Not infrequently people commenting on my painting have remarked that viewers of it experience a difficulty because a great deal of it addresses private concerns, and has to do with symbols and associations that might have a rather personal meaning. I have to plead guilty to that, although I hope that with a little thought it might be possible for the viewer to work out what I am getting at. This is particularly the case in that, where I do engage with symbolic images, these are typically available in general culture, even where I might give a personal twist to them. I was sitting in the garden this afternoon, enjoying a coffee in the current spell of fine weather, when it occurred to me that the occupation of artists exclusively with images that make sense at the level of public discourse might not always be a good thing.
I was reflecting on the piece I have just started, in my current series of images dealing with the theme of creation and creativity, in which I am intending to quote from an image by William Blake. The plans I have for my own picture revolve around poetry and the word as a means of creativity. The link with Blake, in that respect, will be reasonably transparent, as will a nod in the direction of William Wordsworth. The reason for the use of a friend as a model for “the poet” will be less clear, and although it is not so obscure as to defy interpretation it will demand some thought. The intended image will combine public and private significances.
While I was thinking about these things the current exhibition at the Patchings Centre (in which I have a piece of work) came to mind, and in particular my abiding sense of disappointment at the work offered there. There appeared to be little if anything to suggest any deep personal level of engagement by the artists, and any attempt to find their own individual visual vocabularies. Far too many of the entries fell within what I regret to call the realm of visual cliche. Landscapes were too often incapable of taking the viewer beyond the picturesque. In many of the works on view the “public” context within which they could be placed was that of their technical competence (usually very high) without engaging the viewer in a search for meaning.
Before retiring from university teaching I was a member of an inter-disciplinary group, the largest number of which were philosophers. Consequently I began to develop an interest in the work of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. One of the insights for which he has become recognised is his insistence that there is no possibility of a “private language”. By definition anything that qualifies as a “language” can only merit that description by functioning within a community of users. I think that his comment is relevant also to the visual arts.
Any artist qualifies for that description by producing work that communicates expression and insight within a given community. It has to be “readable” at some level within a realm of public discourse. The wonderful thing about language, however, is precisely its open-ended character. It is possible to go on generating new sentences within the language indefinitely, and to use it to formulate entirely novel ideas and to convey unique personal experiences. Painting has to exist in that “suspended” state between a public “vocabulary” and private expressive content. At one level I am sorry if my work does not immediately convey its intention to viewers. I don’t work within a “private language” of painting, however, and with a pause for enquiry and reflection I hope that it is possible to “read” it as belonging within our common culture.