Can Art Transcend Words?

by Q Ideas

Known for her unique ability to breath new life into common landscapes, Georgia O’Keefe stands as an icon for twentieth-century American art. Rocks, trees, and flowers transcended their earthly existed when O’Keefe birthed them onto canvas. She once famously remarked, “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.”

Art has a way of transcending words, doesn’t it? Through painting, Pablo Picasso was able to defy logic, Salvador Dali was able to defy reality, and Vincent van Gogh was able to defy emotion. Art has an ability to say things we can't because it engages the senses. While statistics might engage your head, art can aesthetically access our sensibilities.

This truth was recently underscored by the Haiti Poster Project, described as “a collaboration of artists and designers from around the world, benefiting victims of the earthquake in Haiti.” Artists were asked to design posters that spoke to the plight of this suffering country, and proceeds from sales of these limited edition works directly benefit Haiti relief efforts through Doctors Without Borders.

More than a mechanism for raising funds, such a project seems to have an added benefit of instructing us about the power of artistic media. An artist attempts to express something that can only be experienced through the world he or she creates. Similarly, the Haiti Poster Project connects us with the suffering and needs of a devastated people in ways a breaking news report on CNN never can. As Aristotle noted, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”

[For another art project that attempt to communicate inward significance, see Jane Fulton’s “Crude Awakening” series inspired by the Gulf oil spill.]

Some see art as a fringe career or useless hobby with little benefit to culture. But a project like this says otherwise. Art adds another layer to life that speaks to the masses like words do, but in a different dialect. As the Haiti Poster Project demonstrates, an artist is more than a hobbyist. The artist possesses power to raise awareness and unleash social change by saying things that can’t be said any other way.

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What are your impressions of the works found through the links above? Do you see art as more of a hobby or an important cultural medium?

Comments

Chip Cain

It's been a while since I have struggled with a Q idea, but this one I have some difficulty with. But first I want to make it clear to anyone that reads these comments that I believe we should support the Haitian people in every way that God calls each of us to help. But it should not be because of contrived posters and what feels like a quickly contrived blog post.

Yes art can transcend and yes Picasso, Dali, and Van Gogh were able to transcend but without explanation of their works you imply, perhaps unintentionally, that logic, reality and emotion were made better than they are by the works these artist created. Not so, in fact Picasso's and Dali's works transcended the political nature of much of their work because they used very unreal perspectives to share ideas about very real concerns they had. Some would argue that to Transcend means just that, but I believe their art transcended the very specific thoughts they were trying to convey. Picasso's Guernica which was a response to the bombing of Guernica (also note it was commissioned) and yet today few who see it think of it as anything but a commentary on the tragedies of all wars. That is transcendence. All three of these artist transcend because they evoke something in many people over many many years.

To fully understand the point I want to make you need to view all of the posters in the link. Not just the thumbnails but the whole of them each as the whole poster. I do not see art, nor do I see anything that transcends. What I see is some cleaver graphics, that occasionally rise above the cute. There were two that made me stop for more than a moment. Jon Allison's 'Hope' was graphically simple enough to take in in in a moments glance and yet say what he wanted. But I would not call it art or something that transcends. The other poster that stopped my steady rhythmic flow through the pile was Nicholas J Nawroth's 'Help Haiti'. His was the only poster that seemed to transcend from graphic to art.

So what am I saying? I am saying that I am disappointed that we have simplified our society so far as to require cheap effects to affect our social responsibilities. It is not enough that God has called us to care for the orphans and widows, and by implication the fathers who have lost child and spouse? Do we need posters at all? Please don't misunderstand me I think some of the posters are graphically good but do not share the grief the Haitian people do. They do not transcend any more than this blog post does.

In the case of this blog, I would wish the writer had taken more time. It feels like two websites were found, one the posters and the other Jane Fulton's 'Crude Awakenings' and so an idea was needed to bring them together. I'm sorry to say that the only real similarity the posters have with 'Crude Awakenings' is that they seem contrived. Jane has work that approaches something more (see here 'Katrina' photos found on the same website) but 'Crude Awakenings' isn't it. Like the posters they seem sterile. Note the beaches, not a drop of oil on them. Her 'Katrina' photos are dirty with the tragedy they portray, but 'Crude Awakenings' are only smudged with political statements. There is no compelling heartache. Political statements are ok but they don't transcend unless they are something more real. Remember Guernica?

