Misko Suvakovic 
Asymmetries of Language and Sight 
Introduction to a Philosophy of Art 
0. The Basic Postulate 
My basic postulate is: view, seeing and the seen in painting can be stud-
ied through indirect forms of representation. The mediation of sight points to 
the intentional nature of artificial optical and visual phenomena of art. Inten-
tionality makes visual and linguistic effects comparable. Potential asymmetry 
of the sight scene and the language scene of art (painting) is the problem 
which I p ropose to elaborate. 
7. Representation 
Representa t ion is a structural, epistemological, semantic and technical 
me thod of creat ing or producing a work of art, which visually and optically 
refers to a real or fictional object, being, situation or event. Note: (1) phenom-
ena perceived by the sense of sight are termed visual, whereas (2) facts re-
lated to light, whose aspects are dependent upon physical laws of transmis-
sion of light and not the receptive faculties of the subject of perception are 
te rmed optical. 
In a stricter theoretical sense a visual work is said to represent some-
thing if it is its reference (external to the work, what the work refers to in its 
appearance , structural relationships of elements and potential meanings). A 
reference can be a real reference (object f rom the real world) or a fictional 
reference (fictional object of fantasy, text, film, theatre, theory). A painting 
represents a real or fictional object, being, situation or event by showing, 
describing or signifying it. 
A paint ing shows an object by being its visual analogy or representation 
of its visual appearance . The visual aspects of an object's appearance and its 
representa t ion in a representat ional work of art are congruent. At least some 
of the visual aspects of object representation are congruent with the usual 
analogous object representat ion in culture, science, art, religion. The rela-
t ionship be tween a paint ing and the object it visually depicts is asymmetrical, 
since the paint ing visually and optically depict the object but the object never 
Filozofski vestnik, XVII (2/1996), pp. 203-215. 
Miško Šuvakovič 
depicts the painting. It is necessary to distinguish between the similarity of 
two objects and the similarity of their appearance or the similarity of their 
features. One must distinguish the optical similarity f rom the visual, and the 
visual similarity from that of signification. 
Any discursive representation of an object is a description, since one 
does not see the appearance of an object f rom significational effects of a lin-
guistic language. Language states and explains its properties and appearance. 
Non-analogous linguistic signs or texts are ascribed to visual aspects. A paint-
ing describes an object not when it shows the appearance of the object by its 
symbolic aspects, but when it indirectly points to its properties. 
A painting signifies: (1) by naming the object (by stating that a certain 
object is designated as X - the role of the title or inscription in a painting), (2) 
by defining the named object as a sign by which it represents the object in 
language or in visual and pictorial expression by creating a kind of an alpha-
bet, and (3) by using the visual sign as a literal showing of an object (iconic 
and allusive sign), as a standardized language sign (sign in ideographic or 
phonetic alphabets) and as a basis for non-literal symbolic, metaphorical and 
allegorical representation. The abstract paintings of Barnett Newman (»The 
Stations of the Cross«, 1966) represent crucifixion by arbitrarily, but inten-
tionally, signifying (suggesting) the state of crucifixion. The state is not liter-
ally seen, it is suggested by the relationship of pictorial meanings of the paint-
ing and the linguistic meanings of its title. If the idea of signification is 
radicalized, one may say that Newman's painting does not correspond (does 
not refer) to the historical state of crucifixion, but corresponds with the texts 
which represent Christ's crucifixion. The painting does not refer to reality, 
but to the textual production of meaning, sense and value. Reference is estab-
lished as an exchange between the pictorial text of painting and the linguistic 
religious text. 
