The Photographic Metaphor: Heartfield, Brecht, Sebald

Abstract

From a semiotic point of view, photography is still considered a different kind of sign. Then, how can imagetext works be studied, formed by photography and word? This article argues that fictional texts expose the semiotic nature of photographs, showing that photographs are signs, different from their referents. The fictional, intermedial texts studied here are John Heartfield’s, Bertolt Brecht’s, and W.G. Sebald’s: three authors linked by German history. In the light of Umberto Eco’s semiotics, photographs can also be considered metaphors, enable to provide a new kind of iconicity and to overcome their realistic weight.