A useful critic line: think of artworks as emotional information

When contemporary artists conceive works whose understanding lies in the information related to the object, these pieces are categorized as information based art. A good examples is the Swiss-born artist Carol Bove, who has processed the concept of source by shaping a sophisticated formal system to convey information related to the artwork. However, a particular sensitivity for the relationship between form and information can also be grasped in the works of certain old masters.

 

In certain cases the information embedded in the paintings were difficult to detect and only the client was aware of the real symbolic meaning of the painting. In other instances, rebus and information were distributed in the framework in order to be offered to the spectator, as in the “Portrait of Lucina Brembate” painted around 1518 by the Italian artist Lorenzo Lotto.

 

This picture represents a noblewoman. Above the family’s ring on her left hand, she is holding a lion’s paw. It refers to her husband’s family: Leone (italian for lion) Brembate. Nevertheless, how can we be sure that the woman in the portrait is just the wife, Lucina, and not, for example, the sister of Leone Brembate? The sky behind her confirms the woman’s identity. Looking carefully at the moon, the observer will read the letters IC. In Italian the word for “moon” is “luna”, and if we put the letters IC in the middle of the two syllables “lu” and “na”, then we get “Lucina”. Now we are sure that her name is Lucina and that her last name is Brembate. Is there anything else we should know? According to some critics, the moon with the hump on the right, to the east, can be related to the age of the woman. Others think that it links to Lucina’s pregnancy, referring to the goddess who favors motherhood, which in turn is linked to the moon.

 

Another example is this small oil painting by Jan Massys (Anvers, 1509 – c.1573). Christian Dior, who died in Montecatini, Italy, apparently of a heart attack after choking on a fish bone, collected it in his château de la Colle Noire. An invisible thread seems to link the mysterious death of the great French fashion designer and this puzzling piece. Here symbols and references drive to an unquestionable truth: the world is fed by idiots.

July 15, 2015