The idea of representation is based on four semiotic-media levels of 
painting determination (its visual horizon): (1) group of beliefs and concepts 
(superdetermination, ideological or spiritual horizon, metatext of culture) 
which form the framework of signification and sense of a work of art, which is 
expected to represent something (e.g. the theory of mimesis in the Western 
tradition, the theories of Realism in the 19th century, the theories of me-
chanical reproduction in Modernism, the theories of mimesis of mimesis in 
Postmodernism), (2) group of techniques and media procedures by which a 
painting is created and by which, in a potential literal or non-literal way, the 
painting refers to the object represented (the mirroring principle, print, trace, 
visual similitude, index signs, fine art illusionism, linguistic-semantic refer-
ence, usage of forms of expression which serve for representation in a given 
204 
Asymmetries of Language and Sight 
culture, visualization of textual representation), (3) appearance of the work 
which refers to the object of representation by its visual similitude (analogous 
iconic representation), its physical-phenomenal characteristics (the index char-
acter of representation) and on the basis of expressing rules, habits or agree-
ments (symbolic level of representation), and (4) preparedness (habits, cus-
toms, rules, convictions) of the viewer to regard a painting as a representation 
and not a decoration, an abstract, expressive or fictional composition. 
Two opposed conceptions of representation can be singled out: (A) es-
sentialist and (B) relativist theory of representation. 
The essentialist ontological theory of representation is based on the view 
that the notion of an artistic painting derives from the notion of mirroring 
image and reflection (Abbild]. A surface is a painting if it represents some-
thing, if by its appearance (referentially) it refers to something in the world. It 
represents something because it is in an ontological relationship with the 
object of representation. This relationship is based on reflection (literal me-
diation of the observed). Reflection is recognized as a painting because be-
tween the painting and the object which it represents there is an optical or 
visual similitude, and frequently also the intention to achieve an illusionist 
visual congruity. A painting is a painting because it contains within itself (i.e. 
the ontological dimension) its archetype (Urbild) or at least some of its prop-
erties. Between the painting and the object, according to Hans Georg Gadamer, 
there is a relationship of mutual belonging, since in the painting only the 
being of the represented object appears. According to ontological essentialist 
theories, the development of painting and sculpture as art arises through the 
evolution and transformations of the basic mirroring image model (from re-
flection to an artistic painting). Western painting can be regarded as a multi-
tude of transformational lines from objectual-optical necessity (reflection, in-
variant, literal visual information) to visual overdetermination (ideology, the 
theory and the practice of mimesis) and visual arbritrariness (significational 
interpretation by pictorial means). 
As opposed to the ontological essentialist theories, the relativist theories 
are formulated around the interpretation of representation as a practice of 
signification, conventional reference and symbolization. The starting point is 
that representation is not based on the mirroring principle. The visual simili-
tude between the painting and the object (the appearance of the painting and 
the object) represented is not sufficient in order to establish whether or not 
the painting represents something. Similitude is a symmetrical relationship, 
and visual similitude of the image and the object it represents is asymmetri-
cal. The critique of the notion of similitude results in the attitude that recogni-
tion of the structure of paint blots on a surface represents shoes (Van Gogh), 
205 
Miško Šuvakovič 
a bouquet of flowers (Cézanne) and human figures (Picasso) depends on the 
rules (convictions, ideologies) of signification (representation) which a soci-
ety accepts as their presentation of the world. 
