1.1.

2 The structure of image and its types

Since the structure of the image is divided into two main interrelated components –
subject and semantic, uttered and implied, the following three-fold classification of images is
possible: subject, generalized and semantic and structural. (Borisova's classification)
The objectivity of the image is divided into a number of layers, one in the other. The
first layer can include images as details, the smallest units of aesthetic vision. Images as details
can vary themselves: from details, often denoted by one word, to detailed descriptions,
consisting of many components, such as landscape, portrait, interior, etc. Nevertheless, their
distinctive features are static character, descriptiveness and fragmentariness. The second layer
of imaginative works is based on the first one and possesses properties of plot, connecting all
the subject details into one unity. It consists of the images of external and internal movements:
events, actions, moods, aspirations – all dynamic moments revealed in time dimension of the
composition. Images of characters and circumstances, single and collective heroes of the work
of art, discovering themselves involved in all plot actions (collisions and conflicts), stand
behind the actions and thus belong to the third layer. Finally, interrelated characters and
circumstances form complete images of fate and world, so that behind these global images
conceptual layers of the work of art appear.
According to the semantic generality, images are divided into individual, distinctive,
typical, images as motives, toposes and archetypes.
 Individual and individualized images are created by the artist's original, often bizarre
imagination and express the extent of his originality and uniqueness.
 Distinctive images reveal the patterns of social and historical life, capture the customs and
customs common in this era and in this environment.
 Typicality is the highest degree of distinctiveness, owing to which the typical image
expands the boundaries of its era and acquires universal features, revealing stable and
eternal properties of human nature.
The aforementioned types of images (individual, distinctive, typical) are unique in the
sphere of their existence, namely, they are created by one author within one specific work of
art.
The following three varieties of images (motive, topos and archetype) are generalized not
according to the real historical content, but to conventional, culturally developed and fixed
form; therefore, they are characterized by the stability of their own usage beyond the scope of
a particular work of art.
 Motive is an image, repeating in several works by one or many authors and revealing
writer`s creative predilections or a whole art movement. For instance, rain and garden are
images as motives in works of B. Pasternak.
 Topos is an image, peculiar to the whole culture of a certain period or a certain nation. For
example, topos «the world as a theater» is inherent to epoch of Middle Ages and
Enlightenment in the European art culture.
 Image as archetype contains the most stable and ubiquitous "schemes" of the human
imagination, manifesting both in mythology and in art at all stages of its historical
development.
According to the structure, namely the interrelation of visible and implied aspects, the
images have two subdivisions:
 Autological (both aspects coincide);
 Metalogical (a visible component differs from an implied one as a part from the whole)
Another classification is suggested by Professor N. Valgina, who singles out three stages of
image creation in her work "Theory of text. They embrace the following components:
 image as indicator (logical meaning of the word);
 image as trope (figurative meaning);
 image as symbol(generalized meaning based on figurative ones), [].
According to the author, at the first stage the image is created as a result of "the revival
of the inner form of the word." This image as indicator demonstrates the meaning.
Reconsideration appears at next second stage. At the second stage there is a rethinking. It is a
system of tropes based on metaphorization. And finally, images as symbols go beyond the
context and are usually fixed by the traditional usage.