7/28/2019 Artistic Convention http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/artistic-convention 1/9 Artistic Convention and the Issue of Truth in Art Author(s): Ernest C. Marshall Source: Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 69-76 Published by: University of Illinois Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3332764 . Accessed: 22/06/2013 20:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . University of Illinois Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Aesthetic Education. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 168.176.162.35 on Sat, 22 Jun 2013 20:00:37 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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Artistic Convention and the Issue of Truth in ArtAuthor(s): Ernest C. MarshallSource: Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 69-76Published by: University of Illinois Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3332764 .
Accessed: 22/06/2013 20:00
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
University of Illinois Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of
Aesthetic Education.
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This article addresses the issue of truth in the arts, i.e., whether, and in what
sense, works of art, or certain works of art, can be said to express somethingeither true or false. What I offer here is a partial defense of the view that at
least some works of art are (or contain, convey, etc., something which is)
either true or false, or what I shall simply call the "truth-in-art view." I
speak of a partial defense as being offered because due to the scope of the
topic I confine my discussion to criticism of part of a common argument
against the truth-in-art view. This argument runs something as follows:
Something can be said to be either true or false only if it can be said to have
meaning and, more specifically, meaning that is referential in kind rather
than, for example, emotive. Something can be said to have such meaningonly if conventions obtain that give it a fairly definite reference. No such
conventions obtain for works of art. Therefore, works of art cannot be said
to be either true or false.1
The portion of this argument I shall criticize in what follows is its third
premise: that works of art are not governed by conventions (of the requisite
kind).2 I shall argue that conventions do obtain in art such that at lest some
works of art refer to things in the world in ways quite analogous to the
ways in which many sentences do. If this can be shown, I believe that the
main obstacle to a truth-in-art view is removed (although the space of thisarticle does not allow me to complete such an argument, nor to address
such related issues as that of the aesthetic value of truth in art). My discus-
sion will be confined to a consideration of painting. Also, my consideration
of genres, styles, movements, and so forth, in painting is not intended to be
completely comprehensive. I believe it to be sufficient for a truth-in-art view
that is both controversial and nontrivial to maintain that some, and not nec-
essarily all, works of art are either true or false.
ErnestC. Marshall s an associate professor in the Philosophy Department, EastCarolinaUniversity.His most recentwork has appeared n Selected roceedingsf theFirst InternationalConferenceon Argumentation and American PhilosophicalAssociationNewsletter on PhilosophyandMedicine.
JournalofAestheticEducation,Vol. 23, No. 3, Fall 1989
?1989 Boardof Trusteesof theUniversityof Illinois
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Let me begin with a point that several critics of the truth-in-art view
seem to think decisive,3 viz., that even the most realistic (naturalistic) of
paintings, however much they resemble what they depict (a human figure,
arrangements of objects, natural landscape, etc.), do not by that resem-
blance alone represent, refer to, or "mean" something in the world. With
this I quite agree. The point here can perhaps be brought out in the follow-
ing way. Walking on the beach I come across a piece of driftwood the shapeof which happens to resemble closely that of a bird. However uncanny the
degree of likeness, the piece of driftwood cannot properly be said to repre-sent or refer to a bird (it is "like a bird" but not "of a bird"). Something else
isrequired,
and this isessentially
the convention of"reading"
resemblance
as representation that obtains in the Western pictorial tradition of art but
not with respect to driftwood and other natural or nonartifactual objects.4
(One ready indication of the difference between resemblance and represen-tation is that the former relation is symmetrical and the latter asymmetrical.A realistic painting of a bird resembles a bird, and a bird in turn resembles
it; but the bird does not represent the painting, as the painting does the
bird.)
Thus the convention of "viewing painting as a representation of.. ." is
necessaryto its
referringfunction.
