On Jan 19, 2013, at 9:23 AM, [email protected] wrote:
> I'm curious, not combative, when I ask this: Why do you call this
> recollection of the whole from seeing just a part 'linguistic' rather than
> 'depictive'?
>From talking to others who are not artists or particularly reflective, I
discerned that they would "figure out" a painting--especially, a very
schematized, "abstract" one--by sorting out the cues from the lines and
shapes. This means shoulder, this means hip, this means foot. (Means =
signifies). It was not merely a matter of finding the jigsaw piece with an eye
and one with a mouth, but of how those parts related to each other. Cubism
presented a problem of "word order" or "syntax," because both eyes were on the
same side of the head, the table top was vertical and the objects would
(should) slide off, etc. Perceiving the image this way seems to share more
with a linguistic perception--or "reading"--than a depictive one. Cubism was
like reading a sentence written with really bad grammar. Subject and object
after the verb, adjectives instead of adverbs, wrong tense, number, and
person, etc. Such a sentence might be read with understanding, but not easily
and maybe not with confidence that you grasped what the author intended.
Likewise visual arts. "Picasso says that's Kahnweiler, but I'll be damned if I
can see it." Or, "Okay, I can see the nude, but it just doesn't look right."
That's similar to reading "Finnegan's Wake" ("Oh-kaaaay, it's a novel if you
say so") or "At Swim Two Birds" ("Yeah, okay, but he lost me in there after
page 10").
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Michael Brady
