Every artist knows in his heart that he is saying something to the public. Not only does he want to say it well, but he wants it to be something that has not been said before. He hopes the public will listen and understand what he wants to teach them, and what he wants them to learn from him.
What visual(视觉的)artists like painters want to teach is easy to make out but difficult to explain,because painters translate their experience into shapes and colours, not words. They seem to feel that a certain selection of shapes and colours, out of countless billions of, is exceptionally interesting for them and worth showing to us. Without their work we should never have noticed these particular Shapes and colours. or have felt the delight which they brought to the artist.
Most artists take their shapes and colours from the world of nature and from human bodies in motion and at rest; their choices indicate(指示)that these aspects of the world are worth looking at, that they contain beautiful sights. Contemporary(当代的)artists might say that they merely choose subjects that provide an interesting pattern, that there is nothing more in it. Yet even they do not choose entirely without reference to the character of their subjects.
If one painter chooses to paint a decaying(腐烂)leg and another a lake in moonlight, each of them is directing our attention to a certain aspect of the world. Each painter is telling us something, showing us something, emphasizing something-all of which means that, consciously(有意识地)or unconsciously, he is trying to teach us.
