If we use language as a metaphor for a painting, we could rather talk about poetry. Poems and paintings have a similar ability to open up in many simultaneous directions. They can evoke images and feelings, dreamlike memories and associations, sensitive references that are unique to each viewer and reader. The content of a work of poetry or painting is not set in stone, it is changing, reflective imagery. It can be different for me than for the artist. A picture or poem is a mediator, it communicates. Sometimes when a picture or a group of pictures touches me strongly, I feel that it actually understands me or opens previously unknown doors to myself, and in that way my own, secret relationship with it is born. I always remember it, and so it becomes part of my mental world. The picture tells me something important about myself and my own life.

Paths to understanding the language of the image

The language of a work opens up on many levels: we see colours, movement, figures and shapes, we recognize things and objects, we form stories. We often first describe the language of an image with the words ‘representative’ or ‘abstract’. We might think that so-called representative art is simply the kind in which we recognize things that are familiar to us from our physical reality. A miraculous view stuns everyone, it stops us on our tracks.  The feeling is familiar, which is why it is easy for us to find a surface of identification in the landscape of a painting. But when a landscape painting stops us in the same way as the landscape it resembles, it is more than just a skillfully executed reproduction of what we see with our eyes. It opens the viewer to see something within that no one else sees in quite the same way, it awakens a powerful feeling. The landscape becomes a symbol for something that is to be expressed precisely through that landscape. Edvard Munch spoke of the artist’s emotional charge, which is essential to the creation of a work and can be felt in the finished work:

“In a passionate emotional state, a landscape can have a particularly powerful impact on an artist. When you paint this landscape, you create a picture that has been influenced by that emotional state. The artist’s emotional state is the most important thing. Nature is simply a medium. Whether the painting looks exactly like the same landscape or not is irrelevant. It is impossible to explain a picture. The reason for painting a picture is precisely that it cannot be explained in any other way. You can only give a small hint of the direction in which you are aiming. I do not believe in any other art than that which is forced out of a person’s need to open their heart.”

The same could be said of a work that we describe as ‘abstract’. Even if the work does not contain clearly identifiable elements of our physical reality, it can arouse strong joy or fear, sadness, curiosity or longing, perhaps touching a forgotten memory. Whether it is an ‘abstract’ or ‘representational’ work, it is often difficult to put into words what exactly triggers this experience. Receiving the language of a painting is a very subjective event, influenced by many things in the recipient, even things that the recipient is not aware of at the time of viewing.

When the experience is powerful, it also awakens the intellectual side. The mind connects it to what we already know, searches for commonalities in memory, tries to identify and name things and distinguish them from each other. The mind takes a distance and strives for understanding. In the best case, new thinking, new ideas, new perspectives, new strength and new life arise.

The work can also be approached through intellect and knowledge rather than emotion. The work is placed in art history, influences and similarities are examined, and differences are defined. When you begin to understand what the author is referring to with their work, a connection to the work is created through its intellectual context, even if it does not immediately speak to you directly through emotion.