The object or referent of aesthetic signs: reflexions and discussions based on C. S. Peirce’s logics

Abstract

There does not seem to be a consensus on the subject matter of objects or referents of aesthetic signs. Authors such as Neuhaus (2014) consider that the aesthetic sign does not have the object or referent, and that this is one of its most characteristic traces. Other authors, such as Johansen (1987), consider that this type of sign has objects or referents with special characteristics. In this article, we intend to analyze the position of these authors having as a point of support the semiotics or logic of Charles Sanders Peirce and its unfolding about the object, the second correlate of its triadic signic structure. To that end, and based on Santaella (2000), I will return to the main peircean considerations regarding the second correlate of the sign, highlighting the two main types of objects in this theory, namely, the dynamic and the immediate objects, and the relation between object, perception, reality and fiction. Considering Peirce’s observation that a sign can possess any number of objects, I try to argue that not only aesthetic signs do possess objects, but that they can also be regarded as possessing at least two kinds: a fictional and created object and another one alluding to reality or to aspects of it, to which it ends up referring mainly by means of iconicity or symbology, also to aspects of the phenomenal consensual world, of physical or social reality. Examples of German literature, Brazilian children’s literature and a work by Escher will be used.