Letters

Leonardo. Vol 1I, pp. 86-88. Pergamon Press 1978. Printed in Great Britain LETTERS Readers’ comments are welcomed on texts published in Leonardo. The Editors reserve the right to shorten letters. Letters should he written in English or in French. A PICTORIAL SYNTAX OF SHAPES (cont.) I would like to comment on Curtis L. Carter’s reply to the letter of E. H.Gombrich [Leonardo9,262 (1976)l in regard to Carter’s article in Leonardo 9, I l l (1976). His reply contains the statement: ‘There is sufficient evidence from art historical practice, experimental work with computers (James Gips and George Stiny [Leonardo 8, 213 (1975)] and others) and discussions of the question of shapes used by artists to suggest that my hypothesis of shapes will have practical applications.’ I understand that Carter, because of his predominantly theoretical interests, leaves the making of works to artists. Of course, there is no reason why artists should not be permitted to draw conclusions from their works and make them available. but I believe he would agree such conclusions are not necessarily sufficient evidence according to art historical practice. I am also aware of the possible ‘inbreeding’ of analyses of a subject to form a closed circle by authors repeating each other’s content. For instance, Carter in the above quotation from his letter refers to the article of Gips and Stiny and this article containsreferencesto two books-one by Gips and one by Stiny. My review of these books can be found in Leonardo 10. 339 (1977). In their books, Gips and Stiny state that their algorithmic aesthetic system is primarily concerned with shapes-a rather narrow limitation on aesthetics from the point of view of the philosophy of art. They apply their system to nonrepresentational geometrical painting, the meaning of which is nowhere emphasized. The possible semantic relevance of conceptual art is not hinted at. Why did they choose to make such paintings? I realize that an artwork can be made without an explicit verbal answer to this question, but they apply to their arbitrary choice a complex verbal and mathematical analysis to demonstrate that the paintings can be described in terms of natural and/or formal languages. Painters have the licence to choose a particular type of picture, but aestheticians in their analyses of pictures do not have such licence. Gips and Stiny are aware that there are as many variations of picture grammar as there are articles on the subject. The variations are probably limitless. Carter might find the approach of Gips and Stiny very limiting, sinceotherswho analyze pictures cannot use their formal language. If care is not taken, the same situation may arise as the Babylonian confusion of tongues limiting the usefulness of natural language. The mathematics of abstract algebra is already in this situation. I do not say that Carter does not have ‘sufficient evidence from art historical practice’, but I would like him to share this evidence, as may other Leonardo readers who have been struggling in the field of picture analysis. I have found the article The Visual Image by Gombrich in ScientiJc American, p. 82 (Sept. 1972) very helpful. His approach, with many references to artworks, should be considered by those of us who are investigating the subject, perhaps in very limited areas, so that we shall not discover tomorrow what has long been known. Vladimir BonaEic c/o Leonarh I7 rue Emile Dunois 92100 Boulogne sur Seine France 86 The letter of Vladimir Bonafic above [Leonardo 11, 86 (1978)] contains three issues on which I would like to comment: ( I ) the practical application of my hypothesis of syntactic shapes for paintings: (2) the relation of the hypothesis to the studies of pictorial shapes by Gips and Stiny and (3) the omission of any discussion of pictorial meaning or semantics. My article, Painting and Language: A Pictorial Syntax for Shapes[Leonardo 9 , l l I (1976)].includes a range of art historical references to which the notion of shapes as syntactic elements of style is applicable. Morandini’s use of shapes for analyzing pictorial style; Loran’s studies of Cezanne’s paintings and Lohse’s discussion of his own paintings all provide examples...