the Aesthetics of Trope in Visual Arts: Historical Prolegomena

The popularity of neomythologism in the work of contemporary artists, and its connection to symbolic imagery, has brought into the focus of theoretical art history-which has been "infused" with semiotic ideas-figures and tropes that constitute the linguistic manifestation of symbolism. Here, an imbalance between aesthetic theory and artistic practice becomes evident. Although many prominent art historians in the twentieth century thoroughly investigated historical forms of symbolism in the visual arts of the past, contemporary aesthetics still lacks a theory of the visual trope that would meet the demands of modern knowledge. In the articles of this collection-without claiming to exhaust the topic and limiting herself to an overview of European aesthetic thought-the author offers an examination of the historical dynamics of aesthetic ideas that served as the theoretical foundation for various forms of trope-based imagery in art. For, as the sources show, many contemporary theoretical positions in this field trace their origins to the distant and not-so-distant past.