Emotion, Language and Aesthetic Expression: On Motherwell and His Art

Robert Motherwell is regarded as one of the great American abstract expressionists. He was highly intelligent and articulate about his art. In this essay, I explore the thesis that the ability to make fine category discriminations, which can be indexed by language, is necessary to produce great art. I argue that Motherwell might not have been as great an artist if he were not so articulate. Relying on a constructivist view, I argue that fine-grained categories of human emotions can be represented in language; language carves out affective space in a way that makes these states explicit and easier to communicate. Ineffability in art implies exhausting the effable. Being articulate about emotions allows one to reach for higher states of ineffability and aspire to great art.