Generally speaking,and at least for those
genres and styles of painting that are representational, as (perhaps) op-
posed to, for example, styles that are purely formalistic or abstractly expres-
sive, these three points seem to obtain. First of all, there is both some degreeof resemblance between the painting and some object (scene, event, etc.)
and some convention or conventions concerning how we are to view the
painting. Secondly, both the resemblance and the conventions are necessaryfor the painting to be a representation of some object. And thirdly, there is a
mutual relationship here between the resemblance and the conventions
such that one must notonly complement
the other butcompensate
for a
relative lack of the other. Accordingly, the more realistic the painting is (i.e.,the greater the degree of resemblance between it and what it represents),the less is required in the way of accompanying conventions (the single
general convention of viewing-as-a-representation-of perhaps being suffi-
cient); and, on the other hand, the less realistic the painting is, the more that
is needed of accompanying conventions. (This relation is analogous to an
inverse proportion, e.g., that between the pressure and volume of a gas,
though I do not pretend that it can be stated with the precision of an al-
gebraic formula.)As an illustration of the
former,where the
degreeof
resemblance between the painting and what it represents is high, some-
thing like seventeenth-century Dutch still life painting comes to mind. But
an example which makes the point in an even more telling way (than does
naturalism or realism) might be the Surrealist paintings of Salvador Dali.
Because these paintings are usually so realistically rendered in several cru-
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cial respects (visual accuracy of the draftmanship, local color, carefullydelineated linear and aerial perspective, etc.), one normally finds it almost
impossible not to view them as representations of objects and scenes in the
world, despite the fact that they do not depict the world at all as it is. This
of course has much to do with their rather paradoxical and unsettling effect
(and also with the theories that lie in the background of Surrealism).5 The
case of painting (or sculpture), where the degree of resemblance is low yetthe work refers to something in the world, is illustrated in a number of
ways by much art in our century; but consider, for example, Picasso's Bull's
Head (fashioned from a bicycle seat and handlebars) or Robert Mallary's In
Flight (a painted and mounted piece of driftwood). Here the resemblance
between the works and the head of a bull and a bird, airplane, or other
flying object is somewhat remote, the latter being more so (and its title ap-
propriately being less specifically descriptive). Here the convention of giv-
ing a descriptive title to the work, for example, supplements the more
general convention of being-a-representation-of so as to make the repre-sentation successful.
Thus far it might seem that the role of conventions in painting as they
pertain to their capacity to refer to things in the world is rather "thin." I
should like to "thicken" itup
some, so tospeak, by discussing
some further
conventional elements of artistic representation. Many of these conventions
are easily overlooked because of the nature of a convention as somethingwe habitually apply without normally being conscious of the convention as
such (thus perhaps regarding certain conventional features of painting as
naturally resembling features of the world), and because of the mutual rela-
tionship between conventional and natural (e.g., resemblance) elements in
painting discussed above (and about which I shall say more presently).Thus I propose the following criteria for identifying where conventions are
at work, and to facilitatemy
statement of thesecriteria,
I shall use the term
"symbol" for anything (be it word, visual configuration, etc.) that refers to
(is of, represents) something else: (1) the indeterminacy criterion: one does
not spontaneously or "naturally" recognize what the symbol represents;and (2) the substitutability criterion: some different symbol or symbols
might also serve to represent the thing in question. Thus, for example, for
most of the words in the English language their meaning is strongly, if not
also entirely, conventional, since one cannot identify their referent merelyfrom being acquainted with the word (i.e., without also having learned
their conventionalmeaning)
and since some different word would do as
well to refer to the same thing as long as the convention designates the
same referent (as in the case of English synonyms and words in other lan-
guages with the same referent).
Let us apply these criteria to painting, beginning with the first, the in-
determinacy criterion. Anthropologists have discovered that people of non-
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The Egyptian might criticize the perspective drawing as follows:"This picture is all wrong and very confusing! The shape of the pondis distorted. It is an irregular quadrilateral rather than a square. Inreality the trees surround the pond symmetrically and meet the
ground at a right angle. Also, they are all of equal size. In the picturesome of the trees are in the water, some outside. Some meet the
ground perpendicularly, others obliquely; and some of them are tallerthan others." If the Western retorted that the Egyptian's own pondwas acceptable only as an airplane view and that all trees were lyingflat on the ground, the Egyptian would find this impossible to seeand hard to understand.
