Theory of the Tache in Nineteenth-Century Painting

Without question the tache (blot patch stain) is a central and recurring motif in nineteenth-century modernist painting. Manet's and the Impressionists’ rejection of academic finish produced a surface where the strokes of paint were presented directly as patches or blots then indirectly as legible signs. Cézanne Seurat and Signac painted exclusively with patches or dots. Through a series of close readings this book looks at the tache as one of the most important features in nineteenth-century modernism. The tache is a potential meeting point between text and image and a pure trace of the artist’s body. Even though each manifestation of tacheism generates its own specific cultural effects this book represents the first time a scholar has looked at tacheism as a hidden continuum within modern art. With a methodological framework drawn from the semiotics of text and image the author introduces a much-needed fine-tuning to the classic terms index symbol and icon. The concept of the tache as a ’crossing’ of sign-types enables finer distinctions and observations than have been available thus far within the Peircean tradition. The ’sign-crossing’ theory opens onto the whole terrain of interaction between visual art art criticism literature philosophy and psychology.