Artyści i litery

Abstract

In the 20th century, artistic phenomena change like in a kaleidoscope. The general tendency of total information about everything has not spared art as well, with all the consequences of that. According to the principle of Marshall Me Luhan “the medium of communication is communication itself", in their works artists include all possible extra-artistic codes (among other things, notes, recipes, graphs, maps, bank statements). The need to communicate contents, which transcend the traditional motifs of a landscape, still life, or portrait, in many cases, leads to superseding partially or totally iconic signs with linguistic signs. Verbal puns, as unexpected connections of letters and inscriptions, clusters of randomly associated words mixed with fragments of paintings turned out to be an attractive material for many artists, who in such forms do not find only the ways to enrich the painting texture and matter, but also the possibilities of revealing a different facet of the reality. The letters and words put on canvas, or on various unconventional bases, acquire new meanings, additional symbolic properties; they intrigue, encourage to enter the intellectual and artistic game. The titles of paintings, the inscriptions on, or underneath them possess a peculiar power of penetrating the shapes and forms regardless of the contents which they cany. In the case of abstract paintings, when the iconic communication is insufficient to understand the message properly, titles serve to direct the associations and augment the aesthetic experience of the recipient. The letters are an element which balances and complements the composition. They exist in the painting as a result of a mec hanical reproduction, a hand-written inscription, or a decorative ornament. Linguistic signs and iconic signs, in spite of all the differences, still remain signs. Their structure is determined by the specific relationship to the denoted object and by building the sense, which means that they are subject to the same processes of semantisation and dese- mantisation, and iconisation and deiconisation.