The above argument, I believe, makes the case for the importance of con-
ventions to representation in art. Yet several things should be noted about
the differences between artistic and linguistic conventions, differences
which tend to obscure the fact that there are artistic conventions for repre-sentation and that they function so as to refer to things in the world much
as do words and propositional sentences. There is, for example, the
following. To know what a word refers to or denotes, we must know the
convention governing the use of that particular word. If that particularword happens to be absent from my vocabulary, I cannot recognize its
referent. To take a simple example, knowing the referent of the word "cat"
is no help at all in recognizing the referent for the word "dog." On the other
hand, if I can recognize a representation of a cat (done in a certain artistic
style), my understanding of the conventions involved are sufficient to
enable me to recognize (in the same style) a representation of a dog. There
are conventions I must understand in order to recognize the referents of
painted shapes on canvas (such as the convention of representing the con-
tour of three-dimensional volumes by a line enclosing a colored area on the
painting surface), but these conventions carry over, so to speak, from one
representation to another and do not have to be learned anew for each.
I do not have the space here to extend my claim regarding conventions
and references in art as I would like. I would like, for example, to thicken
my thesis, so to speak, by pointing out with respect to different genres in
painting how representational works cannot merely refer to things in the
world, but also describe a scene, report an event, tell an anecdote, presentsocial criticism or satire or political propaganda, narrate a story, and so
forth. (Commemorative painting such as Gros's Napoleanat Eylau, the social
satire of Hogarth or Daumier, the revolutionary, and later reactionary,
propagandaof David.) But before
concludingthis section I feel it is almost
imperative that to say at least something about certain nonrepresentationaltrends in recent art. I confine my points here to only two.
First of all, despite the large influence of formalist theories in contem-
porary art and aesthetics (stemming from Bell, Fry, Hanslick, and others)
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and the disclaimers by artists that it has encouraged, much so-called ab-
stract or nonfigurative art is
representational
to a significant degree. The
resemblances between painted image and things in the world is often onlyindirect or attenuated (as where the subject is simplified or "abstracted" or
visually distorted). Accordingly, the abstract painter Piet Mondrian has said
of his work:
Impressed by the vastness of nature, I was trying to express its expan-sion, rest, and unity. At the same time I was fully aware that thevisible expansion of nature is at the same time its limitation; verticaland horizontal lines are the expression of two opposing forces; theseexist everywhere and dominate everything; their reciprocal action
constitutes "life."8
The abstract sculptor Constantine Brancusi similarly says: "They are imbe-
ciles who call my work abstract; that which they call abstract is the most
realist, because what is real is not the exterior form but the idea, the essence
of things."9It is useful to remind ourselves here of my point early in this article that
representation is distinct from resemblance. (Some degree of resemblance is
a necessary condition for representation, but representation does not rely
completely upon it.) Thus "abstract art" is by no means synonymous with"nonrepresentational art."
My second point concerning so-called nonrepresentational contem-
porary art is this. Even where no resemblance between painted image and
object is intended or discernible to the viewer, given the force of the conven-
tion of representation in art the work functions against the background, so
to speak, of this convention. Thus the avant-garde artist may deliberately
disappoint the customary expectation that the work be a representation of
something. There are several ways in which this is done, but the more inter-
esting case is the one where the artist does so not by creating a work thatresembles nothing in the world, but where he or she presents us with an ob-
ject or objects from the world rather than its representation, as for examplein the case of Marcel Duchamp's Fountain or Robert Rauschenberg's
Monogram. The effect of novelty, surprise, and puzzlement produced bysuch works relies upon the convention of representation being the prev-alent convention. (The effect produced and how it relies upon the conven-
tions it violates runs parallel to the use of words to produce irony, paradox,or sarcasm.) The art critic Clement Greenberg makes this point in an inter-
esting way. He says in effect that as avant-garde art becomes the prevalentart it loses its effectiveness: "Where everything is advanced nothing is;
when everybody is a revolutionary the revolution is over."10 In other
words, and as it pertains to what I am maintaining, the more common such
avant-garde art becomes, the more it will undermine the traditional conven-
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tions of representation and thus the less effective it will be because of its de-
pendence
on those conventions.
