A palavra emprestada ou como falam as imagens

Abstract

It is a general human fact that we tend to attribute, in many social contexts, a status of living beings to inanimate objects. As Alfred Gell has shown, the analysis of this fact can provide radically new perspectives in the field of the anthropology of art. This article deals with this attribution of subjectivity as it appears within a ritual context. Exploring the role played by the utterance of words, as it was virtually attributed to kouroi and korai in ancient Greek funerary rituals, this paper raises two questions: How aesthetic values relate to the ritual uses of an image? How the virtual attribution of the faculty of speaking to an inanimate object can acquire an influence on the form and effects of a verbal act? Finally, the article suggests that the answers offered to these questions could lead to a new way, inspired by pragmatics, to understand both ritual action and artifacts.