THE ROYAL CEREMONIAL PORTRAIT OF HENRY IV AS A SEMIOTIC SIGN OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE
In the present article, the royal ceremonial portrait is analyzed as a text-image that represents a sign and possesses its own semiotic properties. The image of the king during the period of the absolute monarchy is one of the most complex mechanisms of representation of the monarchical system, when it is important to show the king distantly as the embodiment of power. The author shows that this is the point of intersection of artistic and political discourse. Interpreting the signs represented in the print of Henry IV in a coronation suit by the French engraver of the Flemish origin Thomas de Leu, the author reveals the ways the idea of royal power is actualized. The external symbols of monarchical power are the means of the semiotization of power in a ceremonial royal portrait. They translate the greatness and power of the French monarch and serve as symbols of the legitimization of royal power. In addition, regalia, as well as other details of the ceremonial royal portrait, represented in the portrait of Henry IV in a coronation suit, reflect the principle of dynastic monarchy, and, in a broader sense, - the principle of hereditary continuity of supreme power. The author proves that the visual representation of power is aimed at creating and disseminating the image of the ideal ruler which is used to justify the legitimacy of the monarch's rule.