The Shape of Words and the Voice of Visual Form: The Symbolism of Poetry and Painting

Introduction

Does the utterance of a sound suggest its meaning, or are words merely arbitrary devices by which we communicate? Is a painting a literal depiction or a lifeless configuration of formal design patterns? An analysis of phonetic symbolism perhaps links the function of language to that of the visual arts. Susan Langer defines the function of art as a symbol rather than a sign. Signs, she claims, merely indicate objects in a literal sense, while symbols represent concepts analogously in the proportions of their elements.¹ In terms of the visual arts, studies of the psychological associations of colors, as well as the psychological impact of size, shape, and visual hierarchy, illustrate the powerfully metaphorical function of art, which goes beyond mere representation.

Are words also metaphors? Hans Hörman,² among others, as well as a more recent study by Benjamin K. Bergen, illustrate, through analysis of word groups in various languages, occurrences of sound symbolism based on common patterns of phonemes linked to similar meanings.³ While every combination of phonemes uttered does not necessarily symbolize its particular meaning, patterns do exist. Poetry perhaps, in its heightened sensitivity to the union of sound and sense, seizes such patterns as avenues of symbolic expression. Not only the phonemes themselves, but also the grammar and syntax join this analogous play. Poems, then, like paintings, are metaphors.

Thus, the two art forms unite in their mutual function as symbols. The sound of poetic language symbolizes feelings or ideas in ways analogous to those employed by the shapes, colors, and spatial organization of a painting. Both painting and poetry use their respective mediums to physically analogize abstract concepts, and as a result, many of their elements correspond to each other in this mutual purpose. Furthermore, a comparison of the poetry of Marianne Moore and T.S. Eliot with the paintings of Fairfield Porter and Pierre Bonnard, respectively, manifests these relationships between the visual arts (particularly painting) and poetry.

The SymbolIsm of Art

Susanne Langer, in her book, Philosophy in a New Key, defines the purpose of art as that of a symbol—something that evokes the idea or concept of something else. She traces the history and use of perceptual signs in interactions between all creatures with each other and their environment, yet she denotes symbolism—the ability to refer to concepts—as a uniquely human ability and need. She distinguishes between signs and symbols, as signs merely indicate objects, coming occurrences, or the state of things arbitrarily, while symbols denote concepts distant from the present situation. Various forms of art, she claims, physically analogize concepts.⁴

Perhaps the most significant way in which the work of art becomes a symbol for felt reality is its manifestation as a metaphor. Moira Crone states this relationship beautifully, as it relates to music, in The Ice Garden: "That world had order because it was a copy of feeling. Any ragged thing that was rough and hard to bear [. . .] could have a twin, as sharp and mean and clattering as anything. The only thing was, it couldn't get to you. In fact, the harder and more jangly and wild the feeling, the more beautiful was the double, the music. That was the cure of beauty: how it made a copy, let you love it."⁵ The means by which the artist symbolizes such things Clive Bell calls "significant form." Such forms, he claims, follow a systematic logic and allow one to experience an entirely aesthetic feeling unrelated to any sentiment the content of the work might suggest, but rather comes purely in the proportions between the forms. Therefore, he defines nonobjective painting as the highest form of visual art, as it creates pure significant forms without the aid of imitation.⁶ Formal elements in visual art do make the painting resonate regardless of the subject matter, and one can distinguish between that which conveys a feeling through form, color, or composition, and that which merely suggests feeling by the novelty of the subject matter. However, perhaps...