Untitled. Before the 17th century, most art was untitled, as in without a name. Just so, most child drawings and family photos are untitled. Because the locals knew the locals in the art, persons, places,things, subjects of the artist.

 

But as art move around the world; museums and galleries put the artist's name, artwork title and short summaries card next to paintings. Because we viewers did not know the local history of the art works; they needed labels.

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Thus, the names given to much modern art is often not given by the artist. For example, the poet André Salmon, mentioned a Picasso painting in 1912 under the title Le Bordel philosophique, but André later gave it, it's current Les Demoiselles d’Avignonare label.  But Picasso did give title to his painting Guernica!  Picasso said: "The Spanish struggle is the fight of reaction against the people, against freedom. My whole life as an artist has been nothing more than a continuous struggle against reaction and the death of art. How could anybody think for a moment that I could be in agreement with reaction and death? ... In the panel on which I am working, which I shall call Guernica, and in all my recent works of art, I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death." Now a painting like Guernica can certainly be appreciated without a title, Untitled. But the title Guernica adds something powerful and specific, and yet it is also universal, to this work.

 

Most of my paintings done prior to 2014 are untitled, even when after the fact I've added a title such as Fish Pond. But such a title is simply a label to help keep track of one untitled picture from another untitled picture. 

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But my paintings, since September 2015 (i.e. Darwin on Fire), have all been tentatively labeled before start upon the canvas. Because my work is all portraits of contended ideas or persons and I have well researched that idea before I begin painting; a tentative name of each painting is identified before I begin. In a sense, my work is a poetic/painting complex of color, line, images, symbols and word. But my point here, whether I've appropriate words and images or not, is that some meaning is lost if the viewer does not know the title of my work. It is not essential (or even possible) that the viewer read all of the words. But the aesthetic of understanding my art is further enhanced by knowing perhaps a some of the painted words.

 

Consider my oil pastel, Untitled #2, which was done in 2001. When I did this work, I had no title in mind, I didn't even know what object or idea I was drawing while I was working. It was an abstraction of emotion and image that flowed from me in a spontaneous or automatic way, yet was directed emotionally and aesthetically. I could name it today, perhaps Man Amidst Chaos; but whatever title I retroactively give it is  gratuitous, merely label. Anbd for me the appreciation of this painting is diminished and narrowed by any title.

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My paintings of  today are meant to be able to stand alone aesthetically. But some meaning is lost if the viewer does not know the title. Recently, someone asked if my painting, Darwin on Fire,  was a picture of Karl Marx. OK. And additional meaning is lost if the viewer does not try to absorb some of the words on a painting.

 

Much of my work today, is underpainted. The painting Untitled #1 is such an underpainting; it is abstract play with paint. it is painted with a similar spontaneous aesthetic sense as Untitled #2. But as playful and as fun as painting Untitled #1 is, it is not a finished work of art. At this point, I have been deciding what portrait of an idea or person I will paint. I always have half a dozen candidates in mind. But it is always an important, difficult, and unconscious decision. From the mess of consciousness of self in this world, I choose to spend a week to two months absorbed in painting and research upon what Idea. And that idea will evolve in unexpected ways in both paint and words.

 

Thus I decide upon a portrait of the idea, Beyond Banned Books. First the idea of the image will be executed and evolve in paint of shapes and images until it is mostly done. At that point, I reach my second and terrifying decision. I am about to deface my painting with painted words. Yet without such creative destruction; this painting will never be complete in my mind. Thus in Beyond Banned Books, I begin labeling the rectangles with titles and authors of books and other words.

 

The first rectangles that I fill with words, painfully defaces my painting. But after I have filled five or ten rectangles with carefully chosen book titles; the painting has achieved a new and much more powerful meaning. Now I see that my list of 100 or 200 book titles and authors is totally inadequate to my idea. 90% of the titles would gratuitously diminish the painting. So one by three, I research and identify the titles and ideas to paint. Not one can be gratuitous; except for those that are deliberately gratuitous with a purpose. 

 

At last the work is done. I re-ponder again the title. It has shifted as I have worked; as have the image and the words. Now critically, I look at my finished painting called Beyond Banned Books. My view of this painting oscillates between liking it and hating it; GOOD!