Writing on the Wall: Word and Image in Modern Art

by Simon Morley

From the cut-up Cubist collages of Picasso to the monumental filmic narratives of Fiona Banner, and from the schoolboy subversion of Magritte to the demotic scrawl of Cy Twombly, the use of words is one of the defining features of modern art. Indeed, with many contemporary works, only those without text are remarkable. Exploring the strange, unsettling, and often humorous results when words escape their traditional confines and inhabit artworks, this book is the first sustained consideration of the manifold infiltrations of the written word into the visual arts from the nineteenth century to the present day.

Simon Morley traces the growing bond between word and image, explaining how artists have harnessed the resulting tension to form identities, challenge authority, and make sense of a world in constant change. Writing on the Wall discusses familiar movements from the Impressionists to the present day, focusing on many works of modern art such as Dada nonsense words, Surrealist painting-poems, Constructivist typographies, oriental calligraphy, postwar gestural painting, and much more. As he considers these works, Morley reveals how artists have responded to an environment increasingly saturated with words, and also asks how the mass media have adopted and adapted artistic devices in propaganda, typography, and advertising. The book ends with a look at current developments in the world of hypertext, where word and image have at last found an essential unity.

Genres: Art

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2003

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really great piece of work, easily one of the best books on art history/art theory I have ever read. Morley writes clearly and lucidly, largely avoiding the dreaded 'artbollocks' and dense post-structuralist jargon; his knowledge of 20th century art history is commanding, and the choice of illustrative quotes and images is always spot-on. As well as the historical overview, Morley also offers some interesting observations that I think are original, particularly on the cognitive difference between reading and seeing. This acted as something of a bible for me when I was writing my dissertation, and I can highly recommend it either to the art student or the interested layman. The only flaw perhaps is the last chapter, which explores then-recent developments in digital and interactive media, which is already charmingly dated.

[Jared · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Gigi Orphan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ωραίο, περνάει από όλες τις φάσεις της ιστορίας της τέχνης. Μου φάνηκε λίγο δύσκολη η γλώσσα που χρησιμοποιεί, για κάποια που τα Αγγλικά της δεν είναι η μητρική γλώσσα

[Gerard Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

There have been lot of books on this topic lately; this one is a favorite because the essay has an historical slant...I was fascinated to read about the profusion of writing in the visual landscape of 19th century Europe and how they imagined themselves 'overwhelmed by information'. Overall, the book was a great deal of help to me as an artist who works with words in that it clarified issues about the words I was using - many surveys of this material seem to look only at the abstract and formal properties of text, but Morley tends to treat the art as a kind of writing and that really made the book for me...

[Phoebe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good review of the 20th century through a particular viewfinder. Reading a textbook is fun, it's kind of like taking a class. This is a good class! It covers most of the 20th C's literature greatest hits, too (except the New York School - ?), which I didn't expect.

[Lindsay Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of the rich history of text in art. Interesting because people often want art to be purely aesthetic, but on the other hand, it seems ridiculous to me to separate writing from art as if they're completely separate things.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone interested in the relation of language to the visual arts, an indispensable collection of examples and discussion.