une grammaire particulière de la picturalité

English translation: a rather special grammar of picturality, a somewhat particular -,

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French term or phrase:	une grammaire particulière de la picturalité
English translation:	a rather special grammar of picturality, a somewhat particular -,
Entered by:	Edna Pais

18:34 Sep 19, 2016

French to English translations [PRO]
Art/Literary - Art, Arts & Crafts, Painting / painting

French term or phrase: une grammaire particulière de la picturalité

Lors du vernissage d’une de ses expositions à Bruxelles elle rencontra Alan Green et une belle amitié se concrétisa par l’achat de plusieurs toiles et œuvres sur papier. Après la mort de l’artiste elle continua à soutenir son épouse et défendit son travail qui développait une grammaire particulière de la picturalité. After the artist’s death she continued to support his wife and to defend his work which developed a particular grammar of the picturality.

Edna Pais KudoZ activity Questions: 264 (9 open) (3 without valid answers) (2 closed without grading) Answers: 1 United Kingdom
Local time: 14:52

a rather special grammar of picturality, a somewhat particular -,

Explanation:
I think it would be nice to keep the expression close to the original and use a noun, rather than the more usual adjective here. It's what makes it unusual in French and it would add a nice point of style to the English.

You can of course make it sound quite English, even faintly twee, if you don't overdo it, and it might just come off.

I really think"grammar" should be retained. Look at this definition :

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/grammar

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/English-Grammar.htm

1.
a. The study of how words and their component parts combine to form sentences.
b. The study of structural relationships in language or in a language, sometimes including pronunciation, meaning, and linguistic history.
2.
a. The system of inflections, syntax, and word formation of a language.
b. The system of rules implicit in a language, viewed as a mechanism for generating all sentences possible in that language.
3.
a. A normative or prescriptive set of rules setting forth the current standard of usage for pedagogical or reference purposes.
b. Writing or speech judged with regard to such a set of rules.
4. A book containing the morphologic, syntactic, and semantic rules for a specific language.
5.
a. The basic principles of an area of knowledge: the grammar of music.
b. A book dealing with such principles.
[Middle English gramere, from Old French gramaire, alteration of Latin grammatica, from Greek grammatikē, from feminine of grammatikos, of letters, from gramma, grammat-, letter; see gerbh- in Indo-European roots.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Just one example and there a loads of others out there. But in fact, the choice of that term is no doubt very deliberate. It is relating to a description of how rules of structure, form, and do on contribute to defining a message being conveyed. If that is what is being said about painting, then it is essential to hang onto it.

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Note added at 13 hrs (2016-09-20 07:58:17 GMT)
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Given the research proposed by Charles, I think the choice of "painterliness" is more appropriate than my suggestion of "picturality".

Selected response from:

Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Local time: 15:52

Grading comment

Thank you
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

3 +4

a rather special grammar of picturality, a somewhat particular -,

Nikki Scott-Despaigne

4 +3

a distinctive / personal grammar of painterliness

Charles Davis

Summary of reference entries provided

On "pictural" as an adjective, then as a noun

Nikki Scott-Despaigne

Discussion entries: 3

Answers

1 hr confidence:

peer agreement (net): +4

a rather special grammar of picturality, a somewhat particular -,

Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Local time: 15:52
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 22

Grading comment

Thank you

6 hrs confidence:

peer agreement (net): +3

a distinctive / personal grammar of painterliness

Explanation:
I completely agree with Nikki about grammar; it can be used in exactly this way in English. You can have a grammar of painting, of music, of dance, of acting, as well as of language. As for "particulière", well, I think you could interpret it as distinctive/unusual (or particular or special) or as personal (specific to that particular artist). I'm not sure which way to take it; I think either could be defended, and there are five or six defensible translations of this word in this context.

However I must strongly disagree over "picturalité". I wouldn't be surprised if "pictural" is sometimes used in French in the way "pictorial" (or more rarely "pictural") is used in English: that is, to mean related to pictures. But if and when it is, it is a calque of English. The word does not properly have this meaning in French. Look in any good French monolingual dictionary: the Trésor, Robert, Larousse... The only meanings are "related to painting" or "possessing the quality of painting". In other words, in French it relates to the medium, and in English it relates to representation or depiction, in any medium, not necessarily painting.

In my opinion it is inconceivable that the word is being used here in its English sense, that is, to mean pictoriality (I don't think "picturality" exists in English; I can't find it in any dictionary). I just don't believe that an French art critic or historian would use it like that, and far less in relation to Alan Green, an abstract painter whose work contains no representation at all, just form and colour.

