I have strong ideas about what makes up all sort of creative works - music, painting, sculpture, writing and poetry among them. Wandering through an art gallery, I am happy to read the title beside a painting, the painter’s name and the year it was painted. Sometimes something of the technique used or a background to style or culture are interesting, but other than the title, I’d rather look before I know anything further.

Sometimes the description seems to be an excuse, that some curator purchased the painting and then had to justify its significance (and the cost!) At an exhibition we saw in 1987 were two paintings by abstract expressionist Mark Rothko (d. 1970.) Many of his paintings sell in the tens of millions of dollars. The two on offer were Ochre and Red on Red, and Green and Tangerine on Red. The description of the first included the following: “... Only paint, colour and shape remain to be contemplated. The shapes are hazy, cloud-like, horizontal rectangles that are stacked one above another, apparently hovering in an undefined space like veils. This space has no vanishing point, perspective, not does the composition have any focal point. We look into an eerie luminosity.”

Hmmm? Really? At 235.3 by 161.9 cm, the second last line is almost a precise description. I could edit the text: The picture has no point. If you read the title and the size, you’ve pretty much got the whole thing. The painter talked about creating a spiritual space, being enclosed by the painting. I suppose I could stare at it until I felt “enclosed and spiritual,” but I can do that by focusing on the spot on the wall next to it, or a candle, or any other meditative focus. I expect art of all sorts to show a level of skill and a level of communication. Rothko claimed that, for himself: “I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on,” he declared, noting a lot of people break down and cry when they see his paintings. At the money spent on them, I cynically think. Sadly, when I ask those who have studied art to explain this, there is rarely a satisfactory explanation - words like ethereal, visceral, complex and so on are tossed around, but what are the reference points?

Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein had something to say about art of this form in his 1961 novel Stranger In A Strange Land. “Art is the process of invoking pity and terror,” he says - just about right, although I’m happy to expand that to include other emotions (as does Heinlein, elsewhere): Joy, curiosity, sadness, etc. But to do that the artist must communicate in a language that the audience can understand, or at least learn (as in any worthwhile endeavour.) Heinlein again: “Most of these jokers don’t want to learn language you and I can learn; they would rather sneer because we ‘fail’ to see what they are driving at. If anything. Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence.”

A brief example -  I can write a brand new poem as follows

Genealleo concentatu renisesta
   laituleo 
	  expeontu snorvista!?*

I can now give you the “review”: "Six Words is an abstract expressionist poem by Peter Bowron, written in September 2018. Words in any recognizable language have disappeared -  all that remains are syllables of questionable pronunciation, white space and rhyme. The words have a sinuous femininity to them, all ending in vowels. Without meaning, one should probably stand in an echo chamber and whisper them quietly many times, until you reach your essential spirit.” 

Yes. Really! Any one who has a spare $10 million, please contact me and I’ll gladly transfer copyright to you.