Language Fails Us: Confronting the Nature of Art & Artessence. Written by MJDorian.

What is art?

Humanity has wrestled with this question since the first humans made cave paintings 45,000 years ago. And despite our undeniable achievements since then (electricity, nuclear power, flight) we continue to struggle in answering this seemingly simple question. Why?

The problem lies not in our lack of trying, but in the inadequacy of our language to provide common tools with which we can speak about art with more depth. Most conversations about art continue to remain on the surface level or become unproductive due to misunderstandings between speaker-and-listener. This dilemma is no longer tenable, as in the 21st century we face new existential issues around creativity brought on by the advent of artificial intelligence. As our conversations about art become more frequent, it is invaluable that we are armed with terms that clearly describe our experiences of art. The following essay is an attempt to jumpstart that process.

Let’s first turn our attention to language and lay its inadequacies before us, as to better understand why there is a problem.

Language Fails Us

As humans, language is one of our greatest tools. All our abilities are built upon it, among them: communication, self expression, and even skill acquisition. Language grants us a kind of superpower: the ability to transfer the hard won knowledge of past generations into our present minds. Through language we can develop our capacity in any field, using knowledge already acquired through the trial & error of people that came before us. Countless students attend university classes every day to understand subjects which, without language, would be impossible to grasp: mechanical engineering, modern medicine, computer programming, etc. Likewise, through four years of conservatory training I learned music notation, music theory, sound recording, music composition, and the history of music—without language, none of this would be possible.

It’s so essential to our daily life that we take it for granted—entire civilizations are built upon language. But as seemingly miraculous as it is, there are times in our lives when we brush up against the limits of language: when we attempt to describe something deeply meaningful and the words don’t do it justice—how do you convey to someone the depth of feeling of first holding your newborn child? Or when we try to convey some fleeting moment of transcendence that swept over us—how do you describe the majesty of watching an early morning sunrise over the ocean?

There are moments when language breaks. The 13th century Sufi poet, Rumi, once wrote: “A pen went scribbling along, when it tried to write love, it broke.” This calls to mind an adage from music history: “Music begins where language ends.” Both quotations describe our predicament well, providing the words for one more sentiment—where language breaks, art begins.

From this, we can develop an entire theory of art which states: every creative medium is born from the inadequacies of language to convey emotional, psychological, or spiritual states and philosophical ideas. If it were able to convey every facet of our lives then we would not need those creative mediums which don’t rely on language. Instead, language routinely fails in conveying the infinite nuance of our lived experiences. This is where art enters.

We’ve all heard the expression “A picture is worth a thousand words.” This is only true due to the inefficiency of language to convey something which visual art achieves in only a fraction of a second. It would take great effort for me to convey in words the awe I felt when standing before The Lady of Shalott painting by William Holman Hunt in the Wadsworth Atheneum museum. And even with valiant effort, my description would still fall short of experiencing the painting in person.

There is nothing we can do to fix this flaw in language. And perhaps we should be thankful for it, as its rigidity encourages our compulsion for artistic expression. But there is an equally perplexing inadequacy in language that should instead concern us because it is one we can repair. We face the problem whenever someone asks: “What is art?”

In this instance, our language is an adequate medium we can use to describe the multifaceted nature of art, but we have failed to equip it with terms and perspectives that accomplish the task with ease. There are no truly succinct definitions of art, all attempts to define it veer off into thesis length ramblings. The problem lies with our lack of terminology for the many ways we engage with and create art. For example: the fact that many people, whenever they hear the word art, assume someone is only speaking about visual art is part of the problem. This is the first step in our attempt to more fully comprehend art’s nature—we must broaden the word art to refer to all creative work in all mediums.

Next, we are confronted with the problem that our terminology around the issue is too imprecise. We have effectively shackled one of the most complex human behaviors to one three letter word: art. We foolishly expect this lone word to be sufficient in describing the countless facets of art and art making.

The problem is one of delineation. We have close to twenty words for different types of rain in the English language: rainfall, downpour, shower, sprinkle, torrential downpour, drizzle, monsoon, flood, sleet, thunderstorm, precipitation, cloudburst, and so on. Yet we only have one word for all art in all mediums regardless of all other factors.

