Konstantynov M. Yuri Lotman and Visual Semiotics of the Second Part of the Twentieth Century (Historical and Philosophical Analysis).

The research object is visual semiotics, i.e. semiotic investigation of visual art (first of all cinema), developed on the base of structuralism, poststructuralism and other philosophical streams of the twenties century. The aim of the research is reconstruction of Y.M. Lotman's cinema semiotics conception as a part of his general structural and semiotic theory (in terms of its revolution) and defining of a place and a role of this conception in the development of visual semiology (film semiology) on the main historical and philosophical transformations background of the second half of XX century. Methods: historical-genetic, structural-semiotic and linguistic methodology, comparative analysis. It is proved that politological model of Lotman's communicative act is more relevant for description a communicative act in art, and it is vividly seen during the investigation of film language nature. It is shown that Yu. Lotman's cinema semiotics is based on the principle of a dialectical contradiction between illusion and reality; Yu. Lotman considers cinema as a cinema language, the basic unit of which - as a word is in a language - is a movie shot. The construction of the cinema narration is implemented as a synthesis of two narrative tendencies as figurative and verbal. It is shown that Lotman prefers the mythological beginning as a whole in the cinema, which is the mechanism of creation of new meanings. Based on the comparative analysis of cinema semiotics and the cinema and theoretic concept of, It was concluded that there is a fundamental difference in the K. Metz and Yu. Lotman's understanding of the cinematic language nature (emphasizing either on paradigmatic or on syntagmatic). Comparing of Yu. Lotman's cinema semiotics with R. Barthes' visual semiotics made it possible to determine their differences, primarily those based on scientistic (structuralist), on the one hand, and anti-centrist (ideological and mythological, that combines structuralism with phenomenology and existentialism) approaches. Sphere - educational and philosophical-scientific process.