Final version appears in The Conversation Frame: Forms and Functions of Fictive Interaction, Esther Pascual and Sergeiy Sandler, eds., 87-109.

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Chapter 5. SILENT ABSTRACTIONS VERSUS “LOOK AT ME”

DRAWINGS: CORPUS EVIDENCE THAT ARTWORKS’

SUBJECT MATTER AFFECTS THEIR FICTIVE SPEECH

Karen Sullivan

Artworks can be said to metaphorically “speak” to their viewers (Sullivan

2006, 2009) in a form of fictive interaction (Pascual 2002). The current study

examines the fictive speech of different types of artworks in a corpus of

1,105 examples extracted from DeviantART, the world’s largest online

artwork community. In the corpus, abstract artworks are less often presented

as “speaking” directly than figurative artworks. That is, a figurative painting

might say, “Look at me!” in directly presented speech, whereas an abstract

work is more likely to scream for attention without any direct speech

attributed to the artwork. I suggest three reasons for this disparity. I also find

that artworks depicting named characters participate in fictive conversations

not shared by other works.

Keywords. corpus linguistics, fictive interaction, indirect speech, metaphor, visual art

1. Introduction

Descriptions of artworks are frequently structured by the conversation frame.

Artworks metaphorically “speak”, “scream” and “whisper” as fictive

speakers, addressees, and bystanders in imagined conversations termed

“fictive interactions” (Pascual 2002). Paintings and drawings can fictively

“speak” to an audience or “talk back” to their creators. Given that the

artworks’ “speech” is projected by its creator onto the artwork, the process

may be considered a type of “ventriloquism” in the sense of Cooren (2010,

2012). However, not all artworks “speak” to the same people, nor do they

have equal amounts to “say”. One factor that shapes these fictive interactions

is the subject matter that the artworks portray. For example, Sullivan (2006,

2009) found that artworks with purely abstract subject matter tend to be

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described as “speaking to” their creators, whereas figurative artworks that

depict people, objects or landscapes more often “speak to” their viewing

audience. The subject matter of a work affects the fictive interaction within

which it may be construed.

This study examines descriptions of artworks in an online corpus, and

finds that different types of artworks not only “speak” to different people, but

also do so in different ways. For example, purely abstract artworks almost

never speak in directly presented speech, although pictures of humans,

animals, and even inanimate objects have no problem speaking directly. In

example (1a), for instance, the drawing of a dog “screams” in directly

presented speech. On the other hand, purely abstract works tend to “speak”

indirectly, as in (1b), which describes the non-figurative painting in Figure

(1).

(1) a. It’s like I can hear the drawing screaming at me: “I’M AN

ANATOMY PROBLEM!! AAAHHH!!!~”1 b. The movement in this painting tells you a lot about how I

felt doing this painting.....free

Figure 1. “THE-EXPLOSION-OF-HOPE” by Mark Bevan

The “screamed” words attributed to the drawing in (1a) are a direct

presentation of speech, in that they report wording ascribed to the artwork by

1 See appendix 1 for attribution of examples. Examples are from the

DeviantART website unless otherwise noted. Typos and spelling errors are so

frequent on DeviantART that they will not be noted or corrected in the examples

given here. Italics are my addition to highlight fictive interaction. Copyright

permission for all artworks included here was received from the artists.

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its creator. Since paintings and drawings cannot literally speak, this does not

represent a quotation of some previous speech event. Rather, it dramatizes an

effect on human participants. This use of direct speech was recognized by

Tannen (1986, 1988, 1989) and Baynham (1996). In English and other

languages, a verb of saying, with or without directly presented speech, can be

used to express either speech or an inference (e.g. “see what it’s telling you”,

Baynham 1996, p. 74; Pascual 2008). Here, the inference is the visual impact

of the artwork on the artist or the viewer.

In this corpus, “direct speech” as in (1a) is the prerogative of artworks

that depict humans, animals, objects or landscapes. Abstract works are clearly

capable of expressing the artist’s sentiments, as in (1b), so it may not be

immediately apparent why these works avoid directly presented speech. In

fact, the data in the current study suggest that this avoidance is due to a

combination of factors rather than a single difference between figurative and

abstract works.

The current study suggests that the subject matter in an artwork

correlates not only with the work’s “conversational partners”, as shown in

Sullivan (2006, 2009), but also determines the style and detail with which the

work can “speak”. Some artworks “speak” more clearly than others, and some

simply have more to “say”.

2. Method

The corpus of artworks and artist commentaries used here was extracted from

the “DeviantART” website (www.deviantart.com), the largest online

community of user-generated artworks (Salah et al. 2012). The website is a

forum where members post artwork and descriptions of their artwork, and

comment on the artwork of others. Basic membership on the site is free and

non-members can visit the site. The site has approximately 22 million

members, 224 million images and 45 million monthly visitors (Salah et al.

2012; Salah and Salah 2013).

To restrict the media and dimensionality of artwork, the corpus was

limited to the artworks posted as “Traditional Art” and “Digital Art”,

including mostly two-dimensional artworks produced by traditional or digital

drawing or painting. Photography, sewing projects and other media were

thereby omitted from the study.

