Silent Poetry. Images of Gesturing Across the Arts. Pretexts and Thoughts on a Language of Great Educational Potential

Abstract

The claim –attributed to Leonardo da Vinci– that “painting is mute poetry and poetry is blind painting”, authoritatively sums up the topic of this paper. Unlike literary languages, figurative visual arts draw on body language as a medium comprising expressions, postures, gestures, and signs representing gestures.
Based on a conceptualization of gesticulation as a universally intelligible form of communication, we examine dictionaries of gesticulatory movements such as that developed by Bruno Munari or the choreographic projects of Virgilio Sieni, which are both rooted in the transposition of movement into images. In choreography, the act of transposing into images, conventionally signs or drawings, is termed notation and is the instrument via which artistic projects are communicated to dancers and handed down to posterity. It involves marking out an idea, knowledge, or simply a state of mind, fixing it on paper by means of a gesture. The nature of gesturing as a medium and a tool for immediate transposition underpins its valuable role in the field of education.