Monday, July 9, 2012

Pictures

I've been thinking about pictures a lot recently, partly because I saw a lot of pictures on vacation that I wished I knew more about, and partly because I've been thinking about metaphors, secondary sense, and pictures in language. If I insist on using the word 'brown' to describe a voice, or 'yellow' to describe a vowel, then why do I want this word here? Because of its meaning, we might say, but not really because of its use in the language, or its normal use. Isn't it more because I want to evoke a certain picture, to sound a certain note on the keyboard of the imagination? The words 'brown' and 'yellow' don't usually work like this. They don't mean what they mean by popping the lid off a mental paint can labeled 'brown' or 'yellow' as Descartes (roughly speaking) thought. Meanings ain't in the head, and if when Madonna sang that "cherish is the word I use to remind me of your love" she meant to imply that language generally works by summoning up private memories and associations then she is wrong.

But it is something along these lines that people seem to be doing when they use 'yellow'  in songs like "Yellow" by Coldplay or "Bright As Yellow" by the Innocence Mission. They want the listener to picture the color yellow in her mind as she hears, and to understand what is said in light of this (which means something like side-by-side with this image). Maybe that's not quite right. But some association is being used or counted on, and the association with 'yellow' (not a very complicated metaphor) is surely likely to be something like an after-image or vague thoughts of lemons and sunshine. It's almost as if the kind of philosophy of language that Wittgenstein rejects is true of metaphorical language. (Or: when I try to philosophize about language on my own I repeat the mistakes of philosophers who have not learned from Wittgenstein. I'm not sure. The way to work this out is to go in deeper.)

Because of this interest in pictures I'm reading Gombrich's The Story of Art. He writes:
Everyone knows that Egypt is the land of the pyramids, those mountains of stone which stand like weathered landmarks on the distant horizon of history. However remote and mysterious they seem, they tell us much of their own story. They tell us of a land which was so thoroughly organized that it was possible to pile up these gigantic mounds in the lifetime of a single king, and they tell us of kings who were so rich and powerful that they could force thousands and thousands of workers or slaves to toil for them year in, year out, to quarry the stones, to drag them to the building site, and to shift them with the most primitive means until the tomb was ready to receive the king. No king, and no people would have gone to such expense, and taken so much trouble, for the creation of a mere monument. In fact, we know that the pyramids had their practical importance in the eyes of the kings and their subjects. The king was considered a divine being who held sway over them, and on his departure from this earth he would again ascend to the gods whence he had come. The pyramids soaring up to the sky would probably help him to make his ascent.
This strikes me as both true and false. It is true that "No king, and no people would have gone to such expense, and taken so much trouble, for the creation of a mere monument." But medieval cathedrals, Stonehenge, and the pyramids all suggest that it is perhaps only for monuments that people will go to such trouble. If asked why, they might be likely to offer the kind of practical purpose that Gombrich describes. For the sake of eternal life it makes sense to work hard before we die. And yet people don't readily give up smoking or eat more healthily or exercise more for the sake of longer life. And this is despite evidence that doing so will help, which is quite lacking in the case of the belief that "pyramids soaring up to the sky would probably help him to make his ascent" (even if 'probably' is not part of their belief but is rather Gombrich's judgment on the plausibility of his hypothesis). 


People will make incredible sacrifices and efforts for religious purposes that they will not make for secular purposes, even if they think of the two as being the same. It isn't what they think, in other words, that really matters. The difference shows up in what they do. This might be guided by pictures. Perhaps it has to be, perhaps it would never work without some pictures, and these might have to be of a particular kind. But it is the effect of these pictures, or the use to which they are put, that really matters, not the pictures themselves (e.g. pictures of living on after death). It seems to be important that the pictures are not thought about too much, are not investigated. They might need to be thought about in the sense of being kept in mind, but wondering about cause and effect (as in Fyodor Karamazov's wondering about the hooks in hell) will tend to undermine their efficacy. 