The corpus was extracted from the site via a series of searches. The

DeviantART site allows searches of its text fields including titles,

descriptions, and comments. All search terms in the current study consisted

of a noun and a verb. The nouns were painting, drawing, and artwork, the

three most frequent terms used by artists to refer to their works on the site

(with the exception of art, which unhelpfully returns a set of all works in the

database). The verbs used in searches were say, scream, speak, tell and

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whisper. The site’s search function is sensitive to lemmas, so that an inflected

form such as speaks returns instances of speak and spoke, for instance. Other

verb search terms were excluded because they returned no instances of fictive

interaction. These included communicate, describe, hint, mumble, suggest

and yell.

The three nouns and five verbs listed above were exhaustively

combined in 15 noun-verb pairs such as “painting say” and “drawing scream”.

These searches resulted in a total of 13,791 hits. The text associated with each

hit was manually examined for instances of fictive interaction involving

artworks. All such instances were added to the corpus, even if these did not

include the original search terms. For example, the text that included example

(2a), a result from the noun-verb search “painting tell”, also included example

(2b).

(2) a. Just one of those things where a painting tells you want

medium or style to draw the final in.

b. Needed to get this sketch finished tonight. It was begging

me… just fricken begging me … to get it finished.

Although example (2b) lacks the search terms painting and tell, it nonetheless

involves fictive interaction and was therefore added the corpus.

Only fictive speech involving non-linguistic elements was considered.

Artists who incorporated text in their artworks frequently described this text

as “speaking”, as in (3).

(3) it says “kaguya hime” or “princess kaguya” in japanese language

Examples like (3) were removed. Furthermore, only English results were

considered.

These procedures resulted in a corpus of 1,105 examples of fictive

interaction. Examples were entered in a spreadsheet with information

including a link to the artwork, the category artists assigned to their works

(such as ‘Abstract’), and two measures described below: a categorization of

the work’s subject matter based on the text description, and the type of fictive

interaction in the text.

The artist-assigned categories on DeviantART were insufficient to

determine the subject matter in the works. For example, many images listed

under “Abstract”, “Landscape” or “Still Life” were dominated by human

figures. Artists frequently complained of the difficulty in assigning a category

to their works, with statements such as “I don’t know which category this

belongs to” or “Hope this is the right category”. To address this issue, the

current study assessed artists’ written descriptions of their work to determine

the subject matter they intended to portray in their artworks. For example, if

artists named a character that appears in the artwork, then the artwork was

treated as a portrayal of that character. If artists described a figure in the work

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or referred to a figure as he or she, then the work was assumed to depict an

animate being.

Named characters were considered a distinct category of subject

matter, given the central role on DeviantART of original characters (called

“OCs” on the site). Animate subject matter that included named individuals

was considered to belong to the category character. Unnamed animates were

categorized as animate. In both character and animate, animals and people

were not distinguished. DeviantART is home to “furries” (a community

dedicated to anthropomorphic animals) and others with an interest in mixing

animal and human characteristics, so it would be impossible to make a

distinction between humans and animals in a large number of cases.

Reference to places or objects depicted in the artwork (such as the

jacket or mountains) was considered evidence that the work showed an

inanimate object or location, and these artworks were labelled inanimate.

However, if a work included both (unnamed) animate and inanimate subject

matter, it was classified as animate. If it included both named animate

(character) and other animate or inanimate subject matter, it was considered

character. Works that were described as purely abstract were assigned the

subject matter label none.

When no textual clues as to the work’s subject matter were present in

the description of the work, then the artwork itself was assessed and assigned

to one of the categories described above. A degree of subjectivity inevitably

entered this process, but by focusing on artists’ self-categorization and self-

description, subjectivity was minimized.

The 1,105 examples of fictive interaction were divided into the four

subcategories of subject matter with frequencies noted in Table 1. Unnamed

animate subjects were overwhelmingly the most frequent.

Table 1. Categories of subject matter in the DeviantART fictive interaction corpus

Subject matter Total Percentage

animate (unnamed animate) 777 70.3 %

character (named animate) 157 14.2 %

inanimate 103 9.3 %

none 68 6.2 %

TOTAL 1,105 100.0 %

Works were also categorized according to the type of fictive

interaction in their descriptions. The non-genuine speech in the examples was

divided into five types. The first three types involved fictive communication

in which the artwork or artist “speaks”. These types were labelled direct

speech, indirect speech, and vocalizations. Of the five types, only direct and

indirect speech involved both artworks and artists as fictive “speakers”.

Throughout the corpus, the only “speech” from artists occurred when the

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artists used their works to fictively convey a message. These usages with artist

“speakers” will be discussed, but will still be considered as indirect speech

and direct speech.

The remaining two types of fictive interaction – both rare – involved

artworks with conversational roles other than the speaker. These types were

named for the artwork’s role in the interaction, either an addressee or a

bystander. The five types are described below and listed in Table 2.

