My 2 cents -
I agree with claims #2 and 3 completely, but with Claim #1 only in part. Here’s my view -
Expression is always a function of the medium. Without a medium, there can be no expression. Let’s go a step beyond that. I believe that even the thought or idea or concept or emotion or feeling being expressed (lets call it the ’subject’ of expresion) needs a medium to exist. Delivering the message accurately is about mastering the medium. Failure to do so reveals either lack of mastery, or lack of formation of the subject, but is not a shortfall of the medium. Success, on the other hand, is what makes art art and everything else just a mere attempt at art. True masters - be it in music, painting, literature, etc. - are the ones whose subject is well formed within themselves and they are able to capture it and deliver it through their medium of choice. The subject may even get formed in the process of delivery, but by the time they’re done, it is well formed.
All expression is through reference and metaphor. To express myself, I need to point to something within the audience’s own experience (or, if it is something totally new, then something which can be built using the existing building blocks within the audience’s experience) and allude to it as being similar to the subject of my expression. The audience may be purely hypothetical and just an extension of my imagination. But the expression needs a language that is understood by the audience. The medium of choice provides the language and every medium has its own language, its own grammar and semantics. Art is the skill of using everything the language has to offer, in order to express oneself. The language evolves as artists push its boundaries to include more, and to refine what exists. It is the search for precision and accuracy in expression that drives this evolution.
(If the above sounds like an obscure / ambiguous rambling, then its either because I havent formulated my thoughts clearly and/or I havent mastered the language!)
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