Simply Haiku: An E-Journal of Haiku and Related Forms
September-October 2004, vol. 2, no. 5

| Contents | Archives | About Simply Haiku | Submissions | Search |

Reprint: Jim Kacian, "Looking and Seeing: How Haiga Works."
Previously Published in Haigaonline

Pages: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ]
[ 11 ] [ 12 ] [ 13 ] [ 14 ] [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] [ 19 ] [ 20 ]

Page 4: The Balance between Visual and Textual Elements

We might further consider the combined art and text used in advertising: "It's the real thing" accompanied by a swirl of color, suggestive of a wave, is a good instance. These often attain a level of artistic interest, but it is clear that their intent is not this beauty, or at least not primarily, but rather, an appeal for quite other purposes. I have not, as a result, included such work here.

Nor have I included any captioned photos. The intent of such work clearly is to have the one explain the other. There is no particular expectation that they resonate, but simply share information which is being transmitted.

Haiga Versus Other Textual-Visual Art Forms

What about haiga, then, in this context? What does haiga attempt to do, and how can we link it with the tradition of combinatorial artforms that we have just explored?

I think it is apparent that none of these examples function precisely as haiga does. The humorous drawing, at least in this instance, could have dispensed with the text. However, many cartoons do exhibit an interdependency between visual and textual material, and as such it is perhaps closest to haiga. But even here there are some differences. Most cartoons are humorous, and the text is arch: the intent is not resonance, but irony, and intellectual humor. So perhaps we would consider cartoons to be more akin to senryu, and perhaps we should imagine a new form of haiga, perhaps to be called 'senga', which treats this sort of material.

The others share some points, but lack others. For instance, the comic strip has a balance of interest between visual and textual elements, but features narrative, which is clearly outside of the purview of haiga. The poster is hortatory and hyperbolic, whereas haiga, at least as it has been practiced traditionally, is usually understated and seductive. The Magritte and like paintings aim more toward the intellectual than emotive or intuitive, and as such are perhaps more linked to the philosophy of art. And the calligraphy art, at least in this case (and in virtually all others I know) is severely limited in its visual expressiveness, and as such does not offer a fair opportunity for true balance of elements to emerge. So haiga's uniqueness has to do with its unusual juxtaposition of art and text, its intentionality.

It is this intentionality we shall explore, and specifically how this intentionality informs the conventions by which we interpret it, as well as the parameters by which we create it. As haiga becomes more assimilable in the west, it will be through this sort of interpretation of cultural modes that we will come to discover what place it holds in our perspective of art, compared not only to other haiga, but to all other visual forms we encounter.

In order to do this, we need to talk first a bit about haiku, as well as make a critical distinction in methods of viewing, which is critical to the understanding of how haiga work.

Specifically, I would like to consider these two questions:

" What are you looking at"?

" What do you see?"

Looking is a direct apprehension: it is neutral, specific, representative. Looking is the act of an observer, and the acceptance of the reality observed. Looking makes sense and value based on the positing of an objective world "out there" and our ability to perceive it accurately. We act faithfully to that objective world, even if it is not certain that we are seeing it so. If I show you an image and ask you to identify it, and you can't, you might respond "I'm still looking." And your looking is taking place in the realm of the objective world where you might have seen such a sight before. (It's unlikely you'll say, in this activity, that it is the shape of a dream you had once, or of articles to be found on Mars‹that would make them subjective or imaginative, and still wouldn't answer the question.)

Seeing, on the other hand, is an act of choice. It is the contemplation of not just things, but the relationship between things, and between things and ourselves. It is the act of an imaginer. Seeing is not satisfied solely with what is objectively noted, but seeks to make connections. It is intellective and categorical. It is associative, and "knows more" than the simple face of reality. It is subjective. Consider that image I asked you about a moment ago: if you didn't "understand" it at first, but came to do so, you might say "I see."

Looking is direct apprehension, and it requires an object; Looking says "I see it". Seeing is a step's remove, and requires no other object than the seer's mind and the connections found therein. Seeing says "I see".

There was a time when art was very simple. This does not mean art was not difficult to envision, create or produce. It means that its end result was not conceived to be outside of its own production. The artist created a symbol, and the symbol was usually as good a direct representation of the subject of his painting as he could make it. It was important to be good: successful art, successful magic, was thought to be the difference between feast times and famine, life and death, all and nothing.

We have all been moved by the art of primitive peoples, such as the cave art at Lascaux and other places. We recognize it as art, not only because it is well formed, but because it shows selection, and art in the sense we generally employ the term suggests that some competence in using the tools of art is joined with some sense of vision, which is selection. Art in this sense commences when artists stop representing simply what they are looking at, and begin representing what they are seeing.

We, as people, are the direct heirs of this development. And as artists, we face this complexity and freedom even more than most people, since we know what it means to be faced with the empty canvas, the blank page. We know nothing is included except through our choices, and it is these choices--our taste, if you will--which is the single most important element of our art, more important than technique or message. Even when working in an established genre, nothing is a given--everything must be not only looked at, but chosen, created--seen.

All of which creates a paradox for us. One of the fundamental attitudes of haiku is the attainment of a selfless objectivity; that is, as pure a looking at things as we can manage. But surely it is impossible for us, as selves, ever to look at things as though we had no self. Even the negation of self comes from the self. Nevertheless, by accepting the conceit that it is possible to achieve such a "selfless" attitude that is, by using creative vision, which is seeing, to advocate a particular technique, which we call looking, we find we can consider things in a new way. Blyth had it right when he said, "In haiku, we attempt to see into the essence of things". (My emphasis). Haiku, then, is a special kind of seeing, one which seemingly abnegates itself in favor of a mythical looking as a desired quality in the manufacture of its final product. This fine and complex distinction is one of the great achievements of the mind.

This subtle interplay is more or less unstated in haiku and other similar verbal forms, but it becomes a good deal more obvious when the arena shifts to the visual. Almost without exception, the visual dominates the first impression of haiga. Because of the space, color and line of the visual element, it is nearly impossible for it to be otherwise. In the very few examples I have encountered where the elements are more or less equal, it has been brought about by either enlarging the text to an abnormal degree, or else incorporating the text into the graphic plane in such a way that it is impossible not to read it integrally at the same time as taking in the illustration. These are serious technical accomplishments, and rarities. In an overwhelming majority of cases, it is apparent that the initial appeal of haiga is visual. What is particularly important about this is that reaction to visual stimulus requires little or no articulation of the sort which is demanded by every text, regardless of its visual resources. Recall the Rothko and the Magritte, and consider the different demands each of these paintings made upon you.