Examples were judged to involve direct speech if they included

directly presented fictive speech from the artwork or the artist. Directly

presented speech could be written either in quotation marks, as in (4b)—(4c)

below, or without them, as in (4a). Artworks fictively spoke directly to artists

(as in 4a), to one or more viewers (4b), or to an unspecified addressee (4c).

(4) a. This painting was telling me conflicting things. Firstly, it

was saying I need to be darker… and secondly it was

saying it was not a painting…

b. This is actually Howie, who is thanking you for ‘giving-

him-life’ as he puts it.

c. It’s like this ancient artwork is saying: “You want some

rive cakes? Doraemon style, of course!”

Direct “speech” from artists occurred when the artists used their works as

mediums of communication (cf. Pascual 2014, §3.4.3.2), in which the act of

art creation “sends a message” to one or more viewers, as in (5) below. Here,

the act of creating and sharing the drawing, rather than anything depicted in

the drawing itself, conveyed the artist’s intended message (see also §4.4).

(5) Just a stupid little drawing to say “Hello” to d[eviant ]A[rt].

In indirect speech, the speech act was presented without direct speech, as in

(6a). Artworks’ “stories” were also considered indirect speech when none of

the story’s content was presented directly. For instance, (6b) is a description

of Figure 2 and explains what the fictive story is “about” without direct

speech.

(6) a. i just started and let the painting tell me what it wanted.

b. Five small sequence drawings that tell a story. Mine is

about the cavity dudes that live in our mouths.

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Figure 2. “I Like Candy” by Terumi Tashima

Artists’ indirect speech, like their direct speech, involved mediums of

communication, as in (7). These served a similar communicative function to

the analogous uses of direct speech, as can be seen by comparing (5) and (7).

(7) i made this drawing to say that i really want to thankyou all,

randoms, watchers and friends alike.

The vocalization category was similar to indirect speech, but involved no

presentation of speech content. That is, the fictive speaker vocalized, but was

not reported to have “said” anything in particular, as in (8). Vocalizations

usually involved communication verbs other than say, and were especially

typical of scream.

(8) just let the drawing speak for itself......or scream.......

In all three of the above types, the artwork or artist fictively produced the

direct speech, indirect speech or vocalization, and was therefore the fictive

speaker in the interaction. Occasionally, neither the artist nor the artwork had

a speaker role, and the artwork had the role of either the addressee or a

bystander. These examples comprised the final two speech types considered

in the corpus. Although the categories were labelled addressee and bystander

for the role the artwork plays in the fictive exchange, the categories each

involved a specific type of communication, in addition to involving a

particular non-speaker role for the artwork. For this reason, the categories

were considered on a par with the three previously described categories in

which the artwork or artist plays the “speaker” role, which were defined not

only by this role but also by the type of speech involved in the fictive

exchange.

In four examples in the corpus, the artwork was the fictive addressee,

as in (9).

(9) lotti speak for me …

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In the examples like (9), the artist was the “speaker” and the work was the

“addressee”. In all instances of the addressee category, the artist employed a term

of direct address, such as the name lotti used as a vocative in (9), and then issued

either a command as in (9), or asked a question. The four examples in the corpus

involved two questions and two commands.

In the five bystander examples, the artwork was neither speaker nor

addressee, but was a third participant in the communicative exchange, as in (10).

This example describes an artwork depicting a new character.

(10) So here is the first of hopefully several drawings. Say hello to

Maddeline Brink.

In all bystander examples, the artist introduced either the artwork or its subject

matter to the viewer and commanded the viewer to say “hi” or “hello”, as in (10).

In genuine interactions, when a participant is introduced by name, the intent is to

ratify the participant and include him or her in the ongoing interaction as a

“bystander”, so the artwork in examples like (10) can be considered a fictive

bystander (Goffman 1981 [1979], p. 132). All five examples of the type in (10)

involved the specific scenario in which the artwork was introduced by name and

the addressee was encouraged to greet it.

The five types of fictive interaction described above, and their frequencies

in the corpus, are listed in Table 2.

Table 2. Fictive interaction types in the DeviantART corpus

Fictive interaction type Total Percentage*

direct speech 80 7.2 %

indirect speech 662 59.9 %

vocalization 355 32.1 %

addressee 4 0.4 %

bystander 5 0.5 %

TOTAL 1,105 100.0 % * Percentages are rounded and do not total 100.0%.

It is immediately evident from Table 2 that indirect speech, as in (6a)–(6b),

and vocalizations, as in (8), were the most common types of fictive interaction in

the corpus, with the other types lagging far behind.

To assess whether particular types of visual artwork correlated with

specific kinds of fictive interaction, the variable subject matter (with the four

levels listed in Table 1) and the variable fictive interaction type (with the five

levels in Table 2) were cross-tabulated. The overall significance of the variables’

interaction was analysed, along with the contributions to the overall Chi-square

presented by the individual combinations of levels from the two variables. For

example, the combination of inanimate and direct represented one of the 20

interactions of the levels of subject matter and fictive interaction type.

