Last weekend, I visited several commercial galleries in London, enjoying the opportunity to look at art works, which is possible once again after several months of enforced closures. However good the quality of online images and virtual tours of exhibitions, the intermediating presence of a digital screen changes the nature of the perceptual experience: there is no substitute for being in the physical presence of the art object. (Compare, watching a cookery programme online and eating a meal in a restaurant.)
One drawing in a room of recent work by Luc Tuymans attracted my attention. It showed a view across a square or courtyard towards the façade of a large three-story building opposite, with two other buildings, one to the side of the square and another slightly behind the first, also visible. All the buildings were shaded grey as was the paving of the courtyard and the road that led out of the square. The scene was drab: a deserted space on a cold, sunless day in winter, with no people, no colour, no objects of interest. In the centre of the drawing, as if superimposed on this dismal vista, was a white equilateral triangle, with one side rising vertically and the two other sides leading to a point to the right. It is a familiar sign in the contemporary world, visible on every phone, laptop screen or video monitor: it is the sign that means “click here to proceed” or “start”. It is the sign that means the opposite of two parallel white vertical lines, which means “click here to pause” or “stop”.
One obvious reading of this drawing is that, during the lockdowns that have been imposed across much of Europe during the current pandemic, many of us are experiencing a strong sensation that the world is temporarily on hold, that life as we knew it has paused. The grey emptiness shown in the drawing suggests that life has become dull and joyless, while the white triangle – “click here to proceed” – is a sign of hope, a reminder that someday soon normal life will resume, and that warmth, light, and human engagement will return. The drawing is not a great artwork, neither in its conception nor in its execution. It attracted my attention not because of any aesthetic interest but because of the immediacy and accessibility of its message: life has paused, press here to re-start. We can all read the sign.
This is often not the case. On one of my bookshelves in my study, I have several reference works that explain the meanings and usage of a wide range of symbols in the visual arts, and they are not small books. What does the presence of a snake in a painting mean? Or a rose? Why do some paintings include boats and others include images of someone drowning? As soon as I start to investigate, it becomes clear that many signs have multiple meanings, depending on where and when the artists made the work, and what traditions or stories she was drawing upon. The snake might be a sign of temptation (Eve), of death (Cleopatra, Laocoön), of healing (Asclepius), of seasonal rainfall (Rainbow Serpent), or of eternity (Janus). Or the snake might be there for no other reason than that the artist wanted some additional colour, or form, or to provide balance or tension within the painting, in which case it is not a sign of something else at all.
Decoding the elements of a picture is a skill that takes considerable time to learn, since it requires familiarity with the way in which different artists have used signs in the past, and whose meanings change over time as later artists reinterpret or challenge the residual historical meanings and associations. In addition, we need to learn to recognise references to the work of other artists, which become signs of a different kind when they are quoted in new works. Sometimes signs are widely accessible, such as a skull or an hourglass in a still-life painting, but other times signs can be enigmatic and recalcitrant to interpretation, designed to be decoded only by a few. The more we look carefully at paintings, the greater our store of visual referents, providing us with the tools to interpret what the artist might have intended and, perhaps in addition, to see meanings that were not consciously intended, but which attach to the picture because certain of its elements bring a richness of meaning independent of the author’s intentions. The degree of fluency that we might achieve in this process of deciphering will depend greatly on the range and depth of our understanding of the different ways in which particular signs have, at one time or another, in one place or another, signified particular meanings.
What struck me about Tuymans’s drawing was the immediacy and ease of interpretation. Just about everyone know what the sign means because it is ubiquitous in today’s digital environment. While the drawing itself was not that interesting, the presence of the sign alerted me to the fact that there is an important difference between the signs we use to communicate with machines and the signs that we use to communicate with other people. Technology – whether phones, laptops, washing machines, or cars – is nowadays sold in standardised formats all around the world. The same icons are used wherever the product is made, assembled, or purchased, to instruct the user how to operate it. There is a global visual language for machine operation, which is good for consumers, who are able to use a wide range of consumer technology with relative ease wherever the appliances are made and sold. And for the manufacturers the benefits of standardisation are also clear: lower production costs and more flexible supply chains for the assembly of finished goods from component parts.
What is true of our interactions with machines is not true of out interactions with other humans. Meanings are not immediate and obvious, and the symbols that are the carriers of intentionality are in constant need of retranslation. We do not immediately understand the signs used by our contemporaries in other cultures, nor do we have easy access to the language of our forebears from within own culture. Even with those who live around us – who share our time and our place – communication is not always straightforward, and we have constant need to be patient while seeking to understand what our fellow humans are thinking and feeling. There are icons that reliably tell us how to pause or to mute, that we are low on fuel, or that we should not put this garment in the tumble dryer. The signs that our neighbour is happy or sad are much harder to read because they are non-standard, but this reflects the fact that human feelings, emotions, beliefs, and ideals resist the process of standardization. Simple signs cannot convey complex meanings, and human life is complicated.
My reading of Tuymans’s drawing fits with his use of the generic symbol “click here to proceed”. He draws our attention to the widespread feeling that the precautionary actions taken by governments to reduce the impact of the pandemic have left us feeling that our lives have paused, and that they are consequently colourless, drab, and empty. We cannot wait for real life to start again. It is a simple message conveyed by a simple sign. When I look at a very different sort of artwork – say, for example, Titian’s Venus and Adonis, which hangs in the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid – in which the artist appears to be saying something rather more complex about life, about our hopes and fears for the future, about love and mortality, and about our failure to appreciate the value of what is within our grasp rather than chase after things which might forever elude us – I am aware of the need to observe slowly and carefully the many signs and suggestions that the picture contains. A friend recently reminded me of a remark made by Richard Wolheim, the philosopher and art connoisseur, that he could only start to understand a painting after looking at it for two or three hours. I assume that he meant paintings that were intended to convey an important human truth, that seek to convey to the viewer something of value about life. Tuymans’s drawing did not demand more than five minutes of my time, Titian’s paintings demand as many hours as I can spare.
There are many advantages to living in a society in which machines have simple, standardised instructions and operating procedures. I can travel almost anywhere in the world and hire a car, which I will be able to drive almost immediately. Regardless of whether the steering wheel is left or right hand, nowadays most of the controls will have standard functions and symbols. When I buy a new phone, I can use it almost immediately, even if I buy a brand that I have never previously owned, because the functionality works much like every other phone. Learning to use consumer technology is quick and easy, so long as I use the signs to follow the instructions. When I go to a gallery to look at paintings, however, the last think I want to discover is that they are just like the paintings I saw in the previous gallery. When I meet new people, I hope they will be interestingly different from other people I already know. Standardization is a desirable quality in machines, but not in persons, which is why the signs in an operating manual can be universally and immediately understood, but the meanings of the products of the human imagination demand much more of our time and attention. In the human world, signs acquire greater value because they are harder to read.
Whatever his intention, Luc Tuymans’s drawing reminded me of the value of art in deepening my understanding of what matters most in our world, albeit by pointing to the ease of understanding those things which matter far less. We have reason to value those moments when we cannot simply “click here to proceed” and carry on as normal. Taking time to reflect on the subtle and complex meanings of human life, lingering with the thoughts and ideas of others, teasing out the truths that disclose themselves only slowly, being patient in the accumulation of knowledge – these are all pleasures I associate with looking at art, but they are at the same time the pleasures of shared human understanding. In a world of fast food, instant communication, and speed reading, it was good to be reminded of the importance of pausing, of the enjoyment of looking at signs that do not disclose their meanings in a hurry.