Monuments are objects that we literally live by (i.e. near to), and they are, presumably, meant to influence how we live as well. So they function like pictures or metaphors. We live, if not in their light, then in their shadow. They also express beliefs or attitudes. (At least monuments like ancient pyramids do. Others might express nothing but a desire to build something large or monumental.) But this expression is not statement. There's a difference between crying and saying "I am sad." I think it's easy to misinterpret expressions if we take them as instruments (even though they might be instrumental in some ways). But they aren't (always) just expressions either. They can be intelligible, articulate. 


I don't know whether I've got this right or said anything new, but this is probably long enough for a blog post in which I'm really just thinking out loud. Please feel free, as ever, to correct any errors.


4 comments:

  1. I'm not sure that colours are being used in songs metaphorically. There might be something in what you mean by the word, but I think it's the wrong word, at least in some of the cases which you seem to have in mind ("Yellow") – if not perhaps in others ("Bright As Yellow").

    You write that "the association with 'yellow' [...] is surely likely to be something like an after-image or vague thoughts of lemons and sunshine". But I think it's important that in the music video for "Yellow", which would seem like an excellent opportunity to give an ostensive definition of the visual image of yellow which the listener is supposedly intended to have in mind – or even indicate the exact shade of yellow – there is in fact no yellow at all. (Except for a split second at the very end, which seems to me more like a subtle dig at the very idea that a song "about" yellow is best accompanied by visual images of yellow.)

    I was reminded of Wittgenstein's discussion of religious pictures at the end of the lectures on religious belief. D. Z. Phillips was fond of saying in this context that religious pictures just "say themselves" and that is the long and short of it. It took me some time to get used to this idea, but I have taken a liking to it more recently. It has also been suggested in aesthetics that genre pictures say themselves in a similar way: that Bruegel's Wedding Dance says "wedding dance", or so to say. Why cannot a poetic image say itself in the same way? You yourself go on to write later in this post about religious imagery: "It seems to be important that the pictures are not thought about too much, are not investigated." Maybe this applies to some poetic images as well.

    And how about instrumental music with a title referring to a colour? Take one of my own favourites, Jimmy Nicol's "Roaring Blue". In PI II, xi, Wittgenstein discusses the description of something as "a plaintive melody" and whether the listener "hears the plaint". I think we can hear the roar in "Roaring Blue", but do we also hear the blueness? And if we do hear it, then do we hear it in the same sense as the roar or a different sense?

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  2. Thanks, Tommi.

    I wondered about "Yellow," and it might be a bad example. What I had in mind was that the song uses the colour almost as a brand, or at least in a way that is somewhat like the way companies use logos and indeed colours to create an image for themselves. The song, I thought, uses the colour as an image, though not really an image of this or that. It just calls the image to mind. Using the colour in the video might have been regarded as too obvious. But I admit I'm not sure about this example.

    "Bright as Yellow" is more clearly metaphorical, with its talk of being "warm as yellow". Yellow is not literally warm. And a person could not easily be bright as yellow in a literal way (not without paint, that is).

    I'm moving, I think, in the opposite direction to the journey you describe yourself as having taken. I used to like the idea that pictures might just say themselves. In some ways I still do, as you point out. But it is possible to say something about what and how pictures say what they say. The artist can think about what to do or not do, and criticism is possible too.

    It's a mistake, at least sometimes, to ask what this or that element of a poem or painting means, as if everything were a symbol (the skull represents death, Godot is God, etc.). But if we refuse to say anything but "it says what it says" then there doesn't seem to be room for judgment (other than boo or hurray). And that seems false.

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  3. But if we refuse to say anything but "it says what it says" then there doesn't seem to be room for judgment (other than boo or hurray). And that seems false.

    I think I see where you're coming from here, but I still find it hard to share the fear that if art is viewed as "saying itself" (in the sense of not being analogous to, say, language), then all that will remain are boos and hoorays. I would argue that reality itself "says itself" in the same sense, but of course nobody views that as confining judgements on reality to mere boos and hoorays. I'm reminded of Metternich who, on hearing that Talleyrand had died, asked: "What does he mean by that?" To me, "What does Coldplay's 'Yellow' mean by yellow?" is a funny (peculiar) question in the same sense as this is a funny (ha-ha) joke, and for essentially the same reason.