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3. Results

When the levels of subject matter and fictive interaction type were cross-

tabulated in a 4 x 5 table, the overall Pearson Chi-square of the 4 x 5 table

was 35.3 with a highly significant p-value of .0004. None of the individual

contributions to Chi-square were significant. However, some interactions

between levels contributed much more than others to the overall Chi-square.

Most of the Chi-square was contributed by three interactions between levels

(see the first three rows of Table 3). Two of these were positive interactions

between levels that were more strongly correlated than chance (types), and

one was a negative interaction between levels less associated than expected

by chance (an antitype). The character level within the subject matter

variable was most strongly associated with the bystander level, accounting

for 15.2 of the Chi-square. That is, artists tended to “introduce” named

characters to their viewers. The character level was also correlated with the

addressee level of fictive interaction types, contributing 10.4 of the 35.3 Chi-

square. That is, artists tended to fictively “speak” to artworks that depicted

named characters.

Table 3. All interactions in the study with a Chi-square greater than 1

Subject

matter

variable

Fictive interaction

type variable

Contribution to

Chi-square

Positive or

negative

correlation Character Bystander 15.2 Positive

Character Addressee 10.4 Positive

None Direct 3.1 Negative

Animate Bystander 1.8 Negative

Animate Addressee 1.2 Negative

TOTAL - 35.3 -

The next-largest contributor to the Chi-square was the negative

correlation between purely abstract works (those with subject matter none)

and direct speech. Purely abstract works were less likely to “speak” directly

than all other types of artwork. This negative correlation accounted for 3.1 of

the 35.3 Chi-square.

The only other two greater-than-one contributions to Chi-square were

the negative correlation between animate and addressee (Chi-square

contribution 1.2) and between animate and bystander (1.8). Both negative

associations can be attributed to the strong positive association between

character subject matter and addressee and bystander, which rendered the

animate category less dominant in these two categories than in the others. An

explanation of the association between character and these two categories will

therefore also explain the negative association between animate and the two

categories.

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4. Discussion

Why, then, are artworks that depict characters so strongly associated with the

addressee and bystander roles? And what might prevent abstract works from

speaking directly? A closer analysis of the examples in the corpus suggests

answers to these questions. Sections 4.1 and 4.2 explore the association

between character and the addressee and bystander roles. Sections 4.3—4.6

explain why abstract works avoid direct “speech”.

4.1. Addressing named characters

When an artwork was presented as an “addressee” in a fictive conversation,

the artist either asked the work a question (as in 11a), or issued a command

(as in 11b).

(11) a. Mona. Why I no good at drawing you?

b. This was the last thingerdoodle before school, just

practicing “speed painting”, tryin to get the hang of it D:

painting, tell me your secrets!

In (11a), the artist directs a question at “Mona”, the character that she has just

drawn. In (11b), the artist directs a command at the entire activity of painting.

The artwork described in (11b) depicts a human figure, though this is

described by the artist only as “a dark brown-haired mafia guy”.

Crucially, all examples included an overt vocative, that is, an address

term such as Mona and painting in the examples above. It is logical that

vocatives would typically address named characters, as in (11a). Without a

character name, speakers must assign the fictive addressee a label, such as

painting in (11b), in order to issue a command. Indeed, (11b) was the only

example of a non-character fictive addressee in the corpus. It is impossible to

judge whether the inclusion of a human figure in the artwork of (11b)

encouraged the fictive command, or whether example (11b) involved an

animate subject (rather than an inanimate or purely abstract one) by chance.

Regardless, the association between named characters and the addressee role

is robust, and can be attributed to the availability of a name by which the

artwork can be addressed.

4.2. Introducing named characters

The availability of a name also makes character so prevalent in bystander

roles. In the five bystander examples, the artist introduces an artwork or

depicted character to the viewers and demands a viewer response to this

introduction, as in (12a) and (12b).

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(12) a. Say hello to Perry Salisburgh, a.k.a. Re-Act, an issue 0

exclusive character.

b. Say Hi to Mr. Owl.

In four of the five bystander examples, including (10) and (12a)—(12b), the

artist addresses a character in the artwork by name, and tells the viewers to

“say hi/hello”. Artists on DeviantART frequently design their own original

character (“OC”), which may make continued appearances in their artwork.

In terms of fictive interaction, the character’s reappearances are

conceptualized as repeated non-genuine conversations with the viewers.

Given the potential for a recurrent series of “meetings” between the original

character and the viewers, it is appropriate for the artist to “introduce” the

character. As the character-viewer interaction continues over time, it comes

closer to resembling a fictional narrative, a process that demonstrates the

malleable boundary between fictive interaction and fiction itself, as discussed

by Xiang (this volume).

Four of the five bystander examples employed the character’s name,

as in (10), (12a) and (12b). The one exception was (13), which describes an

artwork of an unnamed boy and girl kissing (Figure 4). Since the characters

are nameless, the example employs an address term other than a name (a

drawing) to introduce the work.

(13) i drew this one day ….. and yeah. ITS A DRAWING! say hi.

