The Figurative and the Symbolic

1. The Figurative and the Symbolic

2. Consider the following statement:- • The significance of the visual arts within culture contests the view that the final expression of authentic representation will be constituted within language. The significance of the visual arts asserts the significance of figuration. In certain cultural settings, it may therefore be argued, language – the symbolic – is eclipsed by the figural. How to think of this eclipse? Simply as a form of darkness obliterating the normal illumination offered by language – or more literally – as a body interposed between communicants, blocking out part of their discourse and rendering the rest pale, almost colourless? • The reality of an eclipse is caused by a spatial manifestation, and its metaphorical extension suggests that the figure constitutes a spatial domain which linguistic ‘space’ cannot incorporate, only wrap itself around so that the figure becomes cocooned in the words of the figure’s interpreters or critics. In this sense, the figure, as something ‘outside’ of language, cannot itself be equivalent to a verbal signification. Art, as space and extension that mirrors desire and fantasy, opposes the rational authority of the word.

3. But perhaps the distinction should not be drawn between language and other forms of communication. When it comes down to it, isn’t this really an argument about the place of ‘meaningful’ ambiguity? If I choose to communicate my perspectives on some matter by smoke signals, it requires a distant watcher familiar with the code I am employing – otherwise my ‘signal’ is no signal at all, it is a meaningless series of smoke billows. If I choose to leave a trail through the woods by bending over small saplings as I pass, I demonstrate my passage, but perhaps my trackers wonder if these traces could have been made by an ape, or some other animal – a degree of uncertainty is introduced to their pursuit. And, finally, if I leave a single, naked footprint on Crusoe’s island, his fear of cannibals is such that he will conclude that another human is present and may ambush him.

4. In each case, what is at issue is the use of symbols that are more or less conventionalised, more or less ambiguous. The more reduced the message, it seems, the greater the potential for ambiguity, but not necessarily meaninglessness. In the case of Crusoe, the very reduction in length of ‘message’ or sign gives him the ‘space’ to imagine much that is not actually ‘said’ – that this other person is a cannibal who may even now be planning an attack with others. Similarly, the more elaborate the message, the less potential there is for ambiguity: to someone who can decode it, my smoke message may be a close substitute to a telegram. So these examples also suggest that the longer the message, the greater the reliance on multiple conventions in order to maintain intelligibility: the shorter the message, the greater reliance on a single, ‘global’ convention.

5. Perhaps, what is at stake here is not so much a split between the spatial and the linguistic, as a division between the easy recognition of a convention, and a social context that asserts that within this ‘space’ communication will take place, but that the ‘normal’ conventions for linguistic meaning are going to be suspended or distorted in some way. And so, as we watch the dancers dance, or listen to the musicians play, we are forced to look for other signs of meaning – for possible bent branches or single footprints – and confirmation that we have ‘got’ the message may be a long time coming, may be withheld indefinitely, or may simply be unavailable, leaving us to generate our own meanings in a solipsistic world of communication only populated by ourselves.

6. But, of course, some art forms use language, such as poetry, novels, and radio plays and documentaries, and many use mixed media, such as operas, plays, and films. However, even in these cases the convention of being in a social context where the normal rules and expectations of linguistic relevance have changed, allows the speeches of actors and the declamations of poets to be ‘read’ in a different way. (And recall a quote from Andrew Ortony on an early set of web notes: we are not talking here of the difference between literal and metaphoric language, since all language is metaphoric.) So, what are we now to make of the figural?

7. First of all, perhaps, is the recognition that it exists as a system of discourse like any other, but one in which the conventions of meaning are deliberately loosened, or even abandoned, so that attention can be directed to other modes of living and perceiving. Secondly, it is not dependent on any one media form, since all are subject to dissolution within this specialised system of discourse. Thirdly, ‘artistic’ fragments can enter normal forms of discourse whilst retaining some of their intrinsic resistance to easy translation, e.g. quotes from Shakespeare or the Bible (Once more unto the breach, through a glass darkly), or metaphorical allusions to pictures that suggest a high-flying ‘reading’ of a more prosaic reality, e.g. calling the public execution of a rebel leader a ‘crucifixion’.

8. All of this suggests, of course, that any normal discourse that attempts to reduce the apparent unintelligibility of artistic discourse will be avidly pursued, and this fact is attested to by the army of critics, interpreters, and simplifiers that fill our newspapers, journals, and TV screens. But this is not the same thing as saying that the figural can be ‘explained’ by language, or that it even is another ‘language’ if, what we really mean by saying such things is that the figural can be reduced to the symbolic, to normal discourse, as a kind of hieroglyphics – otherwise why do these cultural objects continue to fascinate us, in some cases after thousands of years, and yet still prove themselves capable of evoking new interpretations?

9. And that is why we turn to Lacan. The last piece in the jig-saw is a perspective that lets us see the figurative as ‘symptoms’ of cultural meaning – not a symbolic discourse about society’s hopes and fears, its wishes, fantasies, and desires – as their direct expression within the cultural dreamworld which we call the Arts. But Antigone and Ariadne will continue to pursue their very different causes long after we become familiar with this way of analysing such ‘symptoms’ so as to illuminate aspects of education, and much else besides. In psychoanalysis we have a torch capable of illuminating the shadow of the eclipse, but we still cannot ‘say’ what the figurative ‘is’ – unless, perhaps, we call our continuing fascination an encounter with the Real. (D.M.B. 2011)