The Unspoken Vocabulary of Art

A special sense of vision re-creates a daydream. What you see is a non-hallucination of a prefigurement. I know you’re thinking to yourself what the heck does that mean. Well, it’s a parody. Or another way of saying it… its high falutin art talk. This is the kind of speak you hear when the high-level art dealers talk about art. Well, this may be a bit of an exaggeration.

The painting you have before you on your magic screen is complex. Multifaceted in all of its thousands of brush strokes of glory. Collectively they all seem to be holding the composition together. Even providing the luxury of descending orbs on a busy bronzed, blowsy highway leading to nowhere.

The grandstanding background assembly is a congregation of green and yellow squares cueing to the viewer that there could be a rally around a face peering back. Here’s a tip. The awkward triangle in the lower third represents the mouth.

The unspoken vocabulary of art. Withdrawn in the mind. What you see is never what you really get. It’s natural to want to force a vocabulary onto a work of art, but so much of art, and the creativity that goes into it can be cunningly vague. Some works of art are naturally disagreeable and quietly rail against commentary. I believe art spends a great deal of time talking to itself. After all, when the lights go out in a home or a museum, it’s left alone in the dark to entertain itself.

“A rancorous piece of my mind. I verbally hurled to the painting before me. It hung there quietly and waited until I walked away. Knowing all along, it would make a lasting impression.”

 

Rod Jones Artist-Writer