Figure 4. “The Almost Kiss” by ForeverReid

The viewer is unlikely to experience an ongoing series of interactions with

this drawing or its anonymous figures. In this context, “say hi” in (13) comes

across as facetious, and gives the impression the artist has nothing else to add

about the work.

In general, artists command their audience to “say ‘hi/hello’” only to

named characters that the audience might “meet” again in a future fictive

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interaction. Genuine, real-life

introductions usually involve an

exchange of names, so it is logical that

the existence of a name encourages

fictive introductions, just as names

enable introductions between human

beings in genuine social life.

In both addressee and

bystander fictive interactions, if the

figure in a work has a name, this is

employed (examples 10, 12a and 12b).

If the figure(s) lack names, then the

artwork must be “spoken” to as

painting (example 11b) or a drawing

(13). This is analogous to unhelpfully

addressing or introducing someone as

“a person” in a genuine interaction.

The importance of names in non-

fictive introductions, questions and

commands carries over into fictive

introductions, questions and

commands. As a result, artworks

depicting characters are

overwhelmingly more likely to be described using these types of fictive

interaction than are works with other subject matter.

Although named characters play a special role in artworks’ fictive

interaction, the distinction between all figuration (the depiction of any

animate or inanimate subject matter) and pure abstraction is also crucial. This

distinction is apparent in figurative artworks’ ability to produce directly

presented “speech”, an ability that non-figurative works seem to lack. The

corpus examples suggest three reasons for this difference, discussed in turn

in the following sections.

4.3. Figurative subject matter that “speaks”

The strongest negative correlation in the corpus was between purely abstract

works and direct speech (Table 3). Only one purely abstract work in the

corpus “speaks” directly, amounting to only 1.25% of the 80 works that do

so. This is despite 6.2% of the fictive interaction in the corpus involving

abstract works (see Table 1).

The first, and perhaps most obvious, reason that purely abstract

artworks do not “speak” directly is that they lack subject matter than can be

conceptualized as a speaker. Often in figurative works, a depicted person or

thing, rather than the artwork as a whole, is directly ascribed “speech”.

Figure 5. “Fairyanika” by Armando-

Huerta

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Sometimes an artist has a long-term fictive relationship with a figure in an

artwork. This is the case for the painter of “Fairyanika”, who describes the

painful two-year process of painting the “warrior fairy” (shown in Figure 5).

When the artist was tempted to quit, he reacted as in (14), which includes

direct speech ascribed to the character.

(14) I looked to her eyes, Fairyanika’s eyes. “I will have my revenge” she

said. People say that I’m crazy because I talk to my paintings. …

But I know they feel just like us. … Because they are a piece of us,

that materialize and exist, just like a daughter or a son.

It might appear that a named character might more easily be thought of and

spoken to like a daughter or a son, but in fact artists were equally inclined to

let nameless or inanimate creations “speak” directly. In fact, the longest

directly presented speech in the corpus is attributed to an unnamed screaming

face (15), shown in Figure 6.

(15) This drawing speaks silent rage to

me. And this is what it spoke to me. “Hear

my puzzled muted screams and feel my

impotent jigsaw of rage. Though I gnash my

teeth at you you don’t feel my bite. I am

invisible to you, I am a nobody. In a world

full of bewildered and puzzled people I am

just one more person that does not count. I

am the person that you walk by their cubicle

and ignore, I am the person that bags your

grocery, and I am even the person that

watches your children. Yet you do not

notice me to your own puzzled peril. You

will take notice of me when my puzzled

screams are no longer silent and my rage

can be felt. Then and only then when my

teeth can be felt and from the depths of hell

I will spit at thee you will know who I am”

Figure 6. “Silent Rage” by Shane

Lees

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Somewhat unexpectedly, inanimate subject matter kept pace with the animate

in its ability to “speak” directly. For example, a jacket could “say” something

about feelings, as in (16).

(16) The texture on the jacket was fun! Actually, I think it has the least

amount of chalk anywhere on the drawing…but it speaks to me. It

says “Im happy”

In the world outside of paintings and drawings, inanimate objects often

“speak” fictively (Pascual 2002, 2008, 2014; Cooren 2010, 2012). The ease

of this fictive interaction helps explain why painted inanimate objects speak

so frequently. One instance of direct speech in the corpus (example 17) was

interesting in that the inanimate subjects, flowers, “scream” to be drawn, even

as they are undergoing the process of becoming subject matter.

(17) The flowers are ones that were standing on my desk during drawing,

screaming “Oh, such a big, blank place on the picture you have!

Oh, draw us!”. So I did.

It is unclear from (17) if the screaming continued once some flowers had been

transformed into subject matter in the drawing. However, the example

demonstrates the similarity between the “speech” of inanimate objects in the

world and the “speech” of painted inanimate objects. In reality, neither can

speak, but objects and representations of objects seem equally articulate in

their fictive “speech”. This may help explain why inanimate subject matter in

the corpus produced as much directly presented speech as animate subject

matter.

