ABSTRACT
Iconicity is the foundation of artistic meaning. Mimesis, usually understood as the artistic imitation or copying of nature, was the central concept of Western aesthetic theory from antiquity until the invention of photography and the rise of modern art in the nineteenth century. Peircean semeiotics provides a framework within which we can understand mimesis as literally fundamental to artistic representation. Charles Sanders Peirce’s account of iconicity provides the means for us to better understand the primitive notion of mimesis as representation of form. Conceiving mimesis as a form of iconicity suggests an aesthetic theory in which abstract, non-representational art is situated in relation to more traditional kinds of work. Articulating mimesis as the iconic representation of form suggests a way to reintroduce the concept to aesthetic theory. Mimesis conceived as iconicity is an irreducibly triadic process of iconic representation, undertaken in a context and for a purpose.
