Speaking of Language in Art

There is a sequence of dialogue in a film by Marc Ottiker, Halbe Miete (2002), addressing art legibility and audience comprehension. The protagonist, Peter, is assisting a writer in assembling his storyboard.  The writer explains:

“The way I see it, the people sitting in front of the TV don’t feel challenged enough, which upsets them. Some feel like they’re being fucked with. 70% of the audience is not being challenged intellectually, but instead they focus on the other 30%.”

The writer believes a more complex structure to a work of art could more often than not be established. In my previous post I intimated that in painting I believe this “complex structure” consists of a work built entirely of images. I have found it an insult to my intelligence as a viewer that the artist would feel the need to use a much more commonly understood language, the written word, to expose meaning. Reflecting on it now I see another perspective, I may have acted some zealous puritan for imagery unnecessarily.

Contemplating the medium of film seems to enlighten the other side of the argument. Film gives us the perfect cohesion of aural and visual language in motion. Perhaps it’s a viable thing in painting also, this dual presentation of language. Perhaps it’s a beautiful junction: text and image. Essentially the two are fastened together so seamlessly that on serious contemplation it’s hard to actually separate them at all. Eco devotes an entire chapter to this very discussion entitled: The Perfect Language of Images in his bookThe Search for the Perfect Language. A contemplation for another post. For now, let’s keep it simple.

There is a depth to the written word equal to that of imagery: one that, like imagery, is not understood by all. We see this in the literary arts:

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

-Introibo ad altare Dei.

Excerpt from Ulysses, James Joyce

Both word and image have a duality to them, both exist as multiple things at once: an actual object, a symbol of meaning, an allusion to a history of meaning evoked throughout the history of art and literature. Using word and image together may well serve to amplify meaning or allow the subtle meaning present in one, to play off of meaning in the other: a dynamic unveiling.

And so I have come full circle. I see the merits for the use of text in conjunction with image in painting and drawing, beyond my instinctive reaction against it. I see the beauty of it. I wont judge it so harshly next I see it, and I may be more inclined to use it myself.