    But it is possible to say something about what and how pictures say what they say. The artist can think about what to do or not do, and criticism is possible too.

    Wittgenstein in the lectures on aesthetics (I, §8): "It is remarkable that in real life, when aesthetic judgements are made, aesthetic adjectives such as 'beautiful', 'fine', etc., play hardly any role at all. Are aesthetic adjectives used in a musical criticism? You say: 'Look at this transition' or 'The passage here is incoherent'. Or you say, in a poetical criticism, 'His use of images is precise'. The words you use are more akin to 'right' and 'correct' (as these words are used in ordinary speech) than to 'beautiful' and 'lovely'."

    What is true of "beautiful" and "lovely" is also largely true of "meaning X" and "meaning Y". Cases can be pointed out which seem to call for discussion of meanings, but there are also equally rare cases which call for the use of "beautiful" and "lovely". The more general point still stands, I think. Most aesthetic judgements are judgements of correctness and incorrectness, not of meaning or meaninglessness.

    In the fourth lecture on aesthetics, Wittgenstein speaks at length on the implications for aesthetics of "meanings' not being in the head". He even says: "'The sense of a proposition' is very similar to the business of 'an appreciation of art'." So he would seemingly have denied your suggestion – interesting though it is – that "the kind of philosophy of language that [he] rejects is true of metaphorical language". The meaning of a work of art is not in the head any more than the meaning of a word.

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  4. I still find it hard to share the fear that if art is viewed as "saying itself" (in the sense of not being analogous to, say, language), then all that will remain are boos and hoorays. I would argue that reality itself "says itself" in the same sense, but of course nobody views that as confining judgements on reality to mere boos and hoorays.

    Fair enough. I certainly don't want to say that paintings and music are language. On the other hand, there isn't a clear border between language and everything else. A toilet door can say "Men" or show a picture of a man. The meaning is the same. And it is surely possible to see some analogy between art and language. The photographer Francesca Woodman said that in her work she "was inventing a language for people to see." Is she not allowed to say that? Is she necessarily wrong to say it? I don't see why. When art uses language, as in poetry and song, then the words used usually matter. Fregean colour might matter more and Bedeutungen less, but I doubt we can say in advance what matters and what doesn't. "What does 'yellow' mean in 'Yellow'?" sounds like a stupid question, I agree. But "What is the use of 'yellow' in 'Yellow'?" sounds much more reasonable. It's a bit like "How is the idea of yellow used in the song?" The only objection I might raise to that question would be on the grounds that the song isn't complicated enough for such an investigation to be worthwhile. In general questions like that, questions about the use of imagery (or metaphor), seem perfectly reasonable. And questions about uses of language surely have to do with questions about meaning. (Although here I have a feeling I might have strayed from your point, and perhaps from my original point too.)

    Most aesthetic judgements are judgements of correctness and incorrectness, not of meaning or meaninglessness.

    This could be true. Mostly I want to allow for the possibility that sometimes it is reasonable to ask questions about meaning, or about what role some element is meant to play, what its point is, what it is doing or meant to do.

    The meaning of a work of art is not in the head any more than the meaning of a word.

    I agree. But art generally calls for a subjective reaction, and cannot be understood without an appreciation of this fact. My English teacher in high school criticized George Crabbe for using the words "and never touched a drop" in his long poem about Peter Grimes. These words call to mind avoidance of alcohol but that is not what Crabbe is talking about. So he made a bad choice of words. The subjective reaction and psychological associations of the typical audience matter, and a good artist will be able to manipulate these or to produce the ones she wants and not others. It's not so much that the meaning of the work of art (if it has one) is in anyone's head, as that the point of a work of art, unlike the point of some other uses of language, is not to communicate information or to bring about (directly) change in the world but to generate a psychological (emotional, intellectual) response.

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