Curtis L. Carter

PAINTING AND LANGUAGE: A PICTORIAL SYNTAX OF SHAPES

In previous articles, the author proposed that paintings can have syntactic rules. In this article he develops his proposal further and shows that shapes act as syntactic elements in the languages of painting styles. He meets Nelson Goodman’s objections to his proposal by showing that shapes meet the criterion of syntactic discreteness proposed by the latter to separate linguistic from other symbolic systems. His approach is to specify style as the domain of a language of painting, to show that style is syntactical and to argue that shapes are the primitive syntactic elements of style. His essay relates current research on the development of syntax for picture-reading machines to the question of syntax for paintings.

Aesthetics, Video Art and Television

The author reviews two symposia: ‘The Video Arts: Demonstration and Discussion’, The American Society for Aesthetics, New York City, 28 Oct. 1978, and ‘The Aestheticians Look at Television’, National Association of Education Broadcasters, Washington, D.C., 30 Oct. 1978. He also presents an evaluation of the current state of video art in terms of philosophical aesthetics. Furthermore, he attempts to make a clear distinction between television and video art. The differences cited include corporate studio efforts vs efforts of individual artists, commercial vs artistic purpose and the substantial differences between production methods. Other issues considered are style, intimacy and narcissism.

Industrial Design: On Its Characteristics and Relationships to the Visual Fine Arts

Industrial design and the visual arts share a common aesthetic basis as demonstrated by their common use of aesthetic principles and by designers who are also visual artists. The author examines the rationale for exhibiting industrial products in art museums and the similarities and differences between industrial design and the fine arts. He argues that industrial design shares important theoretical concepts (expression, representation and style) with the visual fine arts.