It is not easy to conceive of a whole constructed from parts belonging to different dimensions. Both nature and art, which is her transformed image, are such wholes.
It is difficult enough for an individual to survey this whole, whether it is nature or art, but even more difficult to help another achieve such a comprehensive view. This difficulty arises from the consecutive nature of the methods available to us for conveying a clear three-dimensional concept of an image in space. It results from the temporal limitations of the spoken word.
With such a medium of expression, we lack the means to discuss, in its constituent parts, an image that simultaneously possesses multiple dimensions.
Language is a cracked kettle on which we tap out crude rhythms for bears to dance to while we long to make music that will melt the stars.
- Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
“For a discussion of stars our language is inadequate and seems laughable, as if someone were trying to plow with a feather. It’s a language … born with us, suitable for describing objects more or less as large and as long-lasting as we are; it has our dimensions, it’s human”
- Primo Levi
The limits of my language are the limits of my world Language