Nelson Goodman demonstrates that a paint ing depicts an object and 
that the pictorial form configurated in the painting is recognized as a depic-
tion of the object by the rules of representation and the according convictions 
shared by the painter and the viewer of the painting. The ontological essen-
tialist answer to the question »Why do we see an object in a painting?« is 
»Because the painting imitates the object« or »Because the painting imitates 
our experience of the object« or »Because the painting establishes an optical 
order which imitates the optical order of the sight«. The relativist answer 
would be »Because the painting belongs to a certain form of representat ion 
(symbolic and ideological expressions) which we are accustomed to read as 
pictorial representations of such-and-such an object.« Goodman does not in-
terpret the recognition of an object in a painting by a literal connexion be-
tween the pa in t ing and the ob jec t , bu t by e s t a b l i s h i n g an a r b i t r a r y 
classificational relationship. There is no such thing as an innocent eye which 
would perceive the thing itself independently of our system of classification 
(convictions, knowledge, values). The eye does not perceive the thing itself, 
the eye always perceives an object. The similitude between a paint ing and an 
object is not determined by a congruence of the visual properties of the paint-
ing's appearance and the properties of the object 's appearance, but by a sys-
tem of classification and nomenclature, i.e. artistic practice (or Artworld, ac-
cording to Arthur Danto, or ideology, according to Althusser, Schefer, Rotar, 
Devade). According to Goodman: (1) every paint ing is more similar to any 
other painting throughout the history of art than to the external object it 
represents, and (2) art does not imitate nature, since nature (what is experi-
enced, perceived, understood and presented as nature) is a product of art, 
science, religion and everyday customs. The relativist concept of a painting is 
founded upon conventions of fine art representation and the phenomenological 
arbitrariness (openess) of visual percept ion . It is on these g rounds that 
Goodman rejects the notion of a painting as a copy of reality, maintaining a 
symbolic significational character of depiction or painting. Realistic repre-
sentation is not based on the quantity of optical and visual information about 
the world, but on simplicity and availability, which depends on the observ-
er's degree of being accustomed to certain forms of representation. The style 
of representation to which an observer is accustomed is regarded as more 
realistic, and such paintings are considered more similar to reality: »If repre-
sentation is a matter of choice, regularity a matter of information, realism is a 
matter of habit.«1 Charles Harrison and Fred Or ton regard realism in paint-
206 
Asymmetries of Language and Sight 
ing as a me thodo log ica l f r a m e w o r k of representa t ion and critique of modes 
of r ep resen ta t ion : »Real i sm is not a mat ter of cor respondence , or even of 
conven t ions of c o r r e s p o n d e n c e . O n this poin t Modern is t theory has always 
b e e n correct . It is a mat te r of how, on what basis, one goes about the process 
of cri t icism and cor rec t ion of any representa tion.«2 A pa in t ing can always be 
shown to b e a f o r m of conven t iona l order . T h e pictorial order expresses the 
viewpoint of the artist or his culture. T h e correspondences between the painting 
and its r e f e rence (the objec t of representat ion) are not s imply given to the eye 
in a m i r ro r i ng m a n n e r ; they are a consequence of publ ic and tacit rules of the 
symbol ic o r d e r of p ic tor ia l mat te r ( language/pictorial games within pa in t ing 
as an art). A radical iza t ion of such a posit ion leads to the s tandpoint that a 
work of art does no t r ep resen t an object, being, situation or event in a literal 
way, bu t r ep resen t s h o w they are perceived, exper ienced , expressed, under -
stood, in t e rp re ted and va lued in the culture of its origin. A paint ing is not a 
t race of the pe rce ived , on the contrary , the perce ived is the effect (trace, 
result) no t only of the pa in t ing ' s appearance , but also its pictorial and semi-
ological mean ings . 
Acco rd ing to semiologists of pa in t ing such as U m b e r t o Eco, Jean-Louis 
Schefer or Braco Ro ta r an iconic code (characteristic visual order of repre-
sentation) has two aspects: (1) an iconic code is a system of iconic signs which 
result f r o m a conceptua l iza t ion of percept ion , and (2) an iconic code is a sign 
o rde r rea l ized u p o n g raph ic convent ions which belong to the order of visual 
rhetoric . Schefer and Rotar in their semiologies of painting show the connexion 
b e t w e e n t h e e m p i r i c a l p l a n e of t h e v i s u a l a n d t h e i d e o l o g i c a l 
o v e r d e t e r m i n a t i o n which t ransforms the visual into a text (system of mean-
ing, effects of sense a n d potent ia l values of communica t ion , apprecia t ion, 
k n o w l e d g e and possess ion) . Visuali ty is an empir ical hor izon or pa in t ing 
ach ieved by m e a n s of sensual art iculation. The ideological articulation of art 
is buil t u p o n empir ica l ar t iculat ion. An iconic code, i.e. the characteristic sign 
o rde r wh ich represen t s someth ing by its visual similitude, is not a naive (mir-
ror ing, literal) effect of pe rcep t ion , but a speculative hor izon of paint ing as an 
art and rhe tor ica l pic tor ia l id iom. T h e theory of mimesis is therefore not to 
be r e g a r d e d solely as a m o d e l of creat ing a paint ing and a percept ion of the 
re la t ionship b e t w e e n the pa in t ing and the world, but also as a form of ideo-
logical supers t ruc tu re (superdeterminat ion) by which percept ion (view, the 
1 Nelson Goodman, »Reality Remade«, in Joseph Margolis, Philosophy Looks at Art, 
Temple University Press, Philadelphia 1987, p. 300. 
