Art, Word and Image

Art, Word and Image: 2,000 Years of Visual/Textual Interaction examines the use of words (or language) in art, most often painting. This book asks what it means when a painting is invaded by language - how do the two forms converse and combine, and what messages are intended for the viewer?

Whether the picture frame is encroached upon by doodlings, as with Adolf Wolfli's seemingly irrational scribbles, or a plea to spirituality is blazoned across a vast canvas, as in the moving images of Colin McCahon, we can be sure that words here have a special meaning, one beyond normal language and communication.

Art, Word and Image is constructed around three wide-ranging essays by John Dixon Hunt, David Lomas and Michael Corris. The essays chart the use and significance of words in art from Classical Greece and Assyria, through to the middle Ages and the Renaissance, to modern times and today's digital media, and moreover the questions this intersection poses for contemporary artists.

These essays deal with a variety of movements and artists including the Pre-Raphaelites, Duchamp, Picasso, Ernst, Twombly, Michaux and Warhol.The volume also includes spotlight' essays on artists whose work engages substantially with questions of Word and Image: Blake, Klee, Schwitters, Haack, Pettibon, McCahon and Walla. This ground-breaking volume will form a new framework for thinking about the interactions between Art, Word, and Image in the future.