Untitled

High on the list of things I find no less annoying than the eyesore presence of the Universal Product Code on magazine cover art and colorized TV prints of classic films noir is the untitled painting. My response to untitled paintings is well-phrased in the title of Woody Allen's piece on the art [sic] of mime, namely, A Little Louder, Please. Does an artist who doesn't title a painting think, I always wonder, that a picture is worth a thousand words and therefore a title would be the analogical equivalent of the proverbial hick from the sticks showing up in the big city? As a writer, I like words and their amazing capacity for clarity and precision as well as floridity and figurativeness. It seems to me that a painter who forgoes their use as part of his creative act is missing out on a good bet, the collaborative effect of language and visual imagery used in tandem. But perhaps the simple truth is that I feel snubbed in the presence of an untitled painting, like someone who wasn't invited to the party.

In any case, I'm all for words and pictures getting along amicably. It may be that they are like the contentious and self-absorbed members of a vaudeville team, but as Neil Simon showed in The Sunshine Boys, they can strike a happy balance with each other. Early writing consisted of