A Study Of Norman Bryson’s Visual Theory

This thesis is about Norman Bryson’s visual theory and is focus on two questions which are considered as very important ones but often neglected by the scholars studying Bryson’s thought. One of them is that vision is a question going through almost all of Bryson’s works and the other is that a screen of signs plays a central role in Bryson’s visual theory.The first chapter of this thesis will illustrate the view of painting as sign. Bryson argued that the Perceptualism’s view of painting as the record of a perception had separated art from culture and put the making of image out of society. In order to change it, we should concede the fact of painting as sign.The second chapter will clarify the interaction between painting and vision. Bryson argued that the stroke of Western representational painting is erasive, and it addresses to the gaze of the viewer. The logic of the gaze conceals the fact of painting as sign. Also this chapter will illustrates the concept of visuality, which can be used to reconstruct the cultural and historical context of vision and visual practice.On the basis of painting as sign, the third chapter will provide a transverse analysis of the interaction between visual image and discourse. Bryson argued, the visual image as sign is a kind of signifying practice which works inherently in the social domain, broadly interacts with the other, political, economic practices in the social world, and plays a positive role in the construction of the social formation by interacting with discourse.The final part is a conclusion of this dissertation. The major contribution of Norman Bryson lies in his systematic introduction of semiotics into the research of art history. His theory highlighted the cultural and social features of vision and painting, which however neglected the natural feature of vision.