[LexBaird]

Really? Says who?

Says me. Can you postulate a circumstance where art exists in a void? Consider all the things we catagorize as art, and tell me which is not based on the communication of some message. Dance, music, theatre, poetry, visual media, literature: all are communications with other humans or the Divine.

What if his understanding of happiness is different from yours? Should he portray his understanding, or yours?

He should portray his understanding in a way that it is conveyed to others. How are others to understand his happiness unless he relates it somehow to a more universal condition? If I were to paint a series of yellow triangles with great subtlety, crisp and vibrant hues, and hang them in a museum, would you understand the "I'm happy!" message?

Maybe, if you associated the images with happiness, but not because I communicated what they were supposed to mean within the art. Even if I wrote a dissertation on the transcendent symbology of the dialectic between the Golden Rule and the Holy Trinity and the ability of same to distill the essence of joy through pyramid power, it would not change the painting's content, though it might influence your mindset on viewing it.

Art without audience is the proverbial tree falling in the forest. Who cares if it produces sound waves? It may be technically prodigious, but without the participation of another it is ultimately pointless.

[Blind Eye Jones]

Would you agree that if the artist experiences something radically new, he might have to create a new language to express it, and that his art could seem meaningless to his audience and to the tradition he is working within? Somebody mentioned Schoenberg and if I can use him as an example of someone who had gone beyond the traditional means of creating music. Perhaps Rothko with his seemingly simple colors and geometry might need the aid of the written word to help express his experience if the audience doesn't yet know how to interpret the art -- if the new language is not accessible or easily understood. I'm not saying this is the case with Rothko; I'm wondering if, in general, you might admit to this possibility.

I'm also interested if you think that the artist is always in control of what he is communicating? I agree that his message or content is important but I also wonder if he is always aware of what he is communicating. For example, there may be messages in his art that his subconscious is communicating that he may not be aware of, that the audience picks up on.