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August 22, 2006
Forgotten languages
We’ve forgotten how to look at paintings. Time was we knew. Time was we knew the language. We knew what to look for, what to expect, how to enjoy a painting.
Show a film to a hidden tribe in, say, Papua New Guinea and they won’t understand it, visually – I’m not talking about speech here. They will just see a lot of flickering light [which isn’t bad for starters it has to be said] but they won’t understand anything.
Let’s face it we went through a period of endless images of trains steaming through the night to suggest that the next images came from a different location, and many calendars with the date peeling off and fluttering away in the wind to suggest that the next images were in the future. It took us a while to learn the language – and we’re becoming more adept as directors push the language further.
Before film and photography and television we could read a lot about a picture, we knew a language we have since forgotten. Quite apart from hidden metaphors in paintings, there were at times strict codes in practice. Wealthy people in the 18th Century had pictures of The Poor on their walls to show that they cared. The Poor were distinguished by the fact that their mouths were open. Wealthy people had their mouths shut in paintings.
People sometimes write to me some months after buying a picture saying how much they are enjoying it and that it looks different all the time, and they keep seeing new aspects of the picture. Well that’s the difference between a good painting and a High Street print. The High Street print my have an initial Wow Factor, but there is no depth to seek out, what you see is what you get, no more.
The same can be said of all the arts, music and writing especially. When the creator has something to say and a good command of the language, the depth of the work is accessible. We retain the ability to interpret music and writing in a way we have lost when looking at a painting, which is a shame really.
Posted by john at August 22, 2006 09:20 AM