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Kitoba.Com >>> The Arts >>> Art Essays >>> Everything About Art Explained >>> The Popularity of Art >>> Idiom (index)

November, 8th, 2007
last updated July, 29th, 2010

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Entry #287 Rating: 3.9/5 (8 votes cast)

The Popularity of Art:

Idiom

by Chris Sunami

Every artwork speaks in its own language. For the art object to successfully create the artistic experience, therefore, the audience must be able to understand the language in which the artwork communicates.

Some such idioms are transparent, as in Realism in paintings, where the pattern of paint is a direct visual representation of the scene or object depicted; others are more stylized and abstract or iconic, such as the jagged human figures in a Cubist painting. Some idioms are self-presenting, such as the repeating figures in a Bach fugue; others are more difficult to discern, such as the repeating figures in a twelve-tone composition.

In addition, while many art objects, such as those in the immediately preceding examples, are largely self-contained, there are others where the context of the art object is itself a contributing element of the art experience. One case of this is Duchamp’s Fountain, a urinal displayed in an art gallery, this was perceivable as art only in the context of the gallery, and even then only to someone familiar with the context and conventions of the contemporary artworld.

A different, but related form of context-dependence is reliance on allusions, which are direct references to elements not contained within the artwork itself, such as current events, other artworks, cultural presuppositions, and the like. They presuppose either the actual presence of the element referred to, or a significant familiarity with the same. Allusions are the least stable element in most artworks, and use of them can cause a artwork to quickly seem “dated”. A good example is this hip-hop song which references singers “Marvin Gaye,” “Luther Vandross,” “Anita,” and others, thus requiring the audience member to be familiar with all those other artists in order to appreciate the meaning of the lyrics.

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