Here are some examples of his work:
http://www.artnet.com/artists/alan-green/

And this is from his Guardian obituary:

"A painting such as Double Crimson Painting (1978) was precisely that, but the two halves of the painting were treated in opposition, one in glossy oils, one in matt tempera, one with a textured surface broken up by darker diagonal brush strokes, one smooth. The finished work has that sense of inevitable conclusion that marks all Green's art - the result of a process of reduction, scraping away paint and starting again, building up and scraping back. [...]
His painting went through successive phases, moving from atmospheric blocks of colour to big canvases with single colours apparently gently vibrating, and on to wide slabs of colour on huge surfaces. [...]
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/may/28/guardianobituar...

In other words, Alan Green was preeminently what is known as a "painterly" painter. And that is what "pictural" means: painterly.

"Painterly" is a term that goes back to Wölfflin and his distinction between painterly (malerisch) and linear painters. See here for a quick introduction:

"Painterliness is a concept based on the German term malerisch (painterly) [...]
The Impressionists, Fauvists and the Abstract Expressionists tended strongly to be painterly movements.
Painterly art often makes use of the many visual effects produced by paint on canvas such as chromatic progression, warm and cool tones, complementary and contrasting colors, broken tones, broad brushstrokes, sketchiness, and impasto."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painterliness

And here's the equivalent distinction in French:

"Double portrait : le « pictural » et le « linéaire »"
http://theses.univ-lyon2.fr/documents/getpart.php?id=lyon2.2...

Given the proper sense of "pictural" as "painterly" in art theory, and given the supremely painterly qualities of Green (blocks of colours rather than contours, strong emphasis on surface texturality), I think it is certain that "picturalité" here has its usual meaning (in art discourse) of "painterliness".

An alternative would be simply "a grammar of painting", but I think that's too broad, for the reasons I've outlined.

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Note added at 6 hrs (2016-09-20 00:52:25 GMT)
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I think it would be difficult to find a painter to whom the English word "pictorial" is less applicable than Alan Green.

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Note added at 13 hrs (2016-09-20 08:02:37 GMT)
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Sorry to bang on, but seriously, "picturality" simply won't do; it's plain wrong. If it exists at all, it's a synonym of "pictoriality", since pictural is a synonym of pictorial in English (dictionaries are unanimous). And that means related to pictures. And pictures are simply images: drawings, painting, photographs, images on a screen... A "grammaire de la picturalité" is not a grammar of pictures or of the nature of pictures.

Here's a quotation that confirms what I've been saying about "picturalité" meaning what is called "painterliness": the properties of painting as a medium, not its representational properties. It's from Denys Riout in an essay entitled "La peinture contre les images", and is quoted right at the start of this text:

"La photographie « aide à comprendre en quoi la peinture se distingue de l'image, et plus radicalement encore, s'oppose à elle, déjoue sans cesse sa transparence. Ce qui résiste à la transformation des agencements de la pâte colorée en image, icône, et qui nous attire, c'est la picturalité, autrement dit les qualités spécifiques de la pâte elle-même, alors objet du monde et non pas face signifiante du signe"
http://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/ameri_0982-9237_1988_num_3_1_9...

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 15:52
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 48

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)

agree

Nikki Scott-Despaigne: Yes, as used in the FR, is a deliberate choice with specific meaning and I suggested the same term in EN for the same reasons, fully aware that both are indeed unusual and specific. Hwvr, I think your idea of "painterliness" is best.

7 hrs

-> Thanks very much, Nikki. I have a bee in my bonnet about this because I have had to deal many times with the Spanish equivalent, pictórico.

agree

B D Finch

13 hrs

-> Thanks, Barbara

agree

Helen Shiner: Or visual grammar./I agree absolutely that picturial is a non-word. And I completely understand what painterliness is, however, I think it is perhaps only one aspect of what picturalité means. There are aspects of composition that relate only to painting.

17 hrs

-> Thanks, Helen. That would sound good. I think we have to include the specific concept of picturalité, which I interpret mainly as the way this artist handles paint. // It does refer to composition too, I agree (so does "painterly", in Wölfflin's terms).

Reference comments

1 hr

Reference: On "pictural" as an adjective, then as a noun

Reference information:
Note that this definition of "pictural" gives definitions which underline the specific linnk with painting, although that is but one meaning adn may not be appropriate in context. The other, more obvious meaning is one we are all genreally more familiar with.

http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/pictural

So what about picutrality in English? Not tons of hits in French for the noun.
Is this word for word term with definition sufficient? Perhaps it is.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/picturality

he state or quality of being related to or resembling a picture.

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Note added at 1 hr (2016-09-19 19:37:26 GMT)
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I think the choice of term for "grammaire" and "particulière" are slightly more tricky in factc here. Although I th... well, i'm going to post a suggestion.

Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 22

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une grammaire particulière de la picturalité

English translation: a rather special grammar of picturality, a somewhat particular -,

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