There is a general conclusion I wish to draw from my above discussion
of conventions as these pertain to artistic representation; it is the following.At least some works of art refer to things in the world by means of both
natural resemblance and conventional usage. In other words, at least some
works of art are in part natural symbol and in part conventional symbol,and in such a way that each of these elements supplements and supportsthe other to produce the reference-making function of the work. This I
believe to be a fruitful approach to the analysis of questions pertaining to
the issue of truth in the arts as it carries over to the arts other thanpainting,which I regret lacking the space to develop here (e.g., how the interplay be-
tween the conventional meaning of words and the resemblance between the
referent according to that meaning and the intended figurative referent
produces the figurative reference in various uses of figurative language in
literature, such as metaphor and simile). But within the scope of this article
I hope that I have done at least this much: to show that various conventions
are present in at least some art that contribute to identifying the referent or
referents of the work and in conjunction with resemblance between features
of the work and referent are often sufficient toidentifying
thereferent,
and
thus that at least one of the common arguments against the truth-in-art
view is inadequate.
NOTES
1. Amongthose who arguein this or a similarway areKingsleyPrice n "IsThereArtistic Truth?" Journalof Philosophy46 (1949); John Hospers, in Meaning andTruth n theArts(ChapelHill:Universityof North CarolinaPress,1946),chap.5;and I. A. Richards,n Science ndPoetry London:K.Paul,Trench,Trubner, nd
Co.,1926).2. There are variousconventions n art thatI am not concernedwith here(except
insofar as they mightbe utilized for purposesof representation f things in lifeand nature),suchas variouscompositionalschemesin painting(e.g.,the use of
pyramidalcomposition n much Renaissancepainting),musical forms(sonata,fugue,etc.),andversepatterns n poetry(sonnet,villanelle,blankverse,etc.).
3. Forexample,Price n "IsThereArtisticTruth?"eems to thinkso.4. The distinctiondrawnhere raises variousquestionsregardingso-called "found
art" into which I will not venture,except to say that there is a significantdif-ferencebetween a piece of driftwoodI find and only pause to admireand onewhich is also displayedas a workof art. Thedriftwoodpiece by RobertMallaryI refer to later s not only placed n the institutionalcontextof the artworld,but
is mounted, painted, and, perhaps most significantly, given a title that isreferentially escriptive.
5. See, forexample,AndreBreton's"FirstSurrealistManifesto"and "SecondSur-realist Manifesto," n Surrealism,d. PatrickWaldberg(New York:McGraw-Hill, 1971),pp. 66-80.
6. See, for example, E. H. Gombrich'sMeditations n a HobbyHorse(London:
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Phaidon, 1963), chap. 1. In connection with this point and points to follow, alsosee Gombrich's Art and Illusion, 2d ed. (New York: Pantheon, 1961); Rudolf
Arnheim's Art and Visual Perception (Berkeley: University of California Press,1954); and Heinrich W61fflin's PrinciplesofArt History(New York:Dover, 1950).
7. Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception,p. 96.8. Piet Mondrian, "Toward the True Vision of Reality" (Pamphlet published by the
Valentine Gallery, New York).9. Constantin Brancusi, as quoted in Herschel B. Chipp, Theoriesof Modern Art
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), p. 365.10. Clement Greenberg, "Avant-garde Attitudes: New Art in the Sixties" (Lecture
delivered at the University of Sydney, Australia, 1968), reprinted in ConcerningContemporaryArt, ed. Bernard Smith (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1975).
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