POST #145: LOST IN TRANSLATION

I’ve discovered that there are very few artists who can write intelligibly about their art. Some of them don’t want to give away what they consider “trade secrets,” while most are simply unable to explain what is largely an intuitive process that takes place on an unconscious level. That, however, doesn’t stop anyone from trying, unfortunately leaving the poor reader befuddled by lots of verbiage signifying practically nothing.

It’s even worse when the writing is translated from one language to another. Recently, I have been trying to read some of the copious writings on art theory by the Russian/German artist Vasily Kandinsky. I remember my struggles with his major opus, “Point and Line to Plane;” I’ve tried (unsuccessfully) to read it several times. I think I keep at it because I like the way the title sounds in German: “Punkt und Linie zu Flache.” It’s not for the faint of heart. I presume it was originally written in Russian (his native language), then translated into German and then, in 1947 with someone’s help, into English. The multiple translations, to say nothing of the inherent complexity of his ideas with their basis in Theosophy and Spiritualism, guarantees the reader a tough time. Writing about art is always difficult, but when translated multiple times, it’s like telephone tag where someone whispers something in your ear, you pass it along to the person next to you, they do the same and what comes out has no resemblance to the original message.

I am sitting here at the computer with a pile of art books next to me. I’ve got Kandinsky’s “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” (his first.) I’ve got several books on or about Paul Klee (a favorite) including his “Pedagogical Sketchbook” used for teaching art at the Bauhaus, translated into convoluted English by Sybil Moholy-Nagy. Let me give you one example, the title of a chapter picked at random:

“Chapter 1, Section 9: The natural organism of movement as kinetic will and kinetic execution (supra-material) (illustrated with a drawing of bones, muscles and tendons).”

I have no idea who is at fault, Klee or his translator; probably both. I also dug out a book from my library containing a translated copy of an essay by Klee on Modern Art, written while he was teaching at the Bauhaus.  I’d like to quote from the introduction by Herbert Read, a prominent art historian in the mid1900s. 

The Bolds are mine

Nevertheless, the reader must be prepared for difficulties. These are partly due to the cryptic, aphoristic nature of the writing; partly to the structure of the German language (aha!), which is more abstract or conceptual than is English, and therefore cannot always be exactly translated; but chiefly to the inherent difficulty of the subject. An art like painting is itself a language – a language of form and color in which complex intuitions are expressed. The necessity for the plastic* symbols of the art of painting is to some extent dictated by the inadequacy of our linguistic means of communication. To explain art, therefore, is often an effort to give words to nameless processes, to actions otherwise confined to instinctive gestures.

P.S. * I hate the term “plastic.” I presume it doesn’t refer to a polycarbonate. Art writers love to use it when they’re stuck for a word. A friend who taught art at a prominent university for decades says she never understood it either, but “was afraid to ask for an explanation.”

RK




To comment on this blog: under post a comment below, select from "comment as" button "name/url." You only have to fill out name section,  not the url section. Write your comment and then hit the publish button.