2 Charles Harrison, Fred Orton (eds.), Modernism, Criticism, Realism - Alternative Con-
text For Art, Harper and Row, London 1984, p. xix. 
207 
Miško Šuvakovič 
M » « n o t W i r . « : CNNAD.UAMM IAV, ONTARIO, OUEIEC, ST. U W R E N C E RIVER. NEW I R U N S W K K , MAN1T0IA, AKIMISKIISLAND, LAKE WINNIPEG, 
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VIRGINIA, OHIO. MICHIGAN. WISCONSIN, MINNESOTA, EASTERN IORDERS OP NORTH DAKOTA, SOUTH bAKOTA, NEBRASKA, KANSAS, OKLAHOMA 
TEXAS, MISSUl' « . I L L I N O I S INDIANA, TENNESSEE, ARKANSAS. LOUISIANA. MISSISSIPPI, A L A I A l l A GEORGIA, NORTH CAROLINA S O l f f f l CAROU 
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Art & Language (Terry Atkinson, Michael Baldwin), Map (1967) 
208 
Asymmetries of Language and Sight 
perceived, experience) and understanding of a painting are limited and di-
rected. A pictorial representation has a general epistemological value which 
can be described as an archeological structure of knowledge, in fact, it points 
to the proximity (interweaving, link) between the perceived and the linguistic 
in the constitution of knowledge. 
Representational pictorial systems are determined by the following char-
acteristics: (1) painting is a technique which aims to produce an effect for the 
eye (body, look, seeing, placing the perceived into a language), i.e. to pro-
duce itself as something entirely subordinate to the economy of visual pro-
duction of effects, (2) the function of a representational painting is in covering 
up the material morphology of the pictorial: to mark the departure from the 
material literal appearance of the surface by simulation, to start the game of 
differences, to remove f rom it the literal nature of the significational identity 
of the surface, (3) one system of representation is read from other systems 
(the criterion of interpictoriality, analogous to intertextuality), in other words, 
it is impossible to read a system of a visual (pictorial) representation on its 
own basis. A painting does not represent by simply (optically) existing or by 
literally referring to the objects of the world, but by motivatedly or conven-
tionally referring to the objects of the world pointing to other paintings and 
texts in the history of painting and culture (religious, ideological, sexual text). 
2. Visual Meta-Language 
There is no general system of visual and pictorial representation which 
could be described by the terms visual language or, in a narrower sense, 
pictorial language. There are certain analogies between visual (pictorial) sys-
tems and language (linguistic systems), there are mutual correspondences 
between appearance and signification, there is a presence of language (lin-
guistic) material in structuring of the pictorial matter, there are similarities 
between language games (with linguistic and semiotic elements) and picto-
rial, visual and optical games. There is no painting which does not produce 
sense, meaning and value. But the production of sense, meaning and value is 
not achieved according to closed consistent models, but according to open, 
unstable and variable formulations (stylistic schemes, individual poetics, his-
torical coding, arbitrary or motivated combinations or games). If visual (and 
pictorial) representation is analogous at least in some aspects to linguistic 
representation, then by visual (pictorial) structures one can represent the ap-
pearance of another work of art, i.e. its concept of constitution, appearance 
and functioning as a presentation, expression or construction. 
209 
Miško Šuvakovič 
Visual meta language is the structural and significational order of a visual 
work of art by means of which other works of art are shown and represented, 
as well as aspects of Artworld, stylistic patterns, genre rules and schemes, 
ways of setting up meaning in a work of fine art, language-pictorial games, 
visual properties of a work of art, conceptual and ideological overdetermi-
nations. A work of art or an aspect of Artworld which is shown or repre-
sented is a first degree work of art, and the work of art which represents it is 
a second degree work of art or visual, more strictly speaking pictorial, meta-
language. 
