Composition and the uncanny : a methodological account of composition in visual arts

Abstract

This study aims at giving an account of composition in visual arts by basing itself on the notion of uncanny. In that respect the works of three different surrealist artists, Max Ernst, Giorgio De Chirico, and Joan Miro, will be analysed in terms of their compositional uncanniness, by taking into consideration writers who analysed the uncanniness of these artists’ works. As an addition to those writers’ ideas, the aim of this thesis will be to find some new aspects of compositional uncanny in order to challenge the traditional account of composition in visual arts, as a source of visual resolution into unity.