A painting may also “speak” directly regarding its own subject matter,

as in (18), an excerpt from the description of the painting in Figure 7.

(18) Drew the hawk “just to see” and the drawing spoke- “there you go”-

the hawk went down like it belonged there. Rather than try to impose

my will, I listened to the drawing.

Figure 7. “Gone Hunting (Mountainscape)” by Evan Parker

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Paintings can give their artists advice regarding subject matter, as in (18).

Artworks may even fictively ask questions about their own subject matter, as

in (19), an excerpt from the description of the landscape in Figure 8. In (19),

the painting presents itself both as a fictive speaker, and as a physical

landscape that the artist could potentially enter. This allows the painting to

“ask a question” regarding whether the artist wishes to journey further into

the depicted world.

(19) I’m still not quite sure what it means but to me it seems like the

painting is asking me a question. “Will you cross the icy bridge

before it breaks? …

Figure 8. “The Last Journey” by Mikko Eerola

Purely abstract works lack subjects that can “speak” as in (14) or (16).

Abstract works also cannot advise or question the artist about their own

figurative subject matter, as in (18)—(19). The lack of subject matter

therefore impairs purely abstract works in producing directly presented

“speech”.

Two additional factors may conspire to further discourage direct

speech from purely abstract works. One of these is the role of abstract works

in society, as explored in the next section.

4.4. Figurative works as mediums of communication

Purely abstract artworks appear to lack some of the social uses of figurative

artwork, further limiting their ability to participate in direct “speech”.

Figurative works are often painted as gifts, apologies, or to mark a milestone

such as “1,000 likes” (meaning that DeviantART users have indicated that

they “like” an artist’s work 1,000 times). However, no purely abstract

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artworks in the corpus were painted on behalf of specific individuals or

groups. Purely abstract works appear to typically be painted for personal

reasons, as suggested by the metaphors artists use to describe these works

(Sullivan 2006, 2009). Though it is of course possible to create an abstract

work for someone else, this did not occur in the DeviantART corpus, which

suggests that abstract works may be unusual choices as gifts.

Because figurative works are frequently painted on behalf of people

other than the artist, artists often use these works as mediums of

communication (cf. Pascual 2014, p. +). For example, an artist who created a

drawing for her cousin, as a medium of communication to express her

gratitude, describes the work with directly presented speech in (20).

(20) A thank you drawing for my cousin.

As mediums of communication, figurative artworks perform a range of

functions. They can be used to “say goodbye” – even to someone who is no

longer alive to receive the message, as in (21), which describes a portrait of

the fictive addressee.

(21) I made this drawing to say goodbye to me nephew who said goodbye

to life like a month ago. He wasn’t happy I think …

Artists often use these works to communicate greetings for specific holidays,

as in (22), which describes a painting of a boy tearing out his own heart.

(22) Happy Valentines Dayyy Probably not the best drawing to say this

to but whatevs lol hope you all have a happy Monday weather its

because of Vday or not

Artworks may be created as a “message” to one specific person, as in (23),

which accompanies a painting of the artist’s friend Federico and the ghost of

Federico’s recently deceased dog.

(23) So, this is for you, Federico….this drawing tell you “you are not

alone, I’m with you…ever!”

Finally, some works painted as gifts “spoke” the name of their intended

recipient, as in (24).

(24) A redraw of one of my older drawings. It screams SPENCER :P

Since no artist in the corpus claimed to have painted a purely abstract work

for another person or group, none of these works served as a medium of

communication for a directly presented message. This further limited the

opportunities for non-figurative works to “speak” directly.

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4.5. Figurative art that references other works

A third reason for the predominance of figurative works as the “speakers” of

directly presented “speech” is that these works often referenced each other or

popular culture. When they did so, the reference was typically expressed as

direct speech. For example, a painting could “scream ‘<300>’” because it

depicted a battle scene reminiscent of the movie 300.

Other works referenced animals or fictional species, as in (25a), which

describes the work in Figure 9. Still other art referenced characters created by

members of DeviantART, as in (25b), in which “Wolfie” is a character

belonging to another member.

(25) a. I know she doesn’t look like an elf, it’s just something

about my drawings that scream “elf”, or at least “not

entirely human” …

b. this pose took…2 hours to finally figure out/draw! it

screamed out…WOLFIE whan drawing it!

Figure 9. “Female Elf” by crevi

No abstract art referenced existing creative works in this manner.

Presumably it is more difficult to portray recognizable references to an

existing movie, book or other cultural phenomenon without the use of

recognizable imagery. At least in recent decades, purely abstract art seems to

often be considered a personal pursuit, so reference to the work of others may

also be less relevant. In any case, the corpus employed here contained no

examples of purely abstract works that referenced the creative work of

someone other than the artist.

In sum, the purely abstract works in the corpus appeared to have been

painted primarily for the artist rather than for others. This personal focus not

only led to the lack of abstract works as mediums of communication, as

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discussed in the previous section, but also obviated the need for references to

other works.

