Iconic Rhetoric in Alexander Ivanov’s Painting Joseph Interprets the Dreams of the Cup-Bearer and the Baker

By this article the author continues his research in academic programme of the Russian painter Alexander Ivanov (see: Vestnik of St. Petersburg University. Series 15. 2014. Issue 3. P. 121–137). For deeper understanding of internal form of the discussed painting he proposes to consider it as a rhetorical saying by connecting his arguments with Yuri Lotman’s theory of iconic rhetoric. Two Lotman’s theses are of special importance. The first one concerns the very essence of a rhetorical saying, which cannot be expressed in a different — non-rhetorical — way, i.e. has an absolutely distinct nature as compared to notorious rhetorical “ornaments”; the second one concerns the concept of semantic trope introduced by Lotman that arises in a literary text as a result of dissimilar language codes’ convergence when a new sense is simultaneously expressed in two radically different languages, in this case — in spoken language and that of an image. Such a semantic trope presents its meaning in an expression and, therefore, allows speaking about it as of a picture’s internal form. Thus, rhetorical saying in this case presents both — the content’s meaning, and a form of an artistic message. Ivanov’s work gives us a striking example of such a painting where rhetoric of the antithetical spoken expression is melted by means of painting into iconic rhetoric of image. Sources of iconic rhetoric in Alexander Ivanov’s work are to be found in the rhetorical type of thinking that dominated in the academic environment. The above-said is confirmed by N. Poussin’s — a favourite artist in the Academy — discourse on creative method in painting, as well as by the examples from the Italian painting of the 17th century like creations of T. Sallini (Crowing with Thorns) and D. Fetti (The Triumph of David), in which the author of the article finds similar rhetorical sayings.