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Full Idea
In Goodman's account, knowing what a painting represents is logically like understanding a sentence in a natural language. It requires a grasp of the 'symbol system' to which the painting belongs.
Gist of Idea
Art is like understanding a natural language, and needs a grasp of a symbol system
Source
report of Nelson Goodman (The Languages of Art [1976]) by Sebastian Gardner - Aesthetics 2.3.2
Book Ref
'Philosophy: a Guide Through the Subject', ed/tr. Grayling,A.C. [OUP 1995], p.603
A Reaction
This may fit some pictures well (e.g. early Flemish painting, with its complex iconography), but others hardly at all. You can enjoy a first experience of (say) ballet long before you get the hang of the 'symbol system' involved.
8113 | Art is like understanding a natural language, and needs a grasp of a symbol system [Goodman, by Gardner] |
20439 | Artistic symbols are judged by the fruitfulness of their classifications [Goodman, by Giovannelli] |
12162 | In literature, word replacement changes literary meaning [Scruton] |
12166 | If music refers to love, it contains no predication, so it is expression, not language [Scruton] |