4.6. What abstract works can “say” directly

If purely abstract works lack figures that can “speak” (§4.3), fail to function

as mediums of communication (§4.4) and cannot reference other works

(§4.5), what do they have to “say”?

Abstract works seem to “speak directly” in two ways. First, they can

“comment” directly on the artist, perhaps telling the artist something about

him- or herself. One of the primary functions of abstract works is artistic self-

exploration, so these works have ample opportunity to “speak” to their

creators. Second, viewers may feel that a work is “speaking” to them, even if

the artist never describes this as a function of the work.

The one instance of direct speech from a purely abstract work in the

corpus was of the first type, in that the work “says” something about the artist.

Example (26) describes the artwork in Figure 10.

(26) Does my artwork scream graphic designer yet?

Figure 10. “Closure-Gestalt-Dizzy Rose” by Megan Peterson

Although this work includes the word “rose” in the title, the artist

apparently noticed the resemblance to a rose only after the work was

completed. “It ended up looking like a rose, thus the name”, she writes.

Because the work was apparently planned without reference to recognizable

imagery, it is here classified as having subject matter none. In (26), graphic

designer is metonymic for a statement that the artist should be, or is qualified

to be, a graphic designer. The quality of the work offers evidence – either to

the artist or to others – of the artist’s qualifications or style.

The other manner in which abstract works “speak” directly is when

viewers interpret the works as fictively speaking. Although artists do not

typically describe abstract works as “speaking” to the viewer, audiences may

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nevertheless feel that the artworks “say” something to them. No examples of

this kind were found in the DeviantART corpus because it included mainly

statements from artists themselves. Although viewers’ comments were

included in the corpus, these were usually brief.

Outside of DeviantART, however, viewer descriptions of artworks

abound. Websites dedicated to abstract art are full of examples such as (27a)

and (27b), in which a viewer perceives a painting as “screaming” out a few

words to summarize the genre of a work (27a) or the connotations the work

evokes (27b).

(27) a. Jin Ho Song’s artwork screams very “abstract

expressionalism”, …

b. However, her artwork screams “freedom” and

“experession” (sic).

The “screamed words” imagined by the viewers who wrote (27a) and (27b)

may or may not have been a “message” intended by the artist. Perhaps for the

artists, the paintings “spoke” privately only to them. However, viewers

sometimes appear to “hear” an echo of the painting’s message to the artist, or

else to imagine a new “message” never intended by the artist.

At times, it is evident that the “message” understood by viewers is not

the one envisioned by the artist. The author of (28) “hears” a message from

purely abstract works, but it is an intensely negative one.

(28) The so-called “non-objective” or “abstract” painting so fashionable

now a days, bears a striking resemblance to the pictures created by

schizophrenics in the mental hospitals. What these paintings say is:

“Life has no meaning and no purpose. There is no God. All is chaos

and nothingness”

The message in (28) is unlikely to be the message intended by most abstract

artists, such as the painter of “THE-EXPLOSION-OF-HOPE” in Figure (1),

the title and description of which do not suggest that “Life has no meaning

and no purpose”. Of course, no artwork can be guaranteed to be regarded as

“speaking” to viewers exactly the way an artist had in mind. This unreliability

is one reason that artists of figurative works might want to help their works

“speak” as intended, by directly presenting the exact words or phrases they

want their works to fictively “say”.

7. Conclusion

In more ways than one, the subject matter portrayed in artworks shapes the

fictive interactions in which the works participate. Sullivan (2006, 2009)

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showed how the presence or absence of figurative subject matter correlated

with artworks’ fictive interlocutors. The current study examines fictive

“speech” itself, and finds that the subject matter depicted in artworks

corresponds with differences in the artworks’ non-genuine speech.

Two types of subject matter “spoke” differently than the rest: named

characters and purely abstract works. Named characters could participate in

interactions that typically require a name, including introductions (as a

bystander), and commands or questions (as an addressee). In other respects,

purely abstract works were the exceptional case, in that they failed to produce

directly presented speech. Even inanimate objects had no trouble “speaking”

directly, but abstract works did so only in the specific circumstances explored

in §4.6.

For fictive interaction to be meaningful, structures in the genuine

conversational scenario must have counterparts in the fictively understood

scenario. For an “introduction” to take place, an “introduced” artwork should

have a name. For a pictorial speaker to produce speech that can be directly

presented, it helps for an artwork to include subject matter that can be

conceptualized as a “speaker” (§4.3). The trends discussed in §4.1–§4.3 attest

to the regularity of structure in fictive interaction, in that the availability of

names and subjects in artwork are prerequisites for types of fictive interaction

that map roles from the conversational frame to these names and subjects.

The trends discussed in §4.4–§4.5 relate instead to the goals and

norms of figurative and non-figurative artwork. Purely abstract works tend to

be personal, painted primarily for the artist rather than for others. The

personal focus of abstract works explains why these works do not serve as

mediums of communication (§4.4). Works that are made for oneself will not,

by definition, be made in order to communicate a message to others. The same

personal focus leads to the absence of references to creative works by others

(§4.5), in that self-expression and personal soul-gazing are not dependent on

external references such as popular culture or the artwork of other artists.