The Nature of Art & Artessence

We call everything art, from the flowers grandma paints on Sunday to the marble statues of ancient Greece, but we know that beneath the surface delineations exist. The three main traits that make up those delineations are: skill, quality, and value. In walking through the galleries of art museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, [here in New York] it’s obvious these institutions curate their collections based on high values in all three traits: work requiring high skill, work distinguished by its quality, and work that has high value. As an espoused beacon of human culture, part of an art museum’s purpose is clearly to present visitors with the best of human creativity—whether that deals with the intricate designs of samurai armor or Native American pottery.

The artworks in the Met which countless tourists and locals come to appreciate most often were created by artists at the height of their ability (high in skill), creating a compelling and consequential artwork through individual aesthetics (high in quality), which is distinguished in some way (high in value). This does not mean that artworks low in skill can’t be works of genius or that artworks of low quality can’t be valuable. Outsider art, for example, is often seen as low in skill but high in quality and value. And there are instances also when an artwork may be low in skill and quality but high in value.

Such as a polaroid picture from your high school prom. That’s a work of art too. It required no skill, it has inherently low quality (compared to the professional norms of photography), but its value is especially high. Why? Because it has high personal value. Would you be able to sell it at Sotheby’s? Most likely not. But you cherish that little spontaneous artwork for its personal value. In this regard, we can further divide the factor of value into three traits: cultural / historic value, personal value, and market value. We can also group the abstract concept of aesthetics under the factor of quality.

Our current language is ill equipped to express these distinctive traits about art—the fluctuations of skill, quality, and value. But even without the terminology we implicitly react to them all the same. We experience a work of art—be it a poem of Emily Dickinson or a blues musician’s song on the subway—and something inside us moves.

Beyond these three traits of art, there are also facets relating to the experience of art that warrant delineation. The three traits of art just described deal with the intellectual domain—skill, quality, and value—there’s a process of logic by which we determine a work’s measure in all three. Although useful for us to acknowledge, they do nothing toward describing the experiential aspects of art.

To deepen our explorations of the nature of art we will need to equip our common dialogue with new terminology. I propose these new terms to describe three primary experiential aspects of art: art-making, art-object, and artessence.

It’s vital to better understand and separate these aspects in our statements about art because it allows us to communicate more effectively. I have too often heard artists and art critics use blanket statements such as “Art is about ____.” when what they are really commenting on is one of these three aspects: art-making, art-object, or artessence. The same occurs in any conversations on the topic of art generation by artificial intelligence—the terrain of the discourse is not populated with the right language tools. Without these delineations our conversations about art will continue to run in circles, as listener-and-speaker misinterpret one another or require further clarification on what someone intended to say.

Art-making is the act of creation itself. It encapsulates all the processes of creativity including: the incubation of ideas, inspiration, intuition, development, refinement, and the completion of a creative work. Who participates in art-making? An individual, a group, or a society. For example: Jean-Michel Basquiat was an individual engaged in art-making. The Beatles were a group collaborating in art-making. And we can argue that the Holy Bible is an example of a society engaged in art-making over centuries of time.

Art-making is not limited to artists nor is it restricted by a skill threshold. When an amateur potter throws a vase on the potter’s wheel they are engaged in art-making. Whether that vase will be a consequential work of art will depend on other factors including skill, quality, and value. The chance of someone without experience in a given medium creating a work of genius is low. But there are exceptions, such as when someone has achieved mastery of a creative medium which is adjacent to the new medium. For example: an experienced photographer deciding to pick up a movie camera, or an experienced watercolorist venturing into oil painting. When there is significant overlap between two adjacent mediums, the artist who has acquired proficiency in one medium can carry over aspects of their talent to the other.

An art-object is the end result of art-making, it is that which causes an art experience. The external manifestation of an art-object often takes on a material form: a painting, sculpture, furniture, food, illustration, architecture, jewelry, photography, fashion, etc. But art’s power extends beyond the physical domain, art-objects can also take on an immaterial form: music, spoken poetry, stories, graphic design, animation, philosophy, dance, theatre, podcasts, etc.

You might argue that dance is a material art form because it is physical—but if the dancer suddenly stops—where is the dance? Can you point to it? Hold it in your hand?

It is an immaterial art-object.

Some mediums hover between the material and immaterial, such as filmmaking. Film is an art form which clearly uses the material world as a subject with material tools (cameras, boom microphones, lighting) and immaterial aspects (acting, story, music) to create a final immaterial art-object. You can tell if you are dealing with an immaterial art by asking this simple question: can I hold this art-object? Can you hold a film?

