Communication Through Art

Nature Forms Gasp. Georgia O'Keeffe.

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.
-Georgia O'Keeffe

In the final chapter of Grace and Necessity, Rowan Williams briefly touches on a subject which caught my attention. He discusses the how the reality of the world, and human perception of it, is fleeting and temporary. The human mind, in all its complexity, goes through a process of generation. This is not to say that the brain creates something from nothing, but rather that it communicates through a continuous reflection, which is reworked and shaped over time. Our interpretations are subject to constant reinterpretation. In the midst of this constant cycle of perception, interpretation, and reinterpretation, how can the truth be found?

Williams says that truth can be found in the sum of our lives and individual perceptions, stating:

“But truthfulness unfolds - it does not happen at once - and makes possible different levels of appropriating or sharing the activity that is the world. Basic to all this is - though it is not quite the conclusion that Hofstadter himself would want to arrive at - a sense of the real as active rather than static, a mobile pattern whose best analogy is indeed musical, not mechanical.”

Blue Nude. Pablo Picasso.

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all
over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap
of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.
-Pablo Picasso

Therefore, our perceptions and understanding are a dynamic and constant occurrence. From this comes truth. Truth is discovered through interpersonal sharing and communicating. We draw on our experiences, our past, our knowledge, and through our collective understanding we can arrive at truth. While Hofstadter might not want to conclude that the real is active rather than static, he does conclude that communication is best executed when it includes a personal narrative. In his book I Am A Strange Loop, he writes,

“And one of my firmest conclusions is that we always think by seeking and drawing parallels to things we know from our past, and that we therefore communicate best when we exploit examples, analogies, and metaphors galore, when we avoid abstract generalities, when we use very down-to-earth, concrete, and simple language, and when we talk directly about our own experience.” 

We can conclude that communication is an extremely important component of understanding reality and truth. But what does this mean for the visual arts? Art, at its core, is a form of communication. While Williams and Hofstadter discuss the expression of perception and truth in terms of language, art presents an entirely new medium through which to communicate. Our language, with its limited vocabulary, reduces our understanding to symbols. We are limited by our words so that which is conveyed through speech could be interpreted in a thousand different ways. Our language can fail us, especially in our quest for truth. The visual can capture things which words fail to convey, and perhaps aid the journey. Art is a instrument through which the artist has a way to express truth in a plane bound only by the laws of the physical, with a myriad of solutions. Our truth, our perception, should not be confined to ourselves - it demands to be expressed. 

"Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in." -Amy Lowell

30 sec. Figure Study. Kirsten Hallenbeck.

 Some of my own artistic expression/perception. 

Completed at a Hipbone Studio live drawing session.

Sources
Grace and Necessity by Rowan Williams
I Am A Strange Loop by Hofstadter
Picasso On Art: A Selection of Views from Da Capo Press