If anyone is still reading this please give to Doctors Without Borders, or to a mission group you know already working there. Or perhaps you can support a mission team from your church either with financial aid or your own two hands. But do you need simplistic graphics and blog comments to do this.

I have almost always appreciated the comments from the writers shared with us here but this time the idea of helping Doctors Without Borders is more than this blog has accomplished.

Chip Cain

Now to answer the question "Do you see art as more of a hobby or an important cultural medium?".

I don't want to belabor the point but the question seems shallow. Why not both? and how many would disagree that it can be both. Perhaps i'll be surprised and find deeper answers that the question.

Mark Goode

@ Chip - I'm not sure that this post was contrived but I do feel the author(s) missed an opportunity to ask two important questions about art. In fact, they skirted close to those questions with the quote from Georgia O'Keefe (“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.”) but then passed it by . . .

So, here are the questions:

1) Can the arts (visual, aural, choreographed, etc.) communicate things that words cannot?

2) Can and/or do some works of art communicate things that God cannot . . . through the use of words?

Language plays a central role in our human culture and the written word plays a particularly important role in evangelicalism. Though many have translated the Greek word "logos" to mean "word", many easily confuse this (some would argue) poor translation with the concept of language (words). Evangelicals elevate words to the status of Word (logos) while simultaneously placing great emphasis on spoken or written words (language) as being either the best or the principle means of learning God's truth. I believe this is a mistake.

Written language relies on the use of graphical symbols to convey meaning. We speak with our mouth and ears but we read with our eyes. Unlike many other kinds of symbols, written words have specific meanings. This meaning is conveyed both grammatically and contextually. Whenever we write or read, we are attempting to exchange meaning through the use of graphical symbols.

The meaning that is conveyed by words is often limiting and we can sometimes fail in our attempt to convey the full meaning in our mind or heart. That, I believe, is the point Ms. O'Keefe was making: “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.” We've all seen beautiful sunsets and if we either Tweet or Facebook about that moment, how to do we describe that beauty? We can reach for metaphors (the sky was as red as blood), we can try to describe our emotions (I felt like I was witnessing creation) . . . but words alone fall short. How much better a painting, a photograph, or even a video accompanied by music can communicate what we experienced!

So, to my first question, I respond: the arts are often a far more effective medium for communicating ideas, thoughts, feelings, and experiences than words alone. Such is the beauty of our brains and mind . . . that we have so many senses in which to experience life.

But, to the second question: Can and/or do some works of art communicate things that God cannot . . . through the use of words?

Imagine for a moment if Moses had been a painter. How would he have painted creation? Like Michelangelo on the Sistine Chapel? What if David had recorded the music that accompanied his poetry, the psalms? Would these songs be as gentle as a James Taylor ballad or as majestic as Rachmaninoff? Or both? And what if Jesus' life had been filmed by Oliver Stone or been the subject of a play by William Shakespeare? And if the prophet Jeremiah had been a sculptor like Auguste Rodin, how would he have portrayed his moments of deep despair?

So, to the authors of this blog who ask if art is a hobby or more important cultural medium, I would ask: have you limited your ability to hear God's truth by insisting that the only things that God has to say are communicated by means of a written word?

If so, I am sorry for your loss.

Chip Cain

Mark, Well said.

Jeff Nelson

If words were a sailing ship art is a submarine.

One of the things I have learned by working with the elderly, more specifically those afflicted by Alzheimers is that as their brain deteriorates and the place where words are stored are no longer functioning, there is a different place in their brain where music is stored that is still active, they may not be able to make any sense with putting a sentence together but can sing like a bird. Art no doubt reaches deeper depths, and like a parable we each can derive something unique and personal from it.

dthaase

for the sake of conversation - what if one says it is neither a hobby or an important cultural medium. What if we threw in the term vocation...what if art was experienced as a vocation (and I am not referring to how one makes money) - rather the true concept of an amateur - i.e. one who does it for the love of it...what if instead we talked about it as an expression of being created beings who are created to create and the activity itself is worship...I think one could concluded this transcends words...

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