The other day I attended an art opening where the artist John Koegel talked about his work. He described how, being a visual person, he symbolizes significant events in his life with images and these images frequently appear in his art work.

Art is always an introspective journey, and when it’s good it also offers a journey to others. It was fascinating to hear the artist talk about what elephants and bicycle wheels symbolized for him. His work is virtually bursting with personal symbols, many of which recur often. But I wondered, and should have asked, does he expect that others will relate to his symbols as he does?

In an anthropology of art course I learned that some objects are universally symbolic, but they do not universally symbolize the same thing. The phallus, for example, in some cultures symbolizes fertility; in some, creativity; in some, power; and in others dominance. The phallus, therefore, is not a universal symbol, even though it is universally symbolic.

Within a culture, and particularly within a culture in a particular time period, there are universal symbols though. Within Euro-American culture the cross symbolizes Christianity and the six-pointed star symbolizes Judaism. Since 1940, the swastika, a traditional symbol in many cultures, has come to symbolize fascism.

European art of the Renaissance was fraught with symbols, many of which are obscure to us today but which would have been readily recognized at the time. (van Eyck’s “The Arnolfini Marriage” is a classic example.)

But a bicycle wheel symbolizing tragic death may be limited to a John Koegel. In looking at his works we recognize that the bicycle wheel is symbolic for him, but we would not recognize the particular symbolism it contains for him. Is a symbol meaningful if its referent is unknown? Is it even a symbol? In appreciating art is it sufficient to recognize that an object is symbolic to the artist, as we do in looking at Koegel’s work, or must we know the referent? Knowing the significance of the bicycle wheel certainly changes the way we look at Koegel’s work. Does the full appreciation of this work require a Key to Symbols?

I don’t have answers to these questions. Perhaps you do.

R.L. Geyer
April, 2005