This study argues for a distinction between visual art and visual image in our understanding and analysis of visual communication. Referring to the social semiotic model of verbal art by Ruqaiya Hasan, the study proposes a semiotic system of visual art, which is related to, but distinct from the semiotic system of visual image. In the semiotic system of visual image, lines and shapes rendered through various techniques depict entities that serve three functions: the representational, modal and compositional functions. In the semiotic system of visual art, symbolic configuration endows the visually shown entities with deeper, more abstract meanings by creating recurrent patterns in the visual art as a genre, against its artistic and cultural conventions. These meanings help to realize the theme: it is what a work of visual art is about when dissociated from the particularities of that work. By way of illustration, an empirical study on the landscape painting in dynastic China is provided, with a focus on the embedded human figures and how they contribute to the theme of the paintings.
Yu et al. (Fri,) studied this question.