Language in Copley's Gibraltar Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Language in Copleys Gibraltar - Essay ExampleDadaism unbound language and played with its potential. I also want to unbind language as a concept by relating it to one of John Singleton Copleys paintings, The Siege and Relief of Gibraltar. I selected the word language, because it has a large role in several defining experiences of my college life. In this essay, I describe painting as a language in itself that can be directly experienced, struggled with, and enjoyed, which is like learning a second language. A painting has a language that can be directly experienced, when the sense of hearing try to escort its implied stories and meanings. The Siege and Relief of Gibraltar tells the story of the battle between two old superpowers, Spain and Great Britain, a battle that can be related to the struggles of learning a second language. The painting asks the audience to see the Battle at Gibraltar in splendid action and drama with definitive winners and losers. It is neatly divided into two planes of the two groups. The British are depicted as an orderly and coordinated team. General Sir George Eliott leads his men through giving orders on how to float the Spanish flotillas or floating batteries. The Spaniards witness their flotillas sinking along with their crew. They are portrayed, not only as the losers, but also as barely human beings, because of the lack of details in how they were painted. I look at this painting and it teases my imagination, as I think about Eliotts ingenuity in planning always three steps ahead. I can feel the experience of the action in the battlefield. I designate myself as an impassioned observer, but amazed at the military tactics and technologies employ during these times. General Sir George Eliott has planned everything so well that his men hardly had to do anything, while the Spaniards, in sharp contrast, resemble cats who are at their ninth life. They allow for try everything to survive. The Siege and Relief of Gibraltar has embe dded meanings and implications that language can dismantle. This visual reading is similar to learning a second language, where I also make up to make sense of the arbitrary symbols the English language. I find it perplexing to no longer see my native language as arbitrary, because I nominate grown with it. It is part of my breathing already. Yet this other language loses its natural character and becomes emerged into arbitrariness, transforming it into an alien code that I have to learn and decipher. I reckon now why Dadaism undermined the linguistic sign. A foreign language can take a psychophysiological eidetic experience, one that can be mazed apart and played with (Rumold 77). In addition, Copleys painting fits what Keats describes as the ability of a work of art to become a made entity that catch the audience by teasing them out of thought (cited in Behrendt 37). Truly, reading a painting can bring the audience to an imaginative alternative reality (Behrendt 38). Furthermo re, the painting, as an experience, pushes the audience to attack the works through reflecting on the process that it is perceived and assessed (Behrendt 38). Learning a second language also invited me to be critical of this perception process. How do I see English as a