other hand, D. I. Pisarev’sinterpretation of Eugene Onegin is opposed to the very values emphasized by the poet himself in the novel.

The merging of that which is organic and that which is schematic in the artistic image underscores the dual relationship ofthe image to the criterion of truth. This has undoubtedly been the most complex and paradoxical aspect of art ever since artbecame an independent field of human endeavor. Beyond the artistic image as a hypothesis and a means of communicationis the creator—the individual artist. This is also so in the case of anonymous or collectively produced works of art, wherethe aesthetic object also expresses the viewpoint of the person or persons creating it.

However, an image is subject to its creator not absolutely but only in its schematic changes and its internal form. Thisinternal form is composed of the semantic tension instilled by the artist, a tension that is part of the emotional exterior of theartistic image and that controls the image’s perception. Moreover, from the viewpoint of its own organic unity, an imagebelongs to itself. It becomes objectivized, that is, it becomes detached from its psychologically arbitrary source—thenonaesthetic views and intentions of the artist. It is true that the artist himself creates a work of art from beginning to end.However, in relation to the organic aspect of the image the artist is not an authoritative creator but a sensitive craftsmanwho nurtures the independent development of an artistic idea and the growth of a living, developed seed.

The inner form of an image is personal and bears the indelible impression of its creator’s ideology and his selective andcreative initiative. Consequently, an image represents the creator’s evaluation of human life, has cultural value, andexpresses historically relevant tendencies and ideals. But as an organism that vivifies literature or art, an artistic imageconstitutes a sphere in which the aesthetically harmonizing laws of life function to the utmost. In the artistic image there isno infinity in a negative sense and no unwarranted outcome. The range of perception is extensive, and time is reversible.Coincidence is not absurd, necessity is not oppressive, and clarity triumphs over indistinctness. In these aspects, artisticvalue is a relative sociocultural value and one of life’s permanent values. The artistic image represents an ideal potentialityof our human universe. For this reason an artistic assumption, unlike a scientific hypothesis, cannot be discarded asunneeded and be replaced by another assumption, even if the historical limitations of its creator seem obvious.

 

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The dialects of Old English

Writing and sounds

It is common to divide England into four dialect areas for the Old English period.

The dialect areas of England can be traced back quite clearly to the Germanic tribes which came and settled in Britain from the middle of the 5th century onwards. There were basically three tribal groups among the earlier settlers in England: the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes. The Angles came from the area of Angeln (roughly the Schleswig-Holstein of today), the Saxons from the area of east and central Lower Saxony and the Jutes from the Jutland peninsula which forms west Denmark today. The correlation between original tribe and later English dialect is as follows:

Germanic tribes and regions in England where they mainly settled

Saxons — South of the Thames (West Saxon area)
Angles — Middle and Northern England (Mercia and Northumbria), including lowland Scotland
Jutes — South-East of England (Kent)