Maria Sarabyanova
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
This paper deals with titles in visual art, the subject mostly overlooked in Russian art studies, where titles are sometimes examined in the context of image-word relations, but never for their own sake. Titles have an uncertain status in visual art and their part in interpretation and perception is undefined.
Our thesis reviews the works and methods of literary critics and western art historians and aestheticians. On the basis of these studies, we try to prove the significance of titles and to establish them as an integral part of the work of art. We refer to such authors as French literary critic Gerard Genette and Russian writer Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, whose primary purposes were to define a title, categorize it and describe its functions. A number of articles in the American Journal of Aesthetics and Art Critics raise other questions: what is a true title? How to qualify a title? What is the role of the author? What happens when a title changes? Our study summarizes sparse opinions stated in different disciplines and introduces the ideas of western authors to the Russian audience. To test the applicability of their methods in visual arts we use examples from Russian painting.
We came to a conclusion that a title, considered to be a true one, always has an impact on perception. This is easy to prove on several cases: “Empty Space”, “The Last Tavern at the City Gates”, “They did not Expect Him”, “A Motive with no Words”. However, this impact is not always recognized, since we do not consider the title a significant part of the work. Thus, it is essential to analyze the structure of the title and the title-artist-viewer relation. The main purpose of this study is to set out the basic questions related to title and to make the first step towards the formulation of study methods.