La Fabrique du titre: First Major French Synthesis on Art Titling

The CNRS publication "La Fabrique du titre. Nommer les œuvres d'art," directed by Pierre-Marc de Biasi, Marianne Jakobi, and Ségolène Le Men, offers the first major synthesis in French on the role of titles in art perception. The volume traces the history of titling from the 17th century, when titles simply denoted subject matter for public information, to the 19th-century shift where artists like Gustave Courbet authored their own titles, marking a turn toward autonomy. In the 20th century, the "untitled" designation emerged, with Kandinsky introducing the term "composition" to evoke musical connotations. The book includes essays on Miró (Fabrice Flahutez), Alechinsky (Serge Bourjea), Fred Deux (Pierre Wat), and Cy Twombly (Frédérique Villemur). Julia Hountou's text on Gina Pane explores her use of "partition" and series like "Terre protégée" and "Projet du silence," showing how her titles regained the indexical function of 17th-century naming, guiding viewers through aesthetic experience. The volume builds on earlier studies by Michel Butor (1969), Ernst Gombrich, Stephen Ban, and Françoise Armengaud, as well as Jakobi's 2006 work on Jean Dubuffet.