Some examples of visual meta-language in painting are neo-Dadaistic 
and the early proto-Pop Art paintings of Jasper Johns such as »Flag« (1954-
55), »By the Sea« (1961) or »Fool's House« (1962). The painting »Flag« is a 
meta-example of literal representation showing a cultural artefact (flag). The 
painting is realized in such a way that it covers the canvas f rom edge to edge, 
and is thus simultaneously a concrete flag and a painting (representation) of a 
flag. The painting »Fool's House« is an example of visual meta-language be-
cause it demonstrates language games in the relationships of the elements of 
the painting, objects and words. The idea of language game is taken f rom 
Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of language. Roy Lichtenstein's Pop Art 
paintings based on representation of comic frames or comic-like paraphrases 
of Picasso's portraits and Leger's scenes are meta-visual examples. His idea 
of visual meta-language is interpictorial. It is based on a transfer of subject 
matter and iconographic solutions from one stylistic or cultural system of 
representation into another (from popular mass culture or French post-cubist 
modernism into American high modernism). With the painting »Whaam!« 
Lichtenstein shows how comic sequences are literally transferred f rom the 
Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam! (1963) 
210 
Asymmetries of Language and Sight 
world of popular culture into the world of high modernism. The representa-
tion of Picasso's portrait has a more complex function: (1) the post-cubist 
portrait is realised in the way of comic (transfer from the high art of modern-
ism into the popular culture of the comic), and (2) the comic-like form is 
effected as an artistic painting, whereby the transfer from one context into 
another is reduced to a hermeneutical absurdity (by pictorial means high art 
is interpreted as an expression of popular culture, and an icon of popular 
culture is realized and exhibited as an example of high art). 
In conceptual art the idea of visual meta language is most often inte-
grated with the effects of linguistic meta-language. For conceptual art any 
seeing means reading. For instance, in the work of the group Art & Language 
»Map to not indicate...« (1967) the visual scheme of the map is not there to 
represent the North American continent, but to represent an anomalous look 
of the map, i.e. the anomalous relationship between the text and the map. 
Visual elements are a support for meta-linguistic intentions of the artist to 
br ing linguistic and visual language, paradoxically and anomalously, into the 
same plane of representat ion (semantic interchangeability). Let us consider 
another example. The concept of analytical proposition was introduced into 
art practice by Joseph Kosuth in his text »Art after Philosophy« (1969). Ac-
cording to Kosuth, works of art are analytical propositions because they do 
not supply information on facts, but show the artist's intention. A work of art 
understood as an analytical proposition does not describe the behaviour of 
physical or mental objects, but expresses formal definitions of art or formal 
consequences of that definition. Kosuth's work »One and Three Chairs« (1965) 
is an example of artistic work as an expression of an analytical proposition. 
To the proposition »chair« correspond: the visual expression (the photograph 
representing the chair), the expression of the chair as a three-dimensional 
object, and the linguistic expression (a dictionary definition of the term »chair«). 
The expression of proposition can be seen (photograph), utilized (object -
chair) or read (text of the dictionary definition). 
3. Mimesis of Mimesis 
T h e mimes i s of mimes i s ( representa t ion of the represented) is a 
Postmodernist eclectical (postmetaphysical, posthistorical) conception of art. 
A painting does not represent reality, the original essence of art or the artist's 
direct emotion. A painting represents historical or current forms of represen-
tation of reality, fantasies or language games. 