Not really—not in the way you can hold a painting or a sculpture. You can sometimes hold the film reel which contains the film, but the film reel itself is not the art-object, the art-object is that which causes an art experience, and hence, it only appears when light passes through the film reel, projects it onto a screen and it is observed. When the film stops, the art-object ceases to exist; until you decide to re-watch it. In film, the physical reel, video disc, or streaming device only contains the potential for the art-object to exist, but if it is not playing and someone is not viewing it—no art is happening.

In this regard, poetry is unique because as an art-object it exists in both material and immaterial worlds. Every printed page of Emily Dickinson’s poetry is a material art-object—you can hold it, you can read it, you can destroy it—it is an object waiting to elicit an art experience. But can you hold a poem when it’s spoken? Or when you memorize it and recite it in your thoughts? Poetry shape shifts between material and immaterial worlds, making it equally suited to both experiences.

Artessence is the unique state of mind aroused by an art experience. Artessence requires at least one participant—an observer—and at least one art-object which is being experienced. In that moment, something in your consciousness is shifting, something is expanding—the world is now different.

The moment of awe when you enter a centuries old Gothic cathedral, that is artessence. Whenever you lose track of time wandering the halls of a museum, you are swimming in artessence. That feeling when you are in the audience of a concert and your favorite band starts playing one of your favorite songs, you are experiencing artessence. The state of artessence is not always as ecstatic as these examples, it can also be more reserved, like reading a particularly satisfying story or admiring the engine of a car.

The key factor that anchors one in artessence is when all of your attention is engaged by an art experience. It is a state of transcendence. The doors of perception swing open for a moment and you are moved into nowness. Your sense of self has expanded to adopt some new form or lesson or aesthetic into your being. There is tremendous potential in that moment. The artwork enters your inner terrain and is invited to work its magic, calling up emotions, memories, concepts—leaving its mark on you.

This is why watching a film or reading a book can sometimes feel like a life changing experience. You not only enter the world of the piece, you also invite the art into your inner world and give it permission to move some things around in there. We walk away from the theatre and we say “that was very moving.” This is what we mean—we’ve allowed something to change within us.

But it seems that artessence also extends outside of the formal domain of art-objects. If you pay attention to the various moments of your day-to-day life you will notice that there are instances that give you pause. Perhaps a moment when the morning sunlight pours through your curtains and you gaze at the slow particles of golden dust. Or while staring at a sidewalk blanketed in untouched snow a bright red cardinal lands before you. Perhaps you may recall another moment when you woke up in bed and couldn’t help but admire the sleeping silhouette of your partner beside you. The same type of experience can be provoked by certain sounds or even aromas.

If we are lucid in our recollection of such experiences, we find that they feel very much like an ‘art experience.’ The doors of perception swing open for a moment and we are moved into nowness—in a state of artessence. Why might this be the case? Why does the mind sometimes engage an art experience absent an art-object?

To put it simply: we are wired for art. We sometimes experience passing moments in our life as art because art is made from our life experiences. One feeds the other and vice versa. Curiously, the art form one practices also trains your mind to see more of the world as that art. If you are a musician, you hear more musicality in the sounds around you, if you are a painter, you see more of your lived environment as visual art.

Leonardo da Vinci famously wrote a passage in one of his many notebooks which encourages the young student of painting to admire the stains on walls. He states:

“Do not despise my opinion, when I remind you that it should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or the ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which, if you consider them well, you may find really marvelous ideas. The mind of the painter is stimulated to new discoveries…because by indistinct things the mind is stimulated to new inventions.”

We are wired for art and the various mediums of expression train our senses to perceive the art that is always around us, waiting to be discovered. Painting trains the eye, music trains the ear, culinary arts train our tasting and sense of smell, etc. It is because art & life are so intertwined that it becomes difficult to see the threshold between them. And all our lived experiences seem to indicate that such a division is only imagined. Some people feel comforted in the formality of a museum space, where the boundary between life and art is clearly determined by what is inside and outside the frames on the gallery wall. But when we encounter states of artessence, we see that the mind itself disregards such boundaries.

Art & life continuously supersede language. And although we may never fully apprehend an art experience through language—without breaking it—there is still tremendous benefit in making the attempt.

In conclusion, I put forward for your consideration these terms and their definitions, to equip our common language with tools that provide our conversations about art with more depth and clarity.

Art-making: verb, a creative act that results in an art-object.

Art-object: noun, a material or immaterial byproduct of art-making.

Artessence: noun, the state of mind of an art experience.