Karl Miller, responding to Nina Costanza:

>> the reason art exists in my mind (visual, aural, movement, film) is
>> because what is being expressed cannot be adequately addressed in
>> word language.
>
>I would agree, but for me the question is, what is it?  Is it thought
>without language or are those expressions language without words.

You sure don't ask small questions, Karl!  One reason your second question
is hard to answer is that talk about language is inevitably in words and
nonverbal communication can be called language only by analogy, rather
than by some genus/species kind of classification, I think.  But my
answer would be "language" without words.

As for the artistic expression of dance, music, painting, etc.  there
has to be thought involved in the artist's general intentions and decisions
but the nature of that thought--e.g.  how much conscious awareness there
is in the creative mind of the artist about the specifics, is very much
an open question.  Allow me to recommend my wife's book, __Creativity
and the Poetic Mind__ by Jean Tobin (2004), based on interviews with
poets, as well as on studies in psychology and neuroscience, which I
believe explores this question in important ways and which makes some
provocative proposals.

Jim Tobin