Mimesis is interpreted as the ideology and the art of imitation, emula-
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Miško Šuvakovič 
Neša Paripovič, Self-Portrait ( 1989) 
tion and illusionist representation of appearance of real or fictional objects, 
situations, events and beings. The concept of mimesis has been exposed to 
criticism and destruction in modern art, f rom post-impressionism to minimal 
and conceptual art. In abstract constructivist, concretist and formalist art it is 
rejected as historically superfluous. In surrealism and fantastic painting the 
principle of mimesis is applied as a stylistic pattern, i.e. impossible, fantastic 
and fictional events, situations and beings are represented in the way the real 
world is represented in mimetic art. In hyperrealism the forms of imitation, 
emulation and illusionist representation are rhetorically perfected and sup-
ported by contemporary technological devices. The result of hyperrealism is 
not the realization of the ideas of traditional mimesis, since hyperrealist painting 
and sculpture are representations of photography. The works of hyperrealism 
are paradoxically a double mimesis: representations of the depicted object 
and representations of the effects of technical media by which the object was 
represented in the first instance and on whose basis the hyperrealist work was 
effected. Chuck Close's portraits are pictorial representations of photogra-
phy with all the sharpness and non-sharpnessfound in photographic copies 
and blow-ups. 
212 
Asymmetries of Language and Sight 
With the postmodernist revival of representation the idea (technique 
and ideology) of mimesis regained attention. Mimesis of mimesis can be in-
terpreted as a visual deconstruction of pictorial metaphysics. Whereas philo-
sophical deconstruction shows and disjoins the entire body of Western meta-
physics (deconstruction of logocentrism in philosophy, literature, ideology), 
mimesis of mimesis is a citational-collage-montage production of a visual work 
of art which disjoins visual metaphysics (anomalous nodes of logocentrism -
Derrida, ocularcentrism - Jay , euclydocentrism - Deleuze). 
A Postmodernist painting is an ecstatic and obscene reflection and simu-
lation of other works of art, symbolic scenes, aspects of Artworld, culture and 
society. According to Postmodernist theory every work in the history of art 
was created by representat ion (expression, transformation) of existing mod-
els of representation, but only the art and theory of Postmodernism set this 
principle as a poetic foundation of art production. In Postmodernist painting 
of the eighties, trans-avantgarde (Clemente), neoexpressionist (Kiefer), anach-
ronistic (Mariani) or retrograde (Irwin) paintings are based on eclectic repre-
sentation, citation, collage and montage of traces of scenes, expressions, 
iconographies and genre models of traditional European, antimodernist and 
modernist art. They are no longer meta-linguistic and not in the sense in 
which the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan claims that there is no meta-language! 
For instance, David Salle's painting »Doors with Light« (1989) has a seeming 
structure of visual meta-language since it simultaneously represents various 
forms of representation in high art and popular culture. However, it does not 
have the legitimacy of meta-language, since it introduces the schemes of visual 
meta-linguistic scenes into an expressively subjective and arbitrary (expres-
sive, eroticized, entropic, non-motivated) painting. It is demonstrated that 
subjectivity (fragmentariness) and visual arbitrariness penetrate the objectiv-
ity of meta-language, transforming it into a reflection of reflection (mimesis 
of mimesis). 
Neša Paripovič, in his series of works completed between 1988 and 1993, 
represents a painting (painting on a wall, graffiti, drawing on paper, ambient-
sculptural arrangement in front of a painting) by a photograph. The estab-
lished method is the mimesis of mimesis (representation of the represented), 
whereby painting as representation of a manual expressive iconic trace is 
deconstructed to a luminous photographic print. The tactile direct expres-
sion of painting traces on the wall cools down to the luminous (alienated 
print). Paripovič shows that a photograph represents the represented and 
expressed painting by becoming a visual and polysemantic interpretation of 
what cannot be subjected to discourse interpretation (pictorial signifier). By 
imposing a visual voice (the voice of photography) the manual character of 
213 
Miško Šuvakovič 
painting is reduced to the shown skeleton of a painting which is seductively 
and fatally immersed in the language of photography. His works are intervisual 
since they show how the objectual, the optical, the visual, the pictorial, the 
semiological and the linguistic confront each other (transfigure) institution-
ally (in media) by various forms of visual representation (the difference be-
tween the power of representation in painting and in photography). Trans-
figuration is a method of transferring one visual order with all its optical, 
visual and significational-ideological characteristics into another visual sys-
tem. This involves a change of sensual effects, meanings, sense and values of 
the transferred material, as well as of the system into which the elements of 
another system are inserted (photography rhetorically masks the body of paint-
ing, whereas painting penetrates the semantic effects of photography). 
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