In fact, the personal focus of purely abstract works may discourage

direct “speech” more generally, beyond the trends documented in sections

4.4–4.5. Hirose (1995) characterizes genuine direct speech as a quotation of

“public expression”, as shown by its compatibility with addressee-oriented

constructions such as imperatives, direct address terms, and other phenomena

in Japanese and in English. Indirect speech is instead a quotation of “private

expression”, as shown by the incompatibility of indirect speech with

addressee-oriented constructions. If purely abstract works constitute the

expression of a personal experience, it follows that these works would

fictively speak in a manner consistent with private expression. Figurative

works are more likely to be created with the viewing experience of others in

mind. This general tendency, in combination with the considerations

discussed in sections 4.3–4.5, may encourage figurative works to fictively

speak in a more direct, public, addressee-oriented manner of expression.

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In conclusion, there are two ways in which an artwork’s subject matter

constrains the work’s fictive speech. First, subject matter determines the

available structures that can be understood in terms of fictive conversation. If

no named character is present in a visual work, then this element cannot be

understood in terms of a name or individual in the conversation frame.

Second, different types of subject matter align with different communicative

goals. Sullivan (2006, 2009) suggested that the focus and goals of figurative

and non-figurative artists were systematically different. In the current study,

figurative and non-figurative artists’ goals are shown to lead to differences in

the type of “speech” that artworks can produce. For example, works created

primarily for oneself are not created as mediums of communication for others,

and works that capture a personal experience do not need to reference the

creative works of others.

Of course, whether and how an artwork “speaks” to someone depends

on a range of individual and contextual factors. Nevertheless, certain

categories of works are predisposed to “speak” in particular ways. The way

in which a work “speaks” is not entirely a function of who happens to be

looking and what that viewer prefers. It is also constrained by the visual

structures inherent in the work itself.

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Appendix 1: Sources for examples (all accessed between 8/13 – 6/14 via

deviantart.com unless otherwise noted)

(1a) Unicorn-Power 2008. “Doggy Birthday Gift”.

(1b) mbev 2006. “THE EXPLOSION OF HOPE”.

(2a—b) MeliHitchcock 2005. “Adosiana and Shargoth”.

(3) anyazalia 2012. “MyOldest_DOODLE”.

(4a) ElionaZale 2010. “The Struggle Within”.

(4b) MadamedePompadour 2011. “He Thanks You”.

(4c) Rockdwarf 2012. “Some Sake? Rice cakes?”

(5) GermanOtakuPerson 2013. “Guten Tag”.

(6a) xxprodigalxx 2002. “fair verona”.

(6b) Suisen02 2012. “I Like Candy”.

(7) nadyuki-sensei 2012. “formal thankyou”.

(8) ninchik 2006. “screaming rage”.

(9) Strawberry-Loupa 2010. “lotti sketch speaks”.

(10) Jack-La 2008. “Original – Maddeline Brink”.

(11a) VvReikovV 2012. “Monako : Nope”.

(11b) Catloafini 2011. “Get em Where it Hurts”.

(12a) OrionSTARBOY 2010. “EXCLUSIVE Re-Act Concept”.

(12b) betteo 2008. “owl”.

(13) ForeverReid 2012. “The Almost Kiss”.

(14) Armando-Huerta 2009. “FAIRYANIKA”.

(15) Shane-01 2010. “Silent Rage”.

(16) ABY09. “Lady on a Stool”.

(17) Musiquette 2009. “Lullaby”.

(18) opiumtraum 2012. “Gone Hunting (Mountainscape).

(19) angrymikko 2008. “The Last Journey”.

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(20) TearLess-Dream 2012. “Thank You”.

(21) Eviwyn 2005. “Nephew”.

(22) IntoxicatedxSkittles 2011. “xx..Torn For You..xx”.

(23) yuna-yume 2008. “I know you’re here”.

(24) SillyPanda11 2011. “Unexpected Christmas Gift”.

(25a) crevi 2011. “Female Elf”.

(25b) fuzz-wolf 2007. “for wolfie”.

(26) megs83 2007. “Closure-Gestalt- Dizzy Rose”.

(27a) Chhum, Somatra 2012. “Pyo Gallery LA: AFTER The ‘A Celestial Space’

by Jin Ho Song exhibit”. Professor Hattori’s Community Engagement

Blog, http://professor-hattori.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/pyo-gallery-la-

after-a-celestial-space_6.html.

(27b) Murphy, Jonathan 2013. “Abstract Post-Modern/Contemporary

Paintings… Brace Your Eyeballs!”. jemurphy3,

http://jemurphy3.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/abstract-post-

moderncontemporary-paintings-brace-your-eyeballs.

(28) Jameelah, Maryam 1962. Correspondence Between Abi-l-A’ala Al-

Maudoodi and Maryam Jameelah. Jaddah, Saudi Arabia: Abul-Qasim

Publishing House. Available online at

http://www.islamunveiled.org/eng/ebooks/maryamj/maryamj_17.htm.