Language of art

What did the thinker, the poets,and artists of so many different period have in mind when they spoke of painting and sculpture as a "language"? At first, the phrase may seem intuitively clear, yet the more one looks into it, the more complex it becomes. Therefore it is no idle question to ask what it realy means.
In answering, one should keep in mind the obvious, namely, that it is an essential characteristic of the visual arts that they are wordless. \in calling wordless arts a "language", one is making a seemingly paradoxical statement, which, precisely because it is paradoxical, must be based on implict assumptions. It goes without saying that the people who used this idea, "the language of art",were not always aware of what they were impying. But it is necessary to bring some of thes underlying assumption on light.
First of all that the work of art,the painting in the church or the statue on the square, are explicity made to reach, and to appeal to, an audience. That the work of art is seen, experienced, and understood by spectators is not merely something that happens to the painting and the sculpture after they are completed. They are produced in order to convey a distinct message. In considering art as a language, the main emphasis, then, is placed on what may be called the communicative function of the work of art.

